Authors Note: I own nothing. No ownership rights to Beverly Hills 90210.


Chapter Five

That afternoon I ask Bren if she wants a lift and she declines saying that she needs to try and smooth over this with Brandon. As I leave the carpark I think about heading to the hotel but decide alone time is what I need. Entering my home I look around it's a mess, a mess I have allowed it to become more regularly since Bren isn't here as much. I pick up the clothes and put a wash on, put my books away on the shelf, throw out old magazines and get rid of the garbage and old expired food in the fridge. When the main rooms and bathroom are presentable I open my bedroom door and begin to rip my bed sheets off.

Bren hates these sheets she thinks they're too loud to sleep in; she likes plain whites or a light navy and white stripe better. She'd tease me about my male sense of decorating, she said picking up the first set I saw in the right size was not how you did it. As I go to the cupboard I pick out the set she bought me- seemingly you need more than one.

They're solid navy. When she took them out of the bag last year I remember looking up from my book with a raised eyebrow and advising her that they were neither white or stripes, she leaned down and kissed me and thanked me for the clarification but while she liked those sheets for her she thought I'd prefer these. I did.

The whites remind me of living in a hotel room, sleeping every night on sheets a hundred other people have slept on before. The patterns and the navy aren't reminiscent of a hotel room at all. When I wake up under them I know where I am, I know I'm home. The navy ones are my favourite though, when I wake up in them I'm reminded of her. Her wanting to give me sheets for no good reason just because, and her choosing sheets thinking of my likes not her own.

Once the bed's made I consider vacuuming and laugh about how much she did that here. I decide to dust instead, and as I run the cloth over my books and the surface's I see little reminder's of her everywhere. The books we discuss- have Kelly and I ever chatted about a book? The crystals that Iris left that Bren refused to let me throw away even if she didn't believe in them, she felt it was Iris's way of protecting me and well what did it hurt to keep them. The videos under the tv, movies were our first thing to do together well that and listen to cds. The cds I've kept them as ours but the video tapes like the surfing has been tainted.

When I get to my wall unit by the dining table I see the picture of her staring back at me. I know if I open the draw there will be countless more in there, one's of us together some great one's that I thought one day I may frame. I open the draw and then sit down in the seat I was in when she left me, I go through the pile of them.

When I get to the seventh picture I hear the phone ring and let the answer machine get it. As Kelly apologies for being jealous today as she knows that I was only trying to introduce a friend to my father, I look at the picture of Bren and I taken the day of the float making. She was chasing after me as I had made another sexual innuendo at her and it had resulted in us tickling each other mercilessly on the grass.

I look at the laughter, want and happiness on my face and I wonder if I could ever really just be her friend. It would mean not touching her like I continuously find my hands doing. It would mean not knowing everything about her, like her applying to outer state colleges- definitely not having a right to an opinion on that, and it would mean seeing someone else get that smile she is giving me.

I then think of Kelly's message and her actions today after she had found out that I had introduced my friend to my father. She was jealous for hours even after she had met him the night before. If I choose her the easy relationship, would it be? Once she "won" would she still welcome Bren as my best friend my family, that is if Bren would even want that?

Spending the next hour looking at pictures I run through the choice in my mind and eventually I'm about ready to pull my hair out. Leaving the pictures on the dining room table I close the the front door and move quickly to my car. In fifteen minutes I'm knocking on the suite door with my Dad smiling at me as he opens the door.

"Forget your key?"

"Dad what did you mean today about the choice?"

He must see I'm strung out by the thoughts running through my head the scenarios on scenarios playing, as he moves aside and ushers me to the couch and then sits in the armchair next to me. "I meant that you know. You've always known your choice because you've made it so many times already." I give him a confused look, "you chose by going to her house that day when she got back and telling her you loved her, you chose on that picnic blanket on the beach when you forgave her, you chose when you tried to keep her away from Kelly, you chose when you lied to her about the earring just so you could keep her, you chose when you told her you'd work the college thing out and that you loved her, you chose when you came partially clean about the summer, you chose by not continuing or pushing a relationship with Kelly once Bren was so upset about your date with her. You have tried to keep your relationship going, even now you are dragging out the choice because you want it to be Brenda because the choice is Brenda, but that's not the real choice you are struggling with."

"Okay Dad what's my real choice?"

"You can't figure out if you are strong enough for her not to choose you when she finds it all out, and she does need to find it all out-"

"Maybe she doesn't?"

"Kelly doesn't seem like the type to take rejection easily. Do you think she won't tell Brenda if you don't chose her?" I shake my head, "do you think she won't tell Brenda if you chose her?"

"Mayb-"

His laugh cuts me off. "Dylan females are territorial, once you decide neither girl will be comfortable with you having a friendship with the other. Now you told me this morning that Brenda was your family and best friend. It was obvious that she is, when she was angry at you for your annoyance at not being included into her college decisions and dragging your feet on your decision but seconds later she was defending you to me. In doing that she obviously feels like you are her family too. Would Kelly let you keep Brenda as family?" I go to answer, "let me rephrase that. Will Kelly let you keep Brenda as family and not feel the need to one up her with the only leverage that she has- the summer?"

When he says it like that my whole body echoes, "no."

"Okay so either way Brenda finds out. Do you want her to find out with the chance that she'll choose you back, or do you want to accept defeat and go with the girl you have had seven months to chose and never had? The girl if I remember the story accurately from last night, the one you rejected all of freshman year and again in sophomore year when she tried to break you and Brenda up then."

He's right. I have never chosen Kelly when I had a option. I hadn't ever chosen Kelly when I have been free to do it. While there- is hope for Bren and I, I have never chosen Kelly.

"Dylan if you want my opinion." I nod, "your ego was bruised pretty badly last year by her family. When she was away you gravitated to someone who has clearly been stroking your ego for years with her infatuation of you. You let it go too far and haven't wanted to pay the piper ever since. This is your version of running to South America like I did, you are trying to live in between in the land where you don't have to take responsibility. Either way though you are going to have to own it. Your time is up. So do you want to give Brenda the option of choosing you by admitting that you blew up your relationship and her friendship because your ego was hurt, and most likely piss all your friends off by doing that, or do you want to give up and hide behind emotions that you obviously don't strongly have for Kelly, in order to save your reputation, though it doing that you ruin any chance with Brenda in the process?"

"Either way I'm fucked!"

"Yeah but son one way your fucked forced to live a lie and destroy the girl you love, the other way you are fucked by owning the truth, giving Brenda the knowledge that she is still the most important person to you but at the expense of your reputation. So it's destroy Brenda or destroy you?"