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


Chapter Six

I ignored my dad's pleased look as I immediately stand up and walk straight to the door. Jack could be a lot of things but he was a master strategist and he could see the board from all the angles. As soon as he had meet the players and understood the history of each move he could unpack it and see the win, well in this case the loss. He was right the first time I never really had a choice, if it was Bren or me who had to be destroyed then it was me every time.

Pulling up to her house I could see Jim's car in the driveway. It wasn't late just after their dinner, hours before her curfew. Knocking on the door I'm greeted by a welcoming Cindy- thank god that means they don't know about breakfast. She sends me upstairs where she tells me Bren is doing her homework. When I get to the doorway I see her lost in her English novel, like me we both lose our focus when we get absorbed in a story.

I knock on the doorframe causing her to look up, "hey, I wasn't expecting you."

"Hey, I wanted to see if you would like to come for a drive with me?"

She gives me a calculating look and then her eyes lose their shine, she knows I've decided and she thinks she's lost. She nods her head and stands grabbing her leather jacket off her wardrobe door handle. As she moves I can see her whole body is hesitant to go with me, it reinforces that this needs to be done. She shouldn't feel for even a moment that she didn't measure up- it was me I didn't. I broke her trust in me in the worst way and I've been to afraid to own it and take responsibility for it, I'm the one who has fallen short, too short.

When we get downstairs she looks at me, "I just need to go tell them."

"Sure."

She's back in a few minutes, lightly squeezing her jacket in her hands as she gives me a weak smile. I open the door and as she walks out in front of me I'm left to wonder if this will be the last time she comes willingly. We are quiet as we drive up to the lookout, the same one where I told her I wasn't saying no, I hope she can give me the same answer tonight even if she can't say yes. She lifts her brow when she sees the location, I also told her here when we got back together that whatever got her here was worth it. I don't expect the same sentiment returned when I ask her to choose me.

She takes a moment once the car is parked to take her seatbelt off and then face me. She leans as far against the door as she can making sure there is the maximum space between us. "You've decided."

Still brave, braver then anyone else I know. "No not exactly." She gives me a disbelieving look- she thinks I'm lying, "my Dad pointed out that I already made my choice over and over again but I didn't say it because I knew deep down mine wasn't the one that mattered."

"Oh it's mine." She looks down and takes less than a second to feel it and bury it, when her eyes land back on me I realise my mistake. "You were waiting on me to bow out gracefully and accept it's over, you've been hoping I'd get the messa-"

"No Bren, no that's definitely not it." I rub my forehead and exhale loudly through my mouth, I just need to do it. "I fucked up and well I've been trying to hide it, blame it on you, make it appear meaningful so I don't have to admit that I'm the person who has destroyed the first good thing in my life. I'll tell you the whole tale if you want, I'll tell everyone you want me to. I just… you have always been my choice I just… last summer after the sneaking, the fights, your dad's threat. When you left I didn't realise how bruised I was from it, you've been my stability for so long, and then you weren't there. I felt like shit, and well someone looked at me like I was amazing and I liked it. So I spent more time around them, and I felt like I mattered- that I might not be Walsh Family worthy but I was good enough, just me fucked up me."

Her fingers are on her lips and in her eyes the water is fighting to come out, she doesn't let it though. She closes them for just a moment and swallows, "I deserve to hear it from you. I shouldn't have to make this easier on you on either of you, so just say it already."

"Kelly was that girl."

She's calm too calm, "well I hope you're both proud of yourselves. Seven months, seven months it was all there and every time my mind went there I dismissed it. She promised and you wouldn't be that cruel to me. You wouldn't let me feel sorry enough to comfort the girl who was missing her summer boyfriend. You wouldn't let me confide in her, trust her, ask her for advice on why my boyfriend was being so distant. You wouldn't let me encourage you to dance with both of us, welcome her into our space if you had done that. You wouldn't have… she wouldn't have blamed me, both of you pretending to be the innocent one's, the victim's of my selfishness when you went on that date. No my mind may have wanted to go there but my heart my heart said that two people I love, the man I wanted forever with, the man who I was willing to give up my family for, who had never not been worthy because it was not a competition- no to me he had been everything my everything, no he wouldn't do that to me. No he wouldn't make me and everything I felt for him, for her into a fucking joke " She shakes her head, "take me home."

"Bren just let me explai-"

"You think there are reasons you can give that can make this better? You think that coming clean after months and months of lie's after that many betrayal's…" she pauses, "did it stop? When I got home did it stop? Did it completely end, did it go back to junior year and be nothing again between you?" My face, it's written there but it's not enough, "don't. You don't get to be the hurt one here, you don't get to be scared to tell me the truth, afraid to hurt me more or to protect yourself. Say it."

"We flirted not at first. At first I just checked in on her, in the hallway's or when we were out just to make sure she was okay-"

"Well that was nice of you. Now I know where my attentive sweet boyfriend went all those months, he was taking care of his other girlfriend."

I keep going, "after the college stuff she began to drop past my house a few times at night, watched me work on the bike, wanted for me to take her for a ride-"

She mumbles, "yeah I'm sure she did."

"I didn't touch-"

"I'll make sure to buy you a medal maybe a trophy for showing at least some restraint. Have you slept-"

"No! No Baby only you since that locker it's been only you."

"No. No it hasn't been, but even then you warned me, from the start you warned me that you preferred blondes-"

"Bren don't, don't rewrite our history-"

"I don't need to you've done it for me." She runs her hand through her hair pushing her fringe off her face in frustration, "please take me home."

"Baby you have to believe me it's always been you. You were the first and still are the only woman I want, you are the most important-"

"Stop lying. I think you've reached your quota of lie's that you can say to me." She must understand my confusion because she answers my unasked question, "Dylan the most important person to you is you. If you weren't you would never have entertained the thought, you'd have never have touched her. She was my best friend, cheating on me, lying to me wasn't betrayal enough you just had to make sure you really stuck the knife in."

She moves to face the front and pulls her seatbelt back in place. It's her signal that she won't hear more. I start the car and we are quiet the whole way down the hill until we are on the street of The Peach Pit. "Drop me at The Pit please."

"Bren I'll take you home-"

"I don't want to go home like this. Just drop me at the front please. Brandon can take me home at the end of his shift."

"Can I come in with you? I'd like to talk to you."

"I don't really care what you'd like."

As I pull up out the front I stop the car and turn to her, "you're so mad, betrayed and-"

"Sad Dylan I'm sad. This all of it is just sad. It's sad for something so beautiful and intense to end this way."

"I don't want it to be the end, it's what I've been trying to avoid for months- you knowing and us ending. It's your decision Bren it has always been yours. I'm yours. I've told you from the start. I need you. I've always needed you. That hasn't changed it won't."

"Yeah until I'm out of sight and then you forget your need, then it's Kelly you want."

As she gets out of the car and walks into the restaurant she's ignores my declarations telling her that's untrue.