Authors Note: I own nothing. No ownership rights to Beverly Hills 90210.
Chapter Seven
When I get home there is an answering machine message from my father asking me to call him no matter what the time.
"Hello."
"Dad is everything okay?"
"Dylan, son, you tell me. How bad was it?" I explain it almost word for word to him. I hold nothing back. My father hasn't ever wanted to be involved in my life the fact he is helping and supporting me through my biggest rock bottom means everything to me.
"Okay so you have to tell Kelly now, tonight."
"Dad no I just need to take a minute-"
"Son you don't get any more minutes on this you've taken too long, too many months already." When I don't respond he tries again, "it's the right thing to do for Kelly. If she's your friend then tell her your decision, admit to everything. Dylan it needs to be tonight though and that's not for Kelly that's for Brenda. I imagine tomorrow… well you've chosen a fighter just like yourself. You fight to survive she fights to protect. She is going to protect herself and your relationship-"
"Dad she wants nothing to do with me."
"Dylan she wanted you to drop her at The Peach Pit not home where she'd have walked in and her parents would see her and want to know everything." He chuckles, "she's protecting you and your relationship. She hasn't given up." Hope rushes through me, she doesn't want Jim to know.
"Now it's your turn to protect her. Kelly well she's going to be blindsided if she doesn't know and Brenda should choose when to see her not have her walk up like everything is okay, but I also imagine Kelly's going to want her to stick to their ridiculous deal- remaining friends no matter the decision. That deal was void the minute it was made without Brenda knowing about the summer. Anyway I imagine there will be words, heated ones… is that what Brenda needs now? Fights tomorrow at school."
Pulling my hair almost out as I scrape my fingers across my scalp, "no."
"Go do it and then why don't you come stay over here tonight?"
"Thanks Dad but I want to be here in case she calls."
"Fair enough Son. Go do it, but Dylan remember The Pit her wanting to go there is a good sign."
He's a master at people, he see's buttons you didn't even know you had; I know because he's pushed all of mine. On this I hope he is seeing the situation correctly, I need him to be right.
Kelly is surprised when I turn up at her bedroom door but in an instant her surprise turns to pleasure. Bren knew instantly the shift in me, and when Kelly begins to smile while she rises off her bed I know she doesn't know how to read me at all.
"Hey. I thought you were going to just call when you got my message I didn't think you were going to come over. This is a nice surprise."
"Kel, I was hoping we could talk. Do you want to go downstairs? I'm sure Erin's sleeping so I wouldn't want us to wake her."
By the time we get down to the couch I think she's picked up my mood. "Look I went over to Bren's tonight and took her out for a talk."
"You've decided?" There is an expectation that is laced within her tone.
"No. I told her everything. l told her about the summer and everything since."
"Dylan you didn't think we should have discussed that first? She's going to hate me." I ignore her statement. Her being involved in my relationship with Brenda is over, it's not up to her to decide what Bren knows and when- it was one of the mistakes I made at the end of summer she has no place in my honesty with my girl.
"Kelly I haven't decided because it's not my choice. It never was. It's been Brenda's from the start. I've just been waiting for her to make it."
There's a brokenness to her voice and a visible decrease in her shoulders, "you want her back."
"Yes."
"You couldn't have chosen her and not destroyed our friendship in the process, she's my best friend?"
"As her best friend I'm sure you wouldn't want her boyfriend to lie to her." It was a low blow but it was time we both paid the piper. She had ownership like me, and she owned her betrayal of Bren. It wasn't my job to protect her it was my responsibility to guard Bren.
"So what is this? A thanks Kelly but after seven months I'm not interested because I remembered suddenly that I want my ex girlfriend the one who has broken up with me twice already?"
"I didn't remember anything. Kelly after seven months of me never putting you first I'm not sure why you'd want to date me. Look we had fun and you have been a great friend but it was wrong all of it was wrong. Nothing started in deceit, in betrayal will ever be able to go anywhere healthy and I think you know that. We wanted it to mean more to lessen our guilt but it was just friendship and bruised egos that started this, nothing more. You were upset over Jake not working out and everyone telling you it wouldn't, and I was pretty beat up from Jim's attacks of me not being good enough."
"We were lonely and hurt, and both sick of doing everything we could to measure up and still falling short. We were never good enough so we gravitated to each other and allowed each other to fall back into what we've spent two years trying to prove we weren't."
"The player and the sl-"
"Hey not that. If I'm labeled a player so are you, but the thing is we don't want to be-"
"But we could be something else together- we understand each other."
"Kelly yeah we both have the same need to be seen as important. To be seen as worth someones time even if our parents have failed to consistently do that, but tell me have I ever made you feel like that? Have I ever made you feel like you are number one with me?"
"You made me feel like I could be, that if you were willing to leave Brenda for me then-"
"Kelly you know I never left Brenda she broke up with me-"
"But you didn't run right back to her. She the girl who you were crazy about in sophomore and junior year the girl with the perfect family and…" she pauses, "you didn't run back to her. I must mean something if you were willing to risk her."
"Kel you deserve to be more than something. You deserve to be someone's only. I'm never going to be able to give you that, and if I could I would have never been able to keep being with Brenda after the summer. I would have fought to date you and only you after our first date. I would have not needed cookies to decide-"
"But Brenda-"
"Bren and I before the summer had issues not with each other but they effected us. I don't know if I have destroyed her and I because of the summer. I don't know because I have been too afraid to find out but I've at least been able to keep her…"
"Single and interested in you. Keep her wanting you because she didn't know the truth. You've dragged this out haven't you because choosing means telling her?"
"No telling her it's always been her choice from the start of us, means telling her why I haven't said that sooner. Why I have been so angry at everything."
"So tonight you told her and I'm taking it because you are here it didn't go well."
"It went as well as I could have expected, it was better than I deserve."
"Does she hate me?"
"I don't know. It was about us, our discussion was about our relationship."
"So there is a relationship still between you and her?"
"From the moment I met her there was a relationship, that has never and I don't think will ever change. Look I just wanted to tell you face to face, I can't imagine that tomorrow or the next few weeks will be easy for either of us-"
"She probably hates me. Brandon probably hates me. I can only imagine Steve and Donna's reaction."
"Yeah it's mine though. I dragged this out and have been unfair to both of you, I have been too afraid to own my mistake."
"I'm a mistake?"
"Cheating on Brenda regardless of who it was is the mistake. Letting you feed my ego when I've been feeling like shit for nine months is the mistake. I shouldn't have let you stay in this, and I'm sorry for that."
Her eyes appraise me, "you didn't say getting me involved in this. You encouraged it. You made the first move."
"I did make that move but you took it, and you've made a few more. The visit's, the tools-"
"You didn't tell her?"
"Kelly no more secrets means no more secrets." Her face goes pale.
"Dylan that's going to look like I was going after you when she got back. I wasn't-"
"Kel we both are player's right? You knew what you were doing from that carpark when the shuttle left. I'm not sure when it went from seemingly harmless friendly flirting for you to wanting something more but it happened. I'm going to own the lion's share of this I'm willing to do that but I can't hide your role, I won't. I won't allow lie's to continue to be between her and I." I stand. "For what it is worth I'm sorry for my part in this to Brenda, to you, to my brother and to our friends."
She nod's but doesn't move to walk me out. There really isn't anything left to say.
