Authors Note: I own nothing.
Chapter Twenty-One: Sometimes…
"Dylan I…" I stumble, my heart is pounding. I breathe out and try again.
"Dylan I wanted to be the one to tell you, I'm sorry it wasn't me. I imagine you feel blindsided on this, and well I have been there, felt like that. I never wanted you to feel that way."
"You didn't want me blindsided that's what you are sorry for?" His tone shifts and he allows his anger to come through. "You aren't sorry for sharing something that is supposed to be between us? These, all of these, they are about us." I look at the table where he is pointing. My singles are stacked together, he picks up a few off the pile.
"This one here, I imagine Kelly and I are the wolves and you are the innocent bambi. You just forgot to add the verse Baby of all the times you cheated on me." He throws it on the coffee table.
"This one. Oh in this one I can actually feel your hatred of me- I mean I sound like a piece of shit. Do you know people in the quad laugh and are always so happy when it plays, glad that Raven is publicly shaming her sleazy ex? It's also the one if memory serves, that you nearly busted yourself singing along to in the kitchen that morning. It's nice that you made your fuck you to me so catchy that it even made you slip up." He throws it on the table and looks at the next in the pile.
"This one, well we never fought you were too busy ignoring me, and I wasn't playing the victim. So is this one not about me?" A knew awareness runs through his eyes. "Wait, is this one about Kelly that day in the quad when she blew up at you? I was a little far away, but you were hardly engaging with her. Let me guess, you ran back to your studio and gave her hell through a song knowing she couldn't defend herself." Yeah that feels about my limit on this. I snap back coldly.
"Are you telling me she did something that is defendable?" That shuts him up. I can see the moment when realisation dawns and he understands what he just said. Hopefully, even through his anger he has reconnected his mouth and brain. I can take his justified anger, but this wasn't going to be a conversation where he could just take his best shots at me- I needed to make that clear. "Look I get that you are, well I don't think mad covers this, furious may be better. Tell me though did I lie in any of those songs? Was anything I wrote a lie?" Silence again. "You don't have to like them, but please don't demean my feelings, my history, my experience just because you don't like hearing the truth."
"Raven do you really want to have a conversation about honesty? If so shall we talk about the lie I have lived since… when was it, since Paris? I don't even know when this started." He looks physically frustrated, and takes a breath that helps him lose a little more of his fire. I can see he is so confused by this, he must of only recently found out. When he speaks again his voice sounds like he doesn't know up from down, like his world is spinning. "I don't know anything about your life anymore. Here I was thinking I was getting better for us. I've been to hell for four weeks thinking that the one I love, the woman who I want my forever with, the woman I thought I knew better than anyone else was waiting for me, but it's all a lie and I don't even know when that lie began. I don't know anything anymore." As he puts his head in his hands I go and kneel by the couch. It's not lost on me that are positions are now reversed, that ten weeks ago he sat before me like this. I strive for calmness and honesty in my tone.
"I will tell you anything you want to know." He looks up and meets my eyes, he is so hurt.
"But will it be the truth?"
"I have never lied to you, I may have only presented some information or avoided it, changed the subject, but I have never lied to you." He gives me a look that I imagine was on my face months ago when I threw the knowledge of the earring back at him. He doesn't believe me.
"Oh that's right the long business trip is actually your world tour starting this summer. You talked around that truth well. Though I thought we were supposed to work out those conditions together, did you forget that, or was that a lie just to shut me up and not ruin your secret?" I try and calmly explain.
"The tour has ten dates set for this summer, that's it. The first one is in LA. I booked the minimum to get the label head off my back and to buy us time to sort out what we wanted. It could stay as ten dates, or we could add more cities, countries, it can be extended. I've made it so we can even break it up into multiple short tours, so if we wanted we could come home in between or travel together. I didn't lie, I just had to give a little more to make sure we could set those conditions together."
"If I don't want that, if I don't want to go?" Hope shoots through me, that's an easy fix I can make that work.
"Then Baby stay here. I'll go back and forth- be home as much as I can. You can avoid it all."
"And if I don't want my personal life sung about, sold for what four dollars a single, how are you going to make that work?" As quickly as it came the feeling of hope leaves me.
"Are you asking me to choose between you and this, or are you asking me to write about different things?"
He runs his hand through his hair. "I wouldn't win in either scenario would I? You've started this life and didn't consult me at all. Didn't consider if this was something I would want."
"We weren't together at the time, we weren't even speaking."
"Were you that sure you were through with me forever? Is that how far gone from me you were?" I don't answer, my silence says it all. His eyes flash with the pain of the wound I just caused him. "And since we have been, you didn't bring me in at all. Just ran off any chance you got to record, sing about me being sick, sing about my pain." That's what he thinks?
"That's not what I did, do. You go to therapy talk about us, my songs are my therapy. And yes some are about me, us, but I don't release the ones that I think are too personal."
"The difference is my sessions are confidential, your therapy is sold for a profit." Was he annoyed that I was making money, that I was successful?
"Is the money the issue?"
"No it's the fact you have invited the world into our lives. You've sold us. What I feel for you is sacred to me, and you've made it a commodity." That's not what I have done. I take a deep breath and try and figure out how to make him see what this is. I notice his Christmas present sitting on a magazine next to the Cd's on the coffee table.
"What's the difference from what I do and what Byron did? I'm not comparing the quality of the art but the nature."
"He was honest about it. People knew that in dealing with him they could risk ending up in one of his works." Shit. I can't deny the truth of that.
"That's fair." I rub my forehead, and attempt to make him understand.
"I don't want the publicity and I don't want the fame, if I could I would hide behind Raven forever. I just want to make the music. I didn't want my life to change."
"You could have had that without this." He points at the Cd's. "I would have bought you, is it a piano? I don't even know if that's what your instrument is." Maybe if I give him more information, make him see it's good, it's creative. That it's not just going to be intrusive media and fame, he'll calm down.
"It is. AJ tries to teach me cords on a range of different ones- he can play a lot of them. Chris, well I can make a beat obviously, but he often teases me, letting me know that a drum solo is not a possibility for me anytime in the future. Paul and Ray well they have taught me to play a little, but my preference is the piano." Something about what I said makes him sad, it's written all over his face.
"Even just then your eyes glowed talking about it, you are so proud of it."
"Dylan I am not going to lie about it, I am. I love the feeling of being in the studio, of singing, writing music, of jamming with the guys, of mixing with David, and I love that people can connect to it. I love every second of it." I give him pleading eyes, baby this doesn't have to be scary.
"And you're good at it. I mean it was in the paper you just got nominated for like four Grammy awards." Shit he brings up the side of this I know he will hate, the fame.
"Yeah the nominations got announced on the seventh and while I'm grateful it's not something I have cared about this month." He gives me a curious look.
"I heard them speak about you being gone. They contacted you a few times, I think they even went to your place. They couldn't get in, I guess you weren't home, you're always pretty busy now." Baby do you think I was off having a good time, that my life went on as normal while you were going through hell?
"No I was there I just needed to be alone. It's a gated community and well even then my house has another gate. It's my own version of Fort Knox." He nods and some of the tension on his face reduces, like this has given him some reassurance.
"Keeps you safe though, that is good. It will be needed soon, along with security and I guess a different car. When everyone finds out it's going to be intense."
"But then it will die down- "
"Until your next hit, till your next tour, next album. You are always going to be in the media, your life on display for the world, your privacy always compromised. You are now always going to be known." He swallows like the next words are hard for him to get out. "Your kids will be known, your husband." I slowly close my eyes to guard against the pain. A tear makes it's way down my cheek, it's the first time he had taken himself out of that equation. It was the first acknowledgment that he didn't want a life with me. I pull myself up off the floor, out of my kneeling position. I won't beg him to be with me. I won't put either of us through that. I try and project a level of calm in my voice.
"I guess you've found your limits your boundaries?" It takes a moment but he nods.
I give him a teary smile. "That's good that means you're better. You are making choices with a clear head." I wipe my eyes as my tears are making it hard to see. "You may not believe this, but I didn't tell you before because well I knew this life would be difficult for you, not something you would want. I wanted to make sure that you made the choice that was best for you, which you have done. I respect you enough not to make it harder."
He looks at me with tears falling now from his own eyes. "I don't think that is possible. I love you. I wanted our life, I wanted to wake up next to you forever- I don't think you know how much I have missed it, missed your smell, your laugh, your warmth. You have always been the warmest person I know. I wanted that forever. I wanted you forever. I desperately wanted that moment on the beach with you, teaching our son to stand on a surfboard for the first time."
"You just don't want the other part of my life, and unfortunately that's a package deal now." I wipe my cheeks they are burning from the salt.
"You have made your decision. I can see that. All your wants are past tense. I, me, that life is now a past dream for you. I get that now." I take another breath, trying to get enough oxygen, make myself calm enough to get through this.
"Dylan please don't be angry at any of them, it was my decision, my call. They, we may not act it but I am the guy's boss, and Ray, David, Camille are all on NDAs. My parents, they have wanted me to be honest from the moment we came back from Vegas, knowing that I hoped we could reunite."
"And my mother?"
"Iris was the same as my parents. Though she also worried that the media hype happening before Christmas would have made you more anxious over my safety. She wanted you to be better before you found out." He gives me a teary look of concern.
"She was right, it does. Even managing it better now I am going to worry about you alot, everyday."
"No need, remember I live in Fort Knox." I wipe my tears and attempt one last smile. "I'm glad you are doing better, but I think it's time for me to go." As I turn and make my way back to the door he asks.
"You aren't going to ask me to sign an NDA?"
I turn to face him and hold up my pinky. "Family doesn't sign." He nods, the tears are still running down his face. I turn trying to leave while I still have the strength. As my hand touches the door knob he asks one last question.
"You know I'll always love you, that it is forever, that it's absolute?"
This time I don't turn around. "I do, but I'm realising that sometimes that just isn't enough."
Authors Note: I own nothing. No ownership rights to Beverly Hills 90210. None to Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough written by Patty Smyth and Glen Burtnik, produced by Rob Bittan, performed by Patty Smyth and Don Henley.