Authors Note: I own nothing. No ownership rights to Beverly Hills 90210.
European summer
As our time in Paris begins to come to a close one of my professors recommends that I try out for a spot in RADA's summer program. It requires a weekend trip to London that Dylan and I happily make. Three weeks after the audition I get a confirmation letter that I have received a place for the summer. Dylan immediately begins to make arrangements for our move there. The plan is clear we drop our items off in London in the new flat he has arranged for us and then go and spend the two week break travelling in Spain and Italy.
My parents are excited for the summer program but disappointed that I won't be coming home soon. It's on that phone call that Brandon who is getting ready to fly to Washington tells me that him and Kelly began to date while she has been accompanying him to taskforce events. He hopes that I'm okay about it. It's as close as he has ever gotten to admitting that I may be justified in holding some ill will towards her.
I inform Dylan when I get off the phone, he smiles. "That sounds about right. I think they'll probably work well together. Now I'm thinking we go to that little bistro around the corner for dinner the one with the hit and miss jazz bands?" He is completely non phased by the news.
Dylan enrols in a summer creative writing program in London. He's busy writing while I'm in class, we meet at the pub for dinner on Tuesday's and Thursday's with new friends, the rest of the week either I cook or he does. Weekends are spent on the train or renting cars to drive around the countryside. When I'm offered a full scholarship for the remainder of my degree both Dylan and I feel it's right. He starts the semester at King's College but one of his professors from Paris has sent his writing to colleague at Oxford, when a spot becomes available he's enrolled in the course two weeks later.
His commute is seventy minutes via train, which he swears he doesn't mind as it gives him time to write or read. For the first time in a year our time together is limited, he has friends in Oxford I don't know, and he doesn't know the majority of my RADA friends and classmates. He talks about women I have never met and gets a little testy when he sees me practising romantic monologues, knowing I'll have a scene partner in class that I may have to kiss. It comes to a head just before his twentieth birthday.
"Dylan you can't expect to know every scene partner I have."
"The ones that kiss you, touch your lips I except to." He's jealous and irrational which is not like him.
"We are playing at romance, you've seen enough of my performances for my classes to know it's not real. What's this really about, as you can't have all of a sudden realised what being with an actress would entail, you are way to smart for that?"
It's a heated fight that gets even worse when I bring up all his new female friends. It's at that point he stops and calms down, he never wants to give cause for doubt it's a commitment to himself he made early on it Minnesota. It's then that he admits to missing me and I admit to missing him.
The next weekend we look for a place halfway between his school and mine. It means that we will both be commuting a half an hour each but we are too important to mess around with.
In early December four years to the day since he rolled out from under Mondale, he hires Dirty Dancing and a range of Marx Brothers films. I arrive home to our living room converted into a movie theatre with popcorn, and straws covered in paper, and a hired projector connected to our VHS. He has burgers and fries well chips delivered like we got back in the hotel room. It's a fun night full of nostalgia.
Before the end of the night he is on one knee showing me a ring, and asking if I would be okay about doing this forever, and maybe taking on a new surname.
I knock him down with the force of my kiss that sees us rolling around on the pillows that have been the seats for his makeshift theatre.