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

Chapter one

I knew it was coming.

They were closed off when I asked about the party, Kelly seemed uncomfortable, and then Dylan had been cold and distant when I asked him to go to the movie. I knew it was coming.

I could feel it in my gut, I felt the knots form. I felt the tension in all my nerves like my body was preparing for the blow.

I didn't expect such a blow.

When they both arrived I knew what was going to happen, well I thought I did. For a moment I thought it was kind of honourable that they were doing this together, it was our Christmas deal after all. He decides by New Years, which turned into weeks of nothing, a month of indecision, it was seven weeks since the cookies and he had finally decided. I thought it was honourable until he mentioned the summer.

That blow I was unprepared for, my body had prepared for the one I saw, but it wasn't prepared for this. Hatred rushed to the base of my throat, I wanted to aim a blow at both of them one that would hurt as much, but I had nothing. Hate I could tell them I hated them, but why would they care they had each other. I swallowed the vile word down.

Val, I could hear Val in my head. When I had seen Matthew at summer camp kiss Stephanie's cheek when he had just a week before asked Val to go steady, I told her immediately. The pain flashed for a moment in her eyes and I caught a rare glimpse of her vulnerability, but she straightened up and held her head high. I asked her then what was she going to do.

She spoke so calmly. "Nothing, I'll be normal. I'm supposed to meet him in five minutes by the lake to watch him skim rocks."

"And you're going after what I just told you?"

"Of course I'm going."

I was baffled. "Are you going to tell him you know?"

"No not yet." She could see the confusion on my face and took pity; her ability to think through hurt was a weird superpower she seemed born with. "Bren you know when we used to skim our knees, we would stumble into your kitchen and Aunt Cindy would get the First Aid Kit. Before she did anything she would always clean the blood. She would say she needed to see how deep it is first make sure we didn't need stitches or have rocks or sand in the wound. When people hurt you it's the same, you got to know how badly first. You have to know how deep is the wound."

Val even at twelve could be insightful about pain. She understood it in a way I didn't, we both lived in idyllic homes our parents were best friends since before we were born. I didn't know how she learned about it, but hearing her that day I knew she was right.

As I look at the man who hasn't been able to hold my eyes for more than a second, who seems like he wants to be anywhere else but here, like he's angry at me. Like I'm the one making him hurt me. I know I shouldn't respond with anger.

No, speak calmly, get it out of them first, don't let them hide from it. I can hear Val as if she was standing behind me, propping me up.

I need to know how deep is the wound.

"Kelly was the girl this summer?" He nods. "You were together the whole summer as soon as I left, sleeping with each other?"

She jumps in then like that idea was too horrible to imagine. "No no it wasn't like that. We hung out as friends, not at first but we bumped into each other at the club. We chatted about what Dylan could write about Jack in his parole letter." I haven't looked at her as she spoke I looked at the guy who couldn't stop moving. Parole what parole? My body tense's, I know immediately he is aware that it's something else he kept from me, had with her. "It was innocent and then… Brenda we tried to fight it but it just happened; look we never went that far, we wouldn't. We knew it was wrong and it couldn't go anywhere, when you came home it stopped."

He shifts.

Dylan moves when he lies, when he's uncomfortable; sometimes big movements sometimes small ticks. When he feels strongly about something, is feeling justified he's still he holds your eyes; he glares at you as if he is trying to call your bluff, try and tell him what he knows to be right is wrong.

It didn't stop.

I look at Kelly. "When I came home you were so sad, for weeks you were unhappy. I thought you were lonely, I was worried about you, I spoke to Dylan about that. I told you I wanted to find someone to make you happy. I guess you already had. You let me comfort you. You let me include you in our dance at the prom. You let me confide in you about how different Dylan was. I even asked you if he had cheated on me as I knew something was off when I got home. And then after the restaurant you were angry at me, claiming I was been unfair for being upset that you would go on a date with him. You guy's went on a date immediately after we broke up, you turned up at the prom together when we were still together. It didn't stop when I got home-"

"It did, nothing happened, he was with you. We were just friends, since we were little we have been close friends we would talk-" so they talked when I got back.

"At school, was this talking just done at school?"

She looks down.

"At his house?"

He shifts.

"As close friends have you always gone to his house? Were you a visitor of the condo, did you pop to the hotel to chat? Has this been occurring for the last two year's these visits, is it something I just was never made aware of, that I didn't realise this close friendship existed?" She still can't lift her head to face me. Her tell, she hides from her mistakes. It's bullshit this great friendship that I never saw is bullshit, it's just them rewriting to justify betrayal.

"Bren does it matter, is this really needed?" My eyes move back to him, his anger is rolling off him. He hasn't been this angry around me since he started drinking again in junior year. He acts like I'm frustrating him, he did the same back then.

"I don't know Dylan does it matter? Did we matter? I dated you for over two year's, and I just found out for the last seven months the two people I trusted the most next to my brother have made me a fool, lied to my face, made me feel so guilty and selfish, made everyone feel I was the unfair one when you two innocently went on a date-"

That gets a reaction. He yells in frustration. "Don't play innocent you went on a date with that guy. Your French summer fling. It's the same thing."

It's then that I know the hurt, I can see the cut clearly. It's betrayal, it's lies, it's misplaced anger aimed at me. It's him making me the bad one to justify this deceit. It's a mangled deep cut made even deeper because of his inability to let me go until now. Until the party. Until Jack. Until Dad.

I know in that moment she lied, she told him why I wasn't there. She figured out how to sever us finally, how to make him give me up. Choose her. A choice he clearly refused to make for seven months on his own. I remember the locker, her declaring she wasn't second choice, from what I can see she's third. Dylan has been choosing himself before either of us for months, choosing to pretend to still be the good guy. He never used to have to pretend. He had stopped pretending when he threw the plant and let me in. He's not that guy anymore, this in front of me isn't my Dylan. This is the guy he was before we met.

I look at him and I hold his eyes, even when he tries I know he can't break the contact- years of knowing his soul has taught me how to speak directly to it. Though it's the first time, since our first date that I have needed to get past the armour his bravado to access it. "It's not the same thing. I respected you, I respected our love enough to immediately tell you about a guy I kissed twice in Paris. I respected that to love someone as deeply as I love you you can't have lies. I gave you the option to stay or go. I… I never lied. I never made you our life into a joke by sneaking around with someone else. I never kept secrets about us with other people. I didn't… I didn't let you humiliate yourself for months in a competition where you were the only one who didn't know you were at a disadvantage." He stops moving. He's now cut too.

I look at her, "you let me promise that we would be best friends at the end of this knowing full well that you had spent months having a secret relationship with my boyfriend. Kelly it was a ridiculous promise; that moment over the summer when you realised what was going on and didn't walk away that was the moment we stopped being best friends. If you were ever my best friend. If you were you would have never kept me in the dark so long, hell if you were you would have never gone near him. You'd never have become the other woman, and you'd never have chosen to sneak around and use my confidences against me to try and get the upper hand."

She goes to speak, I take a backwards step away. I'm done. "I hope this is worth it to the both of you. I hope throwing away the last two year's, throwing away me is worth it in the end."