4
The Rest Of My Life
Brenda drove for what felt like hours, taking herself down familiar roads and past landmarks that mapped out her high school years, the beach, the Peach Pit, Kelly's house, Donna's place, the Bel-Age Hotel, the school itself. With the top down on the Porsche she let the breeze blow through her hair in an attempt to clear the tangled mess in her head. No matter how she looked at it she was being drawn to Dylan, she had always been drawn to Dylan and she was scared of how powerful it felt. Brenda hit play on the CD, REM's Losing My Religion filled the car and sailed out onto the night air, she let the song roll over her in waves. She'd lost count of the number of times she'd played it over the years, every time it made her heart constrict and her eyes well up.
Dylan lay on his back staring at the hotel room ceiling, Brenda Walsh had turned his head inside out. She always did that to him, every time he saw her it was like the breath was knocked out of him, his heart skipped and his hands tingled with a need to touch her. He'd only gone to the reunion because he'd hoped she would be there and he wanted to test himself, to see how his body and his brain would react to her. When he closed his eyes Kelly's face appeared, the look of disappointment in her blue eyes was heartbreaking, but only because he cared about her and didn't want to be the cause of her pain. He knew that on some level he didn't love Kelly, not in the way he loved Brenda, he never had. Kelly had been a kindred spirit, someone else who knew what it was like to have a father who was always letting you down and a mother who'd lived on another planet for most of your life. Brenda had been the girl who made him feel alive, who made him feel like a normal guy. She'd brought him out of his isolated, self-centred world and pulled him into hers, and he'd never been the same again.
Kelly poured herself a glass of wine from the bottle she kept hidden in her closet, she picked up the wedding photograph she kept by her bedside, her and Dylan staring into each others eyes with huge smiles on their faces. Kelly put the photograph back down, she didn't feel anything when she looked at it anymore, she wasn't the young, hopeful bride in the picture. Sighing to herself she sipped her wine before setting down the glass and taking her suitcases out of her closet. She couldn't delay the inevitable anymore, Kelly started pulling clothes from her drawers and closet and stuffed them into the cases, she didn't bother to fold them she just wanted to get it over with, get the hell out of the beach house and start living her life.
Brenda pulled up outside Dylan's hotel and took a couple of deep breaths before stepping out of the Porsche and tipping the valet. She held her head high as she walked into the hotel reception, she knew where she was going, she just wasn't sure she'd made the right decision, not yet. As she got into the elevator Brenda could feel her heart racing, it was going so fast she almost felt dizzy, taking a few more deep breaths to steady herself she watched the numbers on the elevator light up as it approached her floor.
The insistent ring of the phone shook Dylan from his reverie and he reached out to answer it.
"Dylan McKay." He was surprised to hear Brandon's voice at the end of the phone, their last encounter hadn't exactly been friendly. "No sorry man, I've not seen her." There was a soft knock on his hotel room door. "Hang on a sec, there's someone at the door." Dylan set the phone down on the nightstand and padded across the thick cream carpet, he flung open the door.
Brenda could feel the electricity coursing through her as she waited for Dylan to open the door, she felt like she was sixteen-years-old and it was Spring Fling.
Dylan's mouth fell open, for a brief second he couldn't breathe, he couldn't blink, in fact he wasn't entirely sure he could remember his own name.
"Are you going to invite me in?" Brenda smiled coyly at Dylan, her hair falling slightly across her eyes.
Dylan stepped aside to let her into the room, watching the way her dress sparkled and clung to her body as she moved.
Brenda perched on the edge of the king size bed, just the memories of the last time she was in this room were making her blush. Flashbacks to the Spring Fling, of tumbling onto the bed with Dylan, filled by teenage desire and nervous anticipation kept flooding her head.
Dylan walked around Brenda, trying to stop himself from openly staring at her slim, toned legs. He picked up the phone, "She's here, I'll call you later." He placed the handset back in its cradle and turned to look at Brenda.
"What are you doing here?"
Brenda raised her head to look right into Dylan's brown eyes. "I love you Dylan McKay, I always have and I've spent the last six years trying to convince myself that I don't."
"I'm married to Kelly." Dylan sat down next to her.
"Do you love her?" Brenda's voice cracked slightly.
"I do, but not in the right way, not anymore." Dylan placed his hand on Brenda's thigh.
Brenda looked into Dylan's eyes, "It's now or never Dylan, we're not getting any younger, I have to know if there's a chance that we have a future. That you've always felt drawn to me in the same way that I've felt drawn to you." Brenda chewed slightly on her bottom lip as she waited for a response from him.
"We'll hurt too many people Bren." Dylan's words were so hugely inadequate that Brenda felt like crying, she didn't, she held her composure.
"Maybe we've spent too long worrying about other people and not enough time thinking about what we want. So far all doing the right thing has done is to make both of us miserable. Just say you don't feel anything for me and that's it, I'll walk away and get on with my life."
"I love you Brenda, I have since our first date, you got into my head and my heart and turned me inside out." Dylan cupped Brenda's face in his hand.
"But I can't promise you a fairytale, we tried that, I've tried that with Kelly."
"I don't want a fairytale, I'm not a seventeen year old girl, I'm a twenty-eight year old woman who has to stop running away from her past."
Dylan stroked the hem of Brenda's dress. "I want you Brenda, despite all the confusion in my head right now I know that I want you."
Brenda tilted her head up towards Dylan and he bent to kiss her. The kiss overwhelmed both of them, hot and hungry, deep and passionate it felt like six years of tension being released. Brenda felt Dylan's hand slide down the zipper on her dress and without a thought to what tomorrow or the day after would bring, they tumbled back onto the bed and into each other's arms, finding delight in the fact that their bodies still fit together perfectly.
The End