A/N: This one's for the people who're anxious to read the letters, or at least one of them :D

Part Ten

Brenda was beginning to regret ever opening the box of letters from Dylan.

For the most part, they seemed to be drunken ramblings about how stupid she was to leave Beverly Hills, or how stupid he was to let her go, along with a few about Valerie, and more about Brandon and Kelly. In almost all of them, Dylan waxed philosophical about the nature of betrayal and the senselessness of trusting anyone. While she was pleased to find out that Valerie had been the pursuer in that particular relationship, and that he hadn't even known who she was at first, that knowledge was about the only good thing to come of her reading the letters so far.

And then she finally came to a letter written while he was in rehab. Checking the date, she realized why he'd apologized for the letters that were written in September and October. Those had been the months that he'd struggled with addiction. The angry months. The Valerie months.

Please let the rest of these help me figure him out, Brenda thought desperately, before she began reading the first of the sober letters.

'Dear Brenda,

I told you when you left that I would applaud you from afar. I haven't been doing a good job of that, I know. I don't have any excuses or explanations for my behavior since you left, or at least, no explanations that would actually explain anything.

I know I pestered you with my other letters, and I just wanted to promise you that I won't any more. Actually, I probably won't even send this one, since I suspect you won't read it. All I can hope is that someday you'll forgive me enough to read this.

Brenda, I love you. I told you once that I loved you more than I had ever loved anyone, that that was our problem. It wasn't one of my shining moments – if you had leaned even a centimeter closer, I would have kissed you then and there, and I know I would have lost you forever if I had. You were never willing to help me cheat on Kelly, and I'm glad for that, in a strange way.

You always made me a better person, Brenda. Other people in my life have loved me for the person they think I could be, if I were sober, if I weren't a cheater, if… a lot of ifs. You have always treated me as if I already am the person they think I could be. You hold me to higher standards and I know that I lash out at you because of it sometimes, but I have always been grateful for it.

I assume you're studying Shakespeare at the RADA, and, in honor of our romantic poetry class, I have a quote for you. It's from sonnet number 102.

"My love is strengthened, though more weak in seeming.

I love not less, though less the show appear."

Brenda, I'm an idiot (a fact that's been well-established since our first date, I'll grant you). I'm an idiot, and I know I've hurt you. But it has never meant that I love you less. I only love you more, for the person you've become and for the way you've forgiven me in the past. For the way you've risen past everything and become your own person, in spite of everything that's held you back – or tried to hold you back, since I don't think anything actually could.

I can only hope that you will find it in yourself to forgive me again, some day, and I hope that you can understand how much I have always loved you.

Maybe someday, that love will be enough for us.

Love always,

Dylan

P.S. From now on, I will keep my promise, and I will be applauding from afar. Actually, I'll be giving you constant standing ovations from afar. It's no more than you deserve.'

Tears slid down Brenda's face as she set the letter down. There were more unopened letters in the box, but unlike the ones she'd already read, he'd never even tried to send these. It just figured Dylan would send the letters that would only serve to alienate her, and keep the ones that might have drawn them closer together.

The rest of the letters seemed more like journal entries, giving her details about his days at rehab and about the people he'd met there, telling her about their friends' lives. And then she came to a letter about Kelly and the fire, and Brenda knew she would be able to finally and completely forgive him, once and for all.

His concern for Kelly came alive on the page, but it was a friend's concern, not a lover's. It wasn't the panic that she'd heard in Brandon's voice when he'd called to tell her what had happened.

Dylan loves me.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~