"I'm very sorry for what happened to your brother-in-law," Ashley said on a break from work with Dylan.
"Yes it's terrible" Dylan just replied with a sentence of circumstance.
"It's not something you want to talk about, is it?" Ashley asked shyly.
"Not much, it's something that makes me suffer terribly. I can't go to him."
"Yes, it happens to me too"
"Seriously?" Dylan asked her
"My mother died when I was thirteen. I never managed to go to the cemetery. For me she wasn't in that place. My grandmother insisted a lot but I always refused. It seemed to me that going on that tombstone meant that she was really dead" Ashley shook her head "yes I know it's stupid and anyway your brother-in-law is still alive. He can do it."
"I hope so" Dylan smiled "it's like you say, it's like going there to him makes everything more real, including the fear of losing him, it's like he left for a trip or something like that"
"Yes I feel you " Ashley smiled and Dylan sent her an understanding smile back.
"Well," Ashley jumped up, "I think we're done for today. You have the files reviewed. I explained my comments to you. Call me if you need anything else."
"I would call you but you always have that damn problem on the phone, you never answer."
"Yes well, I don't have time to go and buy a new one," Ashley apologised.
Ashely left the house also saying goodbye to Blanca who was studying in the kitchen.
Dylan waited at the door for Ashley to set in motion and leave the property so he could close the gate, but Ashley's car had some disfailit.
"What's the problem?" Dylan asked her.
Ashley surrendered after a couple of attempts.
"Maybe I don't know the car battery. Damn, I have an important appointment tonight, and I'll be late."
"If you want I can take you home and then tomorrow you come and pick up the car."
"No, I don't want to bother you, I'll take the bus"
"The bus to go to Van Nuys? Do you want to joke? Come on, I'll give you a ride, then tomorrow you'll solve ."
Ashley sincerely thanked and boarded the Porsche along with Dylan who warned his daughter that he would only be away for a few hours.
XX
Valerie briefly greeted the nurses. To all the nurses present she had given free admissions to the Peach Pit After Dark and given advice on men, unscrupulous and sensible advice that some of them had found useful.
She sat next to Brandon and watched him silently.
"Steve must have shaved you" she smiled "it was so good on you .. Just my opinion, it hardened your good guy's face a bit, which sometimes, I tell you, was even irritatating" Valerie laughed and took a break for herself "I miss you a lot, I mean my days are full of things to do but I miss you a lot. I've been having some difficulties with David lately, I know, it's my fault and my insecurities that dilate as soon as I see obstacles that aren't even there. Donna hangs out with Joe and that seems to have destabilised David. I won't know many things, but I can distinguish when he is distant. With Ethan's excuse, he's always at Donna's. I don't... . He was the one who insisted that we get back together, it was him. Suddenly it seems that the idea of losing Donna destabilises him. Today we argued heavily, I argued, he sat in silence. I'm ruining everything, I'm nervous, jealous, and I'm ruining everything. Here's how things are, this is my biggest fear as well as the reason why I am who I am: I live in terror of being alone. It's a paradox, I live in terror of being alone and not being loved and I do everything for people to leave me alone and hate me but this time I don't want to ruin everything, not now, these were the happiest eight years of my life" tears began to wet Valerie's eyes who took another break.
"My father was raping me, Brandon, I don't think I ever told you directly, maybe Kelly told you, we never talked about it, do you have any idea what it feels like to be afraid? Have you ever been so scared that you were paralysed? Me every night. I hated him. The day after he died, however, I didn't feel anything anymore. I was like anaesthetised, and I still am. David took that anaesthetised part and created a new me and now I'm afraid to lose everything and do something extremely wrong... do you know from whom Kelly knew? At David's, just before I left Beverly Hills, I was so angry about it. I had made David the depository of my most intimate and catastrophic secret and he told Kelly for a stupid thanks giving dinner. You too had just left, it was one of those moments when everything changes and I wasn't ready for change, not at that moment. Abby said she never knew it but I am convinced otherwise, a woman who lives with a man knows his every habit and secret, I know that Abby knew, in my opinion she remained in the bed immobilised and closed her eyes not to see and not to hear. Another fragile woman terrified of being alone who accepted everything. I don't want to become like that. That's why I react badly to anything, for fear of being a fragile woman who accepts any compromise"
"In all this mess do you know who I approached instead? To Kelly" Valerie smiled "you would be shocked if you saw us, I help her with Grace, sometimes I stop for dinner, she doesn't talk much but I can feel her and we end up chatting about the ordinary. She's never alone, you don't have to worry, your sister, me, Jim and Cindy, we're all next to her. Always. How we stand next to you. Every now and then I pick up Grace from school when Kelly can't, she's a sweet and very smart little girl, Kelly asked me not to take her on the bad road" Valerie laughed "she joked, she looks terribly like her mother, it's scaring, but in her heart she looks like you, she's even a little over-judge
Valerie sighed, took some photographs.
"I brought you pictures so we look at them together and remind you of some exciting moments you spent with me during college."
Valerie looked at Brandon motionless and then began to leaf through the photos.
"The first day I arrived in Beverly Hills... do you remember? Me, Kelly, you, Steve... "
XX
Samuel looked at Blanca's letter on his desk for a long time. He thought maybe Emma was right, maybe it was really time to go further, Blanca wouldn't come back and she loved Nate. This was a truth and he knew, inside his heart, he knew that Nate would be kind to her and that he would love her.
So what was it that prevented him from going any further? He felt tired, lay down on the bed and closed his eyes.
Something touched his mind, a flash a memory, he telling his father that he hated him, his hands stretching on the steering wheel, the car skidding, Samuel opened his eyes again immediately, terrified.
Kelly came in at that moment to lay down her son's folded t-shirts. She saw him with his eyes wide open on the bed.
"Hey" Kelly greeted him with a gentle smile.
Samuel didn't answer immediately, his mind was confused... he watched her as she opened the drawers and put down his things.
Kelly realised that her son was scared of something.
"Samuel are you all right?"
Samuel sat down on the bed. The images he had just seen were re-collected as in a movie.
Samuel's gaze shifted to his mother.
"Yes," he said sighing.
Kelly combed his messy blonde hair.
"Okay," she said and then got up.
"Mom?'
"Yes?"
"I love you mom," Samuel said sadly.
"I love you Samuel"
Kelly sighed then took a seat next to him again and put her hand on his.
"Samuel, whatever you need, I know you'd talk to your dad about it, but I'm there too. I want you to know this."
Flashback His hands stretching out on the steering wheel, the car skids, his father trying to stop him.
Samuel closed his eyes tightly and then reopened them, quickly looking for something to say to.
"What does Grace do when she goes to him?" Samuel asked her.
Kelly shrugged with a smile "reads their book, plays Jeopardy with him, tells him school stuff, writes him letters and reads them to him, is convinced he will be back."
"What about you? What do you do when you're alone with him? What are you talking about?"
Kelly had a truth of her own but she couldn't tell her son, not so deeply, they were particular intimates between her and her husband, from the first moment she saw him, sometimes Kelly didn't even speak, held his hand and knew she could stay as long as she wanted, beyond the time, the nurses didn't dare to send her away.
Sometimes they had her tell you who Brandon Walsh was, who was Dylan who sat for hours in the waiting room, or his sister Brenda, and Kelly loved to talk about it. It wasn't something that made her suffer, on the contrary, it gave her vent.
"I know you don't want to go, that you don't feel like, but I'm sure your voice would help your father, so honey, when and if you want you just need to tell me, and let's go to him, even at night."
Again His hands stretching out on the steering wheel, the car skids, his father trying to stop him.
Samuel nodded again but an unspeakable and terrible truth was slowly re-emerging inside him.
Kelly shifted her gaze to Blanca's letter that was still on Samuel's desk.
"Are you going to read it?"
Samuel followed his mother's gaze to Blanca's letter.
"I don't know, but I miss Nate. I can tell you this, I miss spending time with him, laughing with him."
"Yes, I think I can understand that, but Samuel, Nate is waiting for you to call him, to tell him to come here, he has come every day since you came back from the hospital and your grandparents and I always had to send him away. If you miss him, tell him, if you miss Blanca, tell her, read the letter, go further"
"Emma also says to go further"
Kelly smiled "Emma is a smart girl" sighed "Samuel, a long time ago I hurt a person who loved me, and I did it for a guy, I only thought of myself and really destroyed her. And do you know what my biggest regret was in the next few days?"
'Which one?'
"That those days became months, and then years, and I never told that person that I loved her, and that I had made the greatest of mistakes, I let time pass and separate us. Nate came every day for you. I didn't go even once, in fact if it were possible I made her feel even worse. This thing became a crack that with the time became a fissure and then an unrecoverable chasm. That guy wasn't even the right person for me, I can't say it was all useless because even that experience brought me here today with you, to this house, it brought me to your father and your sister, but the harm I did to her that I can't cure. Yet she forgave me. Without ever really saying it but she took me back into her life. Think about how much courage it takes. Nate and Blanca are in love, this can't be a fault, but maybe in that letter there's what I've never been able to write, try giving them a chance."
Kelly looked at her son with a serene look "dinner is ready soon, okay?"
Samuel nodded and saw his mother leave the room.
He took his cell phone and opened the address book. He searched for Nate's number.
Again Hands stretching to take the steering wheel, his father's gaze.
Samuel felt suffocated and closed his eyes very tightly.
XX
"The second house on the right" Ashley pointed to a small green house and Dylan entered the driveway.
Ashley turned to Dylan with a smile 'you were really nice to drive me home'.
"No problem, tomorrow morning I'll call my trusted mechanic and you can take your car back"
'A Beverly Hills mechanic will cost me a fortune' Ashley laughed 'do you want to come in for a coffee?'
Dylan felt uncomfortable, shook his head "I think it's better for me to go home"
Ashley understood his embarrassment and immediately apologised, thanked Dylan and opened the car door. Dylan saw her walk the few metres of the driveway and shelter under the canopy of her home.
Ashley was nervously looking inside the bag for the house keys. She overturned the content on the ground. The wallet, handkerchiefs, a lipstick, a brush, the keys car.
"Damn," Ashley sighed.
Dylan lowered the car window.'
"What's going on?"
"Okay, that's the most ridiculous thing today," Ashley replied, "I forgot my house keys, I'm locked out"
"You'll be joking"
"No, don't worry" Ashley reassured him "I'll find a way to get in, you go ahead"
Dylan sighed and then got out of the car. He tried to shoulder the door.
"I never close the back," Ashley suddenly said, "if I could climb over I could open from there."
"Okay, I'll go" Dylan offered himself
"No Dylan really ..I'll go"
"Ashley sorry to tell you but you're not dressed exactly to climb over such a high fence.
In fact Ashley wore a tight skirt and a pair of heels.
"I'm going" Dylan went out onto the driveway again and went around the house, climbed to the fence holding on toes. He jumped into Ashley's garden and went all the way to the back door which fortunately was open. Dylan entered the house and couldn't find the lights so he had to proceed in the dark to the door and managed to open it.
"I don't know how to thank you," she told him happy to be able to get back into the house. She kissed him on the lips.
"Ashley" Dylan was surprised and moved with a step back "no"
"Sorry, sorry Dylan, the enthusiasm took me.."
Dylan didn't answer, he took a few more steps back and then quickly left the house. He got back up in the car and left at high speed.
Ashley knew she had made a huge mistake.
XX
Kelly found herself alone in bed. She looked at the digital clock. 3.00'am. She would have liked to get up and go to him. She stared with still eyes at the empty part of her bed where Brandon slept.
She imagined seeing him for a few moments. The naked torso, the sleeping eyes, the long eyelashes resting. For many nights Kelly had woken up and stopped to look at him, sometimes Brandon didn't notice, sometimes he would wake up and smile at her, and then they made love. To fall back asleep.
Brandon always said that three was the most difficult hour, the hour when you feel most lonely and most distressed, the hour when everything seems unsurpassed, that's why people wake up in the middle of the night when it all seems dark, black. The unhappy hour called it Brandon. And in the unhappy hour you needed someone next to you, someone to distract you and take you to dawn when the light illuminated any cracks and made the fears smaller.
When he woke up and found Kelly watching him he would take her, kiss her soft lips, undress her, run his tongue over every inch of her, let her choose how to get over three o'clock, if she wanted to make love, if she wanted to talk, if she wanted to say nothing, if she wanted to fuck, if she wanted to be fucked. Sometimes she just had a longing for him. She had the physical need for him. It was their secret and nocturnal world. Fucking, kissing, telling each other. The choice was Kelly's and only hers and she always fell asleep again after any choice, tight squeeze, he wouldn't let her go.
Kelly would wake up and watch him when her anxieties took her at three, when she was afraid to be alone as she was alone as a child watching her mother in the thre of alcohol, but every time she woke up Brandon was there next to her, and she could choose how to wait for the sunrise together.
And Kelly chose.
This thought brought tears to her eyes. He wasn't there. He could never come back
Kelly phoned Valerie.
"I know it's late but..."
Kelly didn't even have time to finish the sentence.
"I'm coming to be with the kids, you can go to the clinic if you want," Valerie replied.
Kelly got dressed, waited for Valerie's car, got on hers and then ran to him.
Reviews please ... if you want.
