AN: I own nothing but my mistakes!
Kelly Taylor waits for no man. At least, that's what she decided her senior year motto would be - ironic, given how the school year began. But Kelly Taylor was not one to appreciate irony.
It was impossible to miss how his entire demeanor changed the instant his ex walked into the party. He had immediately left Kelly's side - left her! - and she was stuck grimacing through a dull chat about some Palm Springs country club's goings on.
She watched from afar the intimate gathering where Dylan's father figures finally met. People liked to joke about the dumb blonde but Kelly Taylor could read a social situation better than most of her peers. A childhood on commercial sets & photo shoots where everything of import was communicated in meaningful looks and unsaid words had made her a veritable expert in understanding what was really happening in any given interaction.
Brenda was in her warrior stance, her chin raised defiantly and her eye contact unwavering with a man more than twice her age who had recently been released from federal prison. Said felon? He was abashed but relentlessly charming. His smile said 'contrite' but his tense shoulders belied something else. Brenda's father, Jim, was a shrewd but confused observer to the whole thing. He seemed resigned to the fact that Brenda needed to say her piece, even if it made him uncomfortable.
And then there was Dylan; he never once took his eyes off of Brenda's face. After the group dispersed, he pulled her away to his private room, pretending to grab a crab leg on the way as she smirked indulgently at him.
Those two had always had her own language, hell, their own universe. Last summer Kelly found herself sucked into it, into the vacuum of Brenda's absence. Apparently, when Dylan was left to orbit alone, he tended to veer into the next available body, celestial or otherwise.
As the minutes ticked by, Kelly found herself shivering on a balcony as she thought of how best to make her escape. If no one saw her leaving, she could say she had seen an old friend and they had decided to catch up elsewhere. This was ideal because she didn't want Dylan knowing she had spent the party alone, however no one in attendance seemed to have been born after Woodstock so she would have to come up with something better.
Her ministrations were interrupted by the sound of the sliding door opening and a familiar greeting.
"Hey, Kel."
The streets of Beverly Hills were peaceful at this hour and Jim Walsh found his attention wandering. When Brenda returned from her teté a teté with Dylan, she was slightly glassy-eyed but her voice was firm; she was ready to go home.
Though she hadn't said more than a handful of words since they got into the car, he could tell that she was gearing up for a Big Talk. Experience told him to wait it out and he was soon rewarded.
"Dad, last summer when I was living with Dylan, you guys had a sudden meeting..." 'Great, so much for keeping all that between us', Jim huffed internally, thinking back to the deal he had struck with Dylan at the time.
"Brenda, I know how it must sound-"
"Like you threatened a teenager who you knew had abusive and neglectful parents with homelessness because you couldn't control me?"
To his credit, Jim Walsh stayed silent. He understood that, ultimately, he had won and his daughter was no longer attached to Dylan McKay. Anything she said now would hopefully cleanse the wound and allow their family to finally move on from the whole saga. 'You did what you had to do. You were protecting her.' He wore his words like a shield as she continued.
"I was the one acting like a total jerk but Dylan is the one who suffered for it. I wish you could have seen his face when…" the words choked off and she took a moment to compose herself. "You accused him of rape, Dad." Jim flinched at her words. 'Jesus, when she puts it that way...'
"I listened to a rape victim week after week sob as she described her attacks. Her boyfriend's attacks." She grew silent as she relived those painful memories. As Jim Walsh pulled into their driveway (Dammit, there goes the undercarriage,) and put the car in park, he reconsidered the situation from Brenda's perspective. He did feel badly for accusing her 3 week older boyfriend of statutory rape and had no doubt that he would never have resorted to that if he weren't going through those weeks in a blind rage. As he twisted in his seat to look at her and offer an overdue apology she abruptly unclicked her seat belt and began to get out of the car.
"Actually, never mind. No one should have to see that much betrayal in someone, even if they were the one who caused itit." With her legs out of the car and her back to her father she addressed him one final time, her last words to him for a week. "The only other person I've seen cause him that much pain was Jack McKay. I guess you and he have more in common than you realized."
The Bel-Age Hotel pool offered sweeping views of a city not known for its skyline so much as it's smog. The best views had always been the poolside ones as the rich and glamorous attempted to out-debauch one another. Tonight, it was two teetering teenagers staggering toward a precipice. Their inevitable tumble over was not so much a conscious decision as it was the natural consequences of kicking up dirt so close to the edge.
Dylan had managed to convince Kelly to join him in the heated pool despite the various hurdles she had half-heartedly raised, but there was one objection she wasn't going to let go of so easily. As he tread water just out of arm's reach, she brought up the brunette elephant in the room.
"How was your chat with Brenda? I'm surprised she's not joining us."
Dylan may not have had the patience for games between romantic partners, but he knew a trap when he heard one and responded accordingly, knowing the night's activities hinged on his next words.
"That chat was a long time coming. And she's not here because we both made ourselves very clear about what we want." Vague, not quite untrue and with lots of room for interpretation. He didn't want to lie outright and so he awaited her forthcoming questions with an impassive face but a thudding heart.
"And what is it that you want?" Kelly asked. She needed to hear him say it. 'I want you, Kel. I've always wanted you.' That's what she wished he had said. An unequivocal declaration that left no room for debate.
Instead, he met her eyes and told her, "I am doing exactly what I want to be doing."
"And Brenda?" Suspicious blue eyes examined every inch of his handsome face as he answered her question with a clear tone of finality.
"She understands."
The subject was closed. Satisfied with his response, she inched closer to him, only to propel herself backwards again, insecurity getting the better of her.
"Am I only here because she's not?"
Dylan didn't like to think of himself as manipulative, rather, he was skilled at directing a conversation in the direction he wished it to go. Right now he was ready for this conversation to be over so he took the shortest route to the nearest exit.
"Maybe..," he answered with a puckish grin while enthusiastically nodding his head in the affirmative. As he had expected, her insecurity did the rest. He had made light of her question without ever answering it, and her pride prohibited her from repeating it in order to get a sincere answer. Nothing to it, he thought to himself as her arms wound around his neck.
Brandon Walsh used to love the smell of fresh fries and sizzling cheeseburgers. As a kid in Minnesota, would often sneak a Culver's Butterburger after hockey practice before heading home to eat dinner with the rest of the family. His appetite never protested but Cindy Walsh could sniff out an onion ring from one hundred paces and he gave up trying to put anything past her. These days, the way he smelled after a shift at the Peach Pit would be enough to cover up any rogue burger he might be tempted to sneak. But then again, these days his indulgences weren't the type to leave a scent trail.
He stopped by his twin's bedroom door to get a recap on what had happened that evening and caught sight of the cocktail dress and discarded black heels. Brenda was dining on lamb skewers while he was wading through spilled milkshakes - what a surprise.
"Have fun tonight?"
His sister popped out of the closet that she was apparently organizing - 'At this hour?' - but her face gave nothing away.
"Not exactly. Dad and I didn't stay for very long."
She looked like she wanted to say more but the tenseness between them meant that they both simply stared at one another, neither willing to take the first step towards reconciliation since their row earlier that day.
"Well, I'm beat. Good night, Bren. Glad you enjoyed your party."
Brandon knew that his sister cleaned obsessively when she was depressed or stressed and that she clearly hadn't enjoyed herself at the party. He also knew that both of these things did not bother him nearly as much as they would have a year ago. He told himself that siblings grew apart and came together in a natural ebb and flow over time. He told himself that any steps he took away from Brenda were simply in response to her own subtle signals that she needed space. He attributed his lack of empathy and self-isolation to anything and everything except what it really was: the hallmark of an addict.
Because if he let Brenda share her hidden thoughts and parts of her life as they always had, it would be very clear when he wasn't reciprocating.
Whatever his sister was going through right now, she'd be fine. She had the girls and Dylan. Just the other night he heard her gabbing with Valerie Malone, because apparently the rules about long-distance calls back home didn't apply to the Dynamic Duo. And god knows she always had the ears of their parents.
By the time Brendan was scrubbing the remaining traces of his minimum-wage job in the shower, he had justified his lack of involvement many times over. In the adjoining bedroom, a pair of blue eyes stared unseeingly at the ceiling. She wasn't surprised that Brandon hadn't wanted to hear the details from tonight; asking perfunctory questions as to her well-being was their new routine. Where once they had taken time every evening to hear about the other's day or what was weighing on their mind, it had been months since he could listen to more than a few lines before interrupting with a cutting remark.
She knew she had done the right thing by ending things with Dylan tonight. But the pain of imagining him and Kelly together in the school courtyard was so intense she could hardly breathe. Perhaps with time, she could get used to seeing them together - if only so that she wouldn't have to finish senior year without her friend group by her side.
She turned to face the wall and pictured it: a twin who wouldn't speak to her on one side, her best friend and ex-boyfriend making eyes at one another on the other. Somehow, in the course of one night, she felt that all support had been pulled out from beneath her and she was like a cartoon coyote, hanging in midair and awaiting the inevitable free fall. She closed her eyes and wondered if there would be anyone there to help her stop it once it began.
In what Dylan would soon come to recognize as the prevalent pattern of a relationship with Kelly Marlene Taylor, the peace between them lasted only a few minutes. A few blissful, passionate minutes where the only sounds were some of his very favorite to lose himself in.
Too soon, she was pulling away to say, breathlessly, "Dylan, if we're going to do this right then we have to tell Brenda the truth. We can't make the same mistake again." He sighed and threw his head back as he responded.
"I told you I already took care of that. She knows everything."
"Everything?" Kelly arched a blonde brow skeptically.
"She knows I'm here with you all right? What more do you want?"
"We have to tell her about the summer."
"Kelly, that's not going to help anything," Dylan scoffed. It was bad enough that he had lost Brenda tonight, now Kelly wanted to twist the knife? Eliminate any possibility of a future reconciliation?
"I know it won't, but she's my friend. I owe it to her to tell the truth. So do you."
He couldn't disagree more. In his experience, the more painful the truth, the less he wanted to know.
If his father had simply kicked him out at 14, he would have been devastated. But no, Jack had felt the need to drink a quarter of a bottle of Glenlivet while telling him how Helen the Girlfriend really felt about his sullen, moody, teenage son. Dylan had spent the next 6 months alone in his hotel suite recalling every shared dinner, every smile, every offer of a ride, realizing now that they were all fake. Every gesture was part of a ruse to win the affections of a rich bastard by playing nicely with his son. That was the summer he began actively pursuing women. He would bring them back to the suite and attempt to discern what was just sycophantic pandering and what was genuine affection. Those nights were torture wrapped in a blissful package.
He realized he had gone somewhere else and that Kelly was waiting for a response. So he did what he did best - avoided the conflict.
"Ok, Kel. I'll take care of it."
It was now a problem for another day. For the moment, he allowed himself to turn off his brain, ignore the guilt, and rechristen the Bel-Age pool in true McKay fashion.
This was originally going to be 2 chapters but everyone is making bad decisions here so why drag it out? Coming up: going back to school and The Walk. (Who TF takes a walk to Century City to break up with their best friend? But I digress.) Thank you for the comments about this work! I appreciate them all.