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

Chapter Twenty-Two

The protest had been a success, though we were now forced to take three finals tomorrow to catch up for the morning one that we missed- the school boards attempt at punishment. Josh was over studying in my room. He was a bright guy but he wasn't a natural intellectual like Dylan, and he wasn't a last minute crammer like my twin. Academically, he needed to study to go well, it had resulted in our "date's" recently really being midweek study session's. He wanted to go well, because Josh wanted to go well in everything he did, even if he wasn't going to College next year.

He was giving the pro-surfing circuit a year. If after twelve months he wasn't in the top ten he was going to college, most likely in LA.

We hadn't discussed the future, four weeks after our hallway kiss seemed too soon for that, though he had indicated that he wanted to continue to see each other. He told me time and again he'd be back State side between competitions, and that the longest he'd be away was three weeks. He knew I was tossing up between New York and LA for College, and from his casual conversations about next year it seemed State side was simply a reference to wherever I was. His Mum had an apartment in New York, he had casually dropped that in when my New York offer arrived, along with the proximity to my school the apartment would be.

He was very casual and natural about it all, I wasn't sure if it was to ensure he didn't scare me off or because he just truly saw us as starting something serious and assumed I wanted that as well. I didn't know what I wanted but I did know if there had been no Dylan then I would be head over heels in love with this guy.

The seriousness, his seriousness was starting become apparent to all. Since prom he had taken to always touching me in public, it was nice but I am hyper aware when he does it in front of Dylan. Thankfully, I can count on one hand the times I saw Dylan and Kelly actually touching; each time it had been painful, it had been heartbreaking. Dylan I know did all this, but even if he got a shadow of that pain I wasn't okay about it. Giving people pain for revenge was Val's thing, mine- well revenge, ill will was not it. I think it was my Midwest value's, maybe I believed in Karma sorting it out, or maybe I unlike them remembered how I once loved them, maybe I would be the only one to actually respect that history because too me it meant something even if they threw it away like trash.

Josh didn't seem to be of the same view. He had noticed me tense on Monday night at The Pit and had raised it when he was driving me home that night. "Darlin if he is going to be around more then he's going to have to get used to it." I has tried to say I felt bad about it, he dismissed it. "That's because you are a good person. You are moving on, and as much as it bugs me the way he looks at you like you're his possession, I think it's good that you are around him now. It means you are putting it behind you, putting him behind you- showing him it's done. He is a big boy, and he has proven that he doesn't consider your feelings. You have nothing to feel guilty about, these last few months you have been better to him than he had any right to deserve." I made a noncommittal sound at that, but didn't try and get him to alter his responses in front of Dylan again, and I tried even throughout the protest not to tense up as much when Dylan was around. It felt like I was being disrespectful to Dylan and it was crazy because I knew it wasn't, my mind knew but my heart had a different interpretation.

Josh spoke about Dylan and I with finality, Val did the same. Brandon, Brandon was the only one who had any neutrality on it, he was angry and hurt about what Dylan had done, but like me he understood that Dylan was complex. That he was reckless, that his natural reaction was to turn his back on people that hurt him, that he'd give up if something seemed too hard, to hide from his feelings, and never say what he needs- well he used to trust me enough to tell me that. Brandon knew like me, that the repercussions of Baja had altered him, and that he hadn't ever been the same since. He knew what Dylan and I were before those horrible months, he knew that I struggled to reconcile that those two Dylan's were the same. That walking away from this Dylan was walking away from my Dylan. Brandon knew, like he knew Dylan even after it all was still his brother. Val, Josh, even Andrea and Steve didn't understand that- well Val understood because that's how we felt about her, but she refused to acknowledge that he deserved that loyalty, that love, that title.

It was a weird feeling to love and miss someone so completely but to resent them so much, to fear looking back at the past and wonder how much was a lie. To wonder if every touch was wanted or just made out of obligation, convenience.

Studying with Josh was actually studying, it was him testing me and me testing him. It was him making up silly acronyms to help memories points, it was tossing a ball up and down while he lay on my bed trying to remember the quote's he needed for a range of English essay questions. It was eating too many lollies to try and stay focused, and it was pecks on lips when you felt you finally got something memorised. It was secret laughs every time we saw my parents walk past my open door to drop something off in their room, or get something from the hall cupboard, a task that happened almost like clockwork when we studied in here. They didn't need to worry.

We had had heated make out sessions, but Josh hadn't pushed for more than that. By silent agreement I set the pace on that. Dylan had always been the more experienced, with Josh I knew he had had a previous girlfriend in Freshman that he wasn't a virgin, but I also knew I was the more experienced at long term relationships. By all indicators Josh wanted one of those with me, and moving too fast physically he knew may not achieve it.

Josh and I studied most nights except the last two of finals. He did those two alone.

I finished my finals the earliest, I hadn't needed as many credits this semester as everyone else and it meant while they were still finalising tests I had time on my hands. The school didn't require you to attend during exam weeks when you didn't have a test, and as I had finished up my coaching role for the semester I had time on my hands. That morning Samantha had leant me a car, as she had arranged for me to meet a producer friend of hers that was putting together a new show. It was based on the idea that a family had lost their parents in a car accident and now the kids were left alone to be raised by their just barely legal older brother.

The main cast was nearly all in place, he was looking though for the older sister a sophomore or junior. The casual meeting had turned into me running lines with the casting director. It had gone well from what I could tell, and they had asked me to come in for a screen test with the two older brothers. One was moving from New York, he wouldn't be here for six day's, the morning of graduation.

I had phoned Samantha and let her know how it had went- she was thrilled, I then asked if I could take the car for a few more hours, I wanted to walk the beach. Walking alone I hadn't done in months. Iris and I went for frequent hikes, but besides that I had been driven everywhere since the attack. Walking the beach on a Thursday afternoon this close to summer didn't seem like a dangerous idea, and I needed to think. I wanted to be alone outside of the walls of Casa Walsh.

The role was big, it would be a regular- third on the call sheet. It would be mainly filmed on a LA sound stage, but there would be some location shots in San Fransisco when they couldn't fake it in LA. It would be a pilot filmed immediately at the start of summer; the sets were nearly all finished. If the network liked it it would be eight episodes filmed over the summer. The producer didn't see any issue for me in attending college for semester one, the network would launch the show late September an decide if we would be picked up for the other half of the season by the fourth or fifth show. There were so many if's.

If I got it it meant staying in LA.

New York had been my preference, it had been in my mind a chance to have a fresh start, it meant some distance from my parent's, being an hour and half train ride from Andrea. Val was thinking of staying in Buffalo to be there for her younger siblings, it meant we could see each other more. It had also unfortunately meant some distance between Brandon and I.

LA. Staying here meant so many thing's. I didn't know if a chance to build a resume whilst going to college was something I could turn down if I got the chance. Samantha said even if the pilot wasn't successful it got me in front of the network heads, I could jump to other projects from there.

It meant a pay cheque to give me financial independence, an opportunity to at least start college and see what it's like, and above all from what I had read of the script it seemed like a show I'd like.

"Bren. Hey."

Lost in thought I didn't see Dylan until he called out to me as he came out of the water and said my name again. "Hey. Sorry I wasn't expecting anyone to be down here. No finals this afternoon?"

"No, I have my last tomorrow morning, it's Spanish-"

"No need to study then." He was fluent.

His eyes were worried. "You okay you seemed far away?"

"Yeah I was just thinking, college, future- you know all those meaningless decisions."

He laughed, he knew to me they were anything but meaningless. "Want an ear to listen to the thinking? I have two that you could have."

"No, it's okay. I'm sure you want to get back out into the wave's."

"Not at all, I'd much prefer to talk to you, or not talk. We could just walk the beach if you like." When I don't say anything he takes my silence as agreement, I think that is what it is. I know I didn't want to say no but I couldn't bring myself to say yes either. "If you give me a second I'll go put my board in the car and grab a towel." I nod.

My focus goes to the ocean as I wait, it's something I knew I'd miss living in New York. Not that there wasn't water, but the access to the beach wasn't as easy. The heat I'd also miss, though having seasons would be nice again. Staying here meant the beach, the warmth, but no fall or winter- well not real one's.

My mind is so full that I don't even feel when he is back; I always feel him when he's close. "You sure you don't want to tell me about it? I can promise to listen and not speak."

"No. Honestly, I'm overthinking something. Counting chickens before they hatch, and trying to make decisions when there is nothing certain to base them on." We begin to walk, and I try to move the silence the focus off me. "How did you go in your final's?"

"Good, I think I've managed to lift my GPA nearly back up to junior year normal, as long as the college administrators don't look so closely at semester one I think I should be okay."

"Semester one was that bad?"

"Yeah it was. Though what did I expect when I sledged hammered my life. It's one of the talents I have, destroying everything good and proper till there is nothing left not even my grades; well, actually it might be more accurate to say getting others to do most of the destruction for me. My psychologist actually pointed out the similarities between me forcing Dad to kick me out and me forcing you to kick me out, even pushing Iris away last year. I'm great at wrecking things, making it so people can't stay. My GPA at that is a 4.0." He was saying it with lightness and self mocking, I could ignore it, but the idea he thought I kicked him out. I wanted to understand. I was ready to understand.

"Is that what it felt like to you that I kicked you out, even knowing you were carrying on with-" thankfully he doesn't make me say her name.

"At the time it felt like being rejected again, me still not being worth the energy to keep fighting for. I didn't consider what I had been doing to you, to us, just that I was being left again by you. My Doctor thinks that's the pattern though, subconsciously I want to see what's the limit to love. Iris leaving me as a kid set her limit; putting up with my father was too high a price to keep joint custody of me. Jack, well you know Jack's limits sometime they were reasonable and well defined other times he would shift them, his eradicate behaviour made me unsure of where- well unsure of everything. Anyway my psychologist thinks that subconsciously I test people, see when I'm no longer worth their energy, that I'm convinced that everyone is going to leave anyway. It's subconscious though, at the time I don't register my part- you were right on that phone call." He gently kicks water that is flowing, rising up occasionally around our toes in the wet sand we are walking through, "but the night you ended it I was wearing a red shirt so maybe it's just our red curse and nothing to do with my issues; bad things happen when we wear red."

It's his attempt at humour to lighten the serious conversation we have fallen into. "You mentioned last week I'm still the only person you trust, but if I left you-"

"No. you haven't. The next day we were still talking. Hell even after gutting you in that park, you didn't leave. Jack's death, the funeral, getting Iris. You told Brandon if I needed you, really needed you, that if I was going to lose it you'd be there. You then built supports around me, gave me things of comfort. After your attack, I needed you, I needed to make sure you weren't gone like him. You spoke to me, even when you didn't want to. I've done horrible things, I've hurt you over and over again and you still won't give up on me. I keep thinking we are down to the last thread between us, but then talking to you recently, seeing you… I'm starting to think it's a vein. I think what ties us together is paper thin- is almost transparent it's so thin, but it's powerful it's designed to support life, it can handle the erratic blood pumping extreme's and still not burst. At the end of all this, when I had nothing left- sitting in my room you heard me destroy. Even with you not speaking to me, actually because of that… I hurt you so bad, and then that phone call- you still were trying to convince me my sobriety mattered, you still never hung up. Even being so angry because I realised it was me I had annihilated us. I still knew that I can count on you forever, I knew if I called and needed you you'd come. It's why I haven't had a drink, I knew you'd come then. You are right though, this year I understood finally what family is, it's never leaving never giving up. You are also right to say I've started to manipulate it. We are family, I finally got it. I got my validation that there was no limits for you when it came to me. Unfortunately, I learnt that by showing you you can't count on me at all. That I'm exactly what your father always thought I was. I couldn't own that though… manipulation, Jack would do that- he'd lose his shit I would find a new bike delivered the next day. He didn't apologise he'd manipulate, sometime with threats, emotional blackmail, guilt, or gifts. I didn't at least try the gift, you have too much integrity to fall for a necklace or a European holiday to gloss over my… treatment of you. My Doctor is also working with me on that, I don't want to manipulate you or anyone else."

We walk, a while longer with just the occasional splashing of our feet and the squeak of sand as our feet lift and fall. I process it all. It's a lot, it's him owning it all, validating everything I yelled down that phone line at him for. Being right, it doesn't make it hurt less. It doesn't make me understand what caused him to need to see my limits of love for him. If he asked I would say it was bottomless.

"Baja, the aftermath of that was bad, but I never left. I fought tooth and nail for us, I gave up my family for us. I wanted to reject Paris for us, for you- I only went because you wanted me too. How was that not enough?" What I'm really asking is when did he start doubting that I loved him, when did I become someone who required testing- hadn't we done that enough by then?

"You were unhappy. Brandon made a remark about you cleaning so much because you were unhappy. You wouldn't even let me hold you at night. You ran to me but you didn't want to be there, you didn't want-"

"So it's my fault I laid the seeds that made you question… I mean I had left you before I guess you thought I would again."

"Bren none of this is your fault. I'm layers of messed up from Jack, Iris, the booze… you, your Dad it all just triggered me, I was likely to trigger eventually. I just thought that I was happy I had found you- this overwhelming love, I was going to AA, I had a home, friends. I thought I could forget about the past and live in this perfect world you created for me. When that started to crumble I crumbled. It wasn't you, it was me. I should have gone to therapy as soon as Iris left, before she left. I mean we couldn't live together so the answer becomes she moves back to her island in the Pacific Ocean, not I don't know down the street? I needed them to be far away to live my perfect life with you. I didn't want to face the reality then, but my parents trigger me. Jack triggers me. Maybe if I had faced it then and got help then, maybe Jim wouldn't have been able to trigger me, maybe I wouldn't of thrown it all away like it meant nothing to me- because it meant everything, you meant everything, mean everything."

I ignore that, it's a slippery slope, a conversation I know stops me from moving forward.

"At Prom, you mentioned the red dress I wore to that dinner before Paris that things happened that day." He stops, I turn and look at him.

"You sure you want to get into all this? I mean more than we are now."

"Yeah. I said one day, I guess the universe as Iris would say thinks it should be today. I mean we are surrounded by beaches, why this one at this time." He frowns but nods, I breath to steady myself the frown tells me he knows I'm not going to like what I hear.

"Your dad the whole rejecting me from the family I thought I was a part of, well you know at the time it hurt. That I tried to make it better. You moved in and I could see what it was doing to you, to us. We had connected though, we were okay that afternoon… then they delivered the trust letter. In that meeting your dad told me about Paris. He told me if I didn't get you to go, if I stood in your way that he'd freeze the money, the assets, the house. He'd do it because I was using them to break the law, I was harbouring a minor and committing statutory rape. If I didn't support Paris then he'd lay the charges to cut everything off- he'd force our hand."

I sit, I sit in the wet sand because I don't think my legs can hold me up. I'm stunned!

He kneels down in front of me. "Bren I know it sounds horrible, but I knew it wouldn't work. I couldn't imagine your mum agreed to that, I knew your brother would never accept your dad doing it, I knew Iris wouldn't allow that- I could call her and she would stop it from happening. And above all I knew you would lose your head and rip Jim's off in the process, he wouldn't follow through and risk losing you forever. It wasn't the threat being followed through that triggered me, it was the fact that this good man, this perfect father had resorted to it. I've been talking a lot to my psychologist about me thinking I caused this. Not us, I know I did that- I'm not hiding from that anymore. My Mum who is weird, but is lovely, she cares about karma sending out good energy- a good person leaves me. My Dad he would sing to me, take me to games, swim with me, he was a good dad until he wasn't- was that me? Your perfect dad all of a sudden acting like my dad, like Jack- do I just bring it out of people? Am I so unlovable that I turn people into this? Do I make good people become their worst selves?"

I lift my hand and rub my forehead, I have a splitting headache all of a sudden. It was too fucking much, I can only imagine what it felt like for Dylan at the time. I was feeling crushed by the weight of it, living with it under that- I'd have wanted to run away too. I did run away, when Rick stumbled across me in LA I did run away. I ran away from our relationship that felt too heavy, he ran away because it just wasn't our relationship that was that, but his whole new world we had built, his whole self belief was crumbling.

All this fell on him because of Baja, because I lied and went to Baja. How do you apologise for a stupid teenage decision triggering this?

"When I get home, I'm throwing away everything red I own."

He smiles, "I've already done the same. Don't tell Mum, but I'm getting very superstitious about that colour." He reaches out and takes my hand. "You know this year they have been good, since Jack your parents have been amazing to mum and me. Iris still wants to have words with Jim about it, but I won't let her." He's trying to tell me it's okay, that what my Dad and what I started, that it was all okay.

"Bren, I'm going to three AA meetings a week, I meet with Ben for coffee, I see my psychologist for double sessions twice a week. This wasn't because of what your Dad said, threatened. It was because I tried to pretend that I didn't need to deal with the past, it would have happened eventually- maybe not in the same way. It could have been worse though. We could have been married, you could have been pregnant, we could have had kids. I made you and me and our world my stability, my perfect place. That's a lot of pressure on you, you saw me at the end of sophomore year, that summer- by the camping trip I couldn't keep myself together because I wasn't with you. You deserve more than that. You deserve to not have to question your partner's loyalty, to know you are putting your faith and trust in someone who is going to respect that gift. You deserve not to feel like you are responsible for me, that I'm always one bad day of throwing it all away."

He reaches out with his free hand and places a strand of hair that has fallen on my face behind my ear. "I love you. I want my life with you. But I know I've still got my own shit to work through so nothing like this can happen again. I'm trying really hard though. I'm trying because I want to stop hating myself, and thinking that I suck the goodness out of people."