Authors Note: I own nothing. No ownership rights to Beverly Hills 90210.
Chapter Three: Bottom
She left. I leaned forward and put my head in my hands and let the tears run down. What had I done? I let her leave. She wanted me forever, us forever, wanted the black bathing suit and me holding our son on that board. Wanted mornings in bed waking up next to each other, nights entwined together falling asleep in the others arms. She wanted to be Mrs McKay publicly, legally, forever but I had relegated her that title now only in my mind and in my heart. What had I done?
Looking at the singles that covered the table some were angry, upset, had attempts of forgiveness, but each had an underlying thread. It wasn't a normal love, it was a great epic one. Once in a lifetime and I had let it walk out the door, shoved it out. My Doctor had said don't make any rash choices and what had I done pushed my soulmate out the fucking door in fear. Fear that I would be a liability to her, a fucking addict with a womanising past. Fear that I'd be chewed up and spat out in her world. Be the fuckwit forever that cheated on her with her best friend. I'd replace Jim's view of not being good enough for millions and millions of peoples views that she had settled for a lying, addict, cheater.
How long before she'd have started believing them to? Before she'd resent my touch? Maybe she could have held off until the women before her had started coming forward, looking for their fifteen minutes of fame or a quick payday. I might not kiss and tell but that wasn't true of the women I had slept with. Would she have looked at me different when she found out how many? How all of them had never received even a call the day after? Would my touch be comforting to her after that when she knew how I didn't even recall some of them being too drunk or high? She had been spared the night of The Pit and this afternoon I had spared her again. Pushed her away, helping her dodge the bullet that was me.
It should bring me comfort, it fucking hurt like hell. The unease of it stirring my stomach making bile rise up my throat. I had let her go. Let her find someone better than me, someone less covered in filth. Someone she wouldn't be embarrassed by. A person who could walk next to her on red carpets, who could hold her hand while waiting for an award announcement, someone who she could be proud to call her husband, the father of her children. Shit. They would touch her, touch her in places only I had, see her in ways only allowed to me, hear her, smell her, taste… I ran then into the bathroom removing every bit of food till only bile was being expunged. I had sent her away to allow someone else to know her, know what had only been mine. My salvation, my heaven, my home. I vomited again.
Iris arrived a few hours later and found me in the bathroom cowering by the wall. She knew. She didn't say anything just helped me to Bren's and my room. My room now. She had been used to this from the night terrors, taking care of me. She tucked me in like she had when I was six, she looked sad. She lost a daughter today, Jack lost one- he would be mad. When I had dropped him off after Christmas he asked me to take care of her that she was special, he reminded me to not fuck it up. Love like that doesn't come along often, very few people get to experience it like this, all consuming. He told me to not fight the rip that's formed by our two currents, that while scary eventually it actually pushes you to safety. Those who drown or need rescuing try and swim against it they can't get out and tire. I guess this is what he meant. This feeling right here this drowning.
The next week is passed in numbness. I attend AA with Ray and Paul, I don't speak in the meeting or much to them. I go to school and focus on my classes, between AP English and AP Chemistry I'm kept busy during the day. My Doctor keeps me on daily sessions, worried that I had blown up my life and support system. I stop going to the Walsh House for dinner. Iris is worried but I'm eating, sleeping, going to my sessions, meetings, studying, and reading. I listen to her only when I'm home alone or driving. On Saturday Iris leaves for a temporary trip to Hawaii. She hopes only for a few days, she asks me to go at least have one meal with Jim and Cindy while she is gone. I promise to try. I make it as far as their curb on Tuesday night, when I begin picturing sitting in the same spot with Bren after our first kiss saying goodnight to her, I leave it's too much.
On the Wednesday of the second week I bump into her at school. It's the best fifteen minutes, my soul feels calm and whole. She'll be on campus for two more day's but I miss her on Thursday and only see her move to her car quickly on Friday. Was she avoiding me? As she drives out of the carpark I'm hit with a new level of loneliness I don't know when I'll see her again. Would she be alone the next time? Would she try dating? We technically hadn't been together for over four months, maybe she would move on soon. I leave school blowing off double AP English. I get home and cancel my Friday double session. It had been two weeks since I had blown up my life.
I listen to her sing, look at our pictures, recall some of our memories. Two hours in I open her draw I just want to smell her. Four hours in I'm back thinking of her new guy, would she love him more? Prefer his touch? Would he let me stay in her life, be her friend, family? Could I do that? When I start picturing her with blonde headed children, and Christmas's spent watching her be a beautiful mother and a loving wife to another, of someone sharing more with her knowing her better. They'd see her body stretch in growth of their child, the moments they would have shared to get her pregnant, being intimate in a way that we had never been with no barriers.
As the bile rises I decide on a different option, and head to the store. I'm back in the house within twenty minutes, the bottle of scotch positioned on the coffee table with my eyes glued to it. What's the point in not doing it I've blown up my life? I stare. It was going to happen eventually, how many events could I sit through of her having someone else touch her, and even if I didn't see it with my eyes in person eventually I'd see the photographs splashed across magazines or on news channel. I stare imagining them all. The pictures, the headlines, I would be faced with them at the grocery store, newspaper stands, turning on the tv, for the rest of my life I would bare witness to someone else touching, loving, being loved by my wife. I stare. I'd turn on the radio hear her sing of how much she loves him. He would get her songs, her talent, her angelic voice. I spend the night staring at it.
Iris rings on Saturday morning, letting me know she is extending out her trip again. The builder is set to start at the end of the week and the repairs should take six days at most. She is worried about me. My tone is indifferent even to my own ears, I'm short with her. She asks again for me to go for dinner at the Walsh's encouraging me to spend time with family. I laugh to myself how long will that title last before Jim finally gets someone good enough for his daughter, till Brandon gets a new brother, till Cindy will be mothering someone else? I give her a maybe just so she stops nagging. When she asks about my session yesterday rather than answer I claim I need to run people are waiting on me, I quickly say my goodbyes. I don't, I have no one to see. I barely speak to the gang even in passing. The guy's have reached out a lot but they are too close to her, seeing them is too hard, apart from AA meetings I have taken to declining everything. My family are her's until I have to surrender that title or I am pushed out by the next guy.
The bottle still stares at me from the table. It's Saturday morning and I have no one, nothing but a house of memories, regrets and pain, and a bottle calling to me promising to take it all away. I can't stay here I'll go crazy. I pack a bag and my surfboard, I'm in Baja just after lunch. Rosalita only has one room available it's her best the most expensive, it's the room I shared with Brenda. The universe wants me to live in that torture, be unable to escape it. I enter it and am hit with the sound of her laughter, her joy of finally waking up in the arms of the other. She had giggled when I had asked her if she slept well. She had rolled on top of me and hovered above, "Dylan are we calling that sleep?" She had given me an amused look. "They were more like cat naps in between wake up calls." I had inverted our positions then asking if it was a complaint. Her giggle and flirtatious response of, "Oh no complaints here, you can wake me that way anytime you want especially the second time I could handle that being my alarm forever." It led me to pounce again, and reenact that alarm.
I look at the bed and see her hair splayed out on the pillows. I move to the armchair in the corner and sit. I play each moment we shared there each kiss, giggle, touch, cry, taste, I replay our conversation of me making plans to buy something down here of our own. We could wake to the sound of the water, have our kids learn Spanish, spend months down here at a time. My mind tries to get me to remember that I pushed that away but I refuse to hear it. Instead I spend the afternoon in that chair locked in my memories of her here with me. I wonder if I could live my life there.
Rosalita eventually demands that I go down to the cantina for dinner, she is worried about me. I must look bad. Within minutes a woman is approaching me asking me to dance. I decline. She tries to start a conversation, I'm not interested. Eventually when she doesn't get the hint I advise her I'm taken. She walks away. The second woman an hour later though is not deterred by the taken comment and I eventually have to advise her I'm married before she leaves. In her bitterness of being rejected she calls me out for my lack of wedding ring, and asserts if I love my wife so much maybe I shouldn't remove it. As I make my way back to my room I consider it. I have no interest in finding anyone else and even if I eventually decide to physically move on, though the idea repulses me, she will always be my wife. The vow I made two weeks ago to myself stands, so maybe a symbolic representation of that will make me feel more connected to her.
On entering our room I think about what that could look like. I know what I want that to be but a ring there would raise too many questions, a pinkie ring well isn't me, an earring would be to casual, a cuff could work, a ring on another finger is a possibility, a tattoo like Paul had spent the month of January convincing me to do is an option but I'd want her input on something like that. As I get ready for bed the options play in my mind, for the first time since seeing her drive away yesterday I feel a little more settled, I have a focus.
Waking up in that bed I keep my eyes closed I can almost feel her there next to me. I eventually get up and surf before heading to the Main Street of town to shop for my item. I make it to the second store before I see her public name plastered on a magazine cover. It's another article about who she is rumoured to be dating. I purchase a copy of each magazine that indicate that there is an article about her and take them to our room to read through. My shopping excursion is derailed in my search of any truth to the headlines. I read each article whether in Spanish or English there is no honesty in them, nothing that is about my wife. When my mind pushes the thought again that this is my fault that I have to read magazines to find out about her, I have no resistance. Sitting in that chair I spend the afternoon going through how I'm not good enough, and staring at each article imagining what they'll look like covered in truth. Reading about her, knowing her life only from the words of reporters and pictures of a paparazzi. Rosalita is unable to convince me to go downstairs for dinner so she sends up food.
Monday I try again and make it for a surf, as I'm walking back to the hotel I hear a bunch of local teenagers listening to music her song with David comes on the one she offered to not release for me. As I get lost in the memory of holding her in my arms in Vegas I hear the teenagers start discussing if she is hot or not. Discussing whether that's the reason she hasn't shown a picture of who she is. One makes a comment that she can't be that hot if she was cheated on- I curl my hand into a fist. Another says her voice is too sexy to not be hot, when he begins describing the size of her assets in his imagination I leave quickly before I do something that I'll regret. I spend the rest of the day in a mix of internal rants. Angry at myself for leaving her alone to face that, having the world judge her, questioning what was wrong with her for my fucking failures. I then switch to being angry at them even thinking to consider my wife in that way like she was a piece of meat and not a talented musician. Rosalita sends my meal up again that night.
On Tuesday I head back, Baja having failed in giving me even an ounce of lasting comfort. My answering machine in full. Paul wanting to know why I wasn't at our Sunday night meeting. Ben wanting to know if I was okay. Ray asking if I wanted to get together for a meal. Iris asking where I was. My Doctors receptionist asking if I'm still unwell from Friday as I'm twenty minutes late for my Monday appointment. Cindy wanting me to come for dinner. The school concerned about my attendance skipping out on Friday, missing Monday and now Tuesday being away again- Mrs T wants a meeting. My Father had called sometime today to let me know he got early release and that he's going to be with friends for a few days but will be in touch soon. He leaves no number or indication of where he is or any concrete date of when I can hear from him again, so much for our Christmas of us reconnecting- it's all another game. I served my purpose now I'm useless to him again. Jim is the last message checking in, he heard about Jack wanted to know if either of us needed anything. He hated my Father but in that twenty-four hour's he grew to accept his place in my life and his daughter's, and found some common ground. If I call him or Cindy now I'll reconfirm everything they suspected from the start- The McKay's are full of shit and not worth their time.
I attend my session that afternoon but it's not to discuss the bottle on my table, the self hate running through my head or the regrets I have for letting my wife go, or even that I'm clinging onto her in that way giving her a title I pushed her to have with someone else. No I simply voice how shit my Father is, how gullible I am to have believed him and how I let him sucker everyone else in. She tries to raise other issues, where have I been, who have I been seeing, my AA Meeting but I'm back to talking around truths I don't want to address, using my well honed addiction skills. She see's through me and reminds me before I leave that her phone service is available twenty-four hour's a day if I say it's an emergency she'll phone me straight away.
On Wednesday I go to school and stop by Mrs T's. She's heard about my Father and assumes that was the reason for my absence's- I don't correct her. She reminds me the AP classes require a commitment to stay in them and keep them on my transcripts. I let her know I'll be caught up by the end of the week. English is easy I've read the book I just need to write the paper, I begin in my study and continue throughout lunch. Chemistry is harder I have missed a practical, the only time it can be run again is during my double session on Friday. I agree and cancel Friday when I arrive at my Doctor's office and on a whim cancel Thursday claiming an afternoon school project commitment.
When I leave her office I see the Daily Variety paper on the news stand and pick it up Brenda's tour dates are officially announced. She'll be gone the whole of the summer. I get home and pour over the details, it's a stadium tour massive venues across four continents. My anxiety picks up, this means big crowds, reporters, paparazzi, massive fame, fans, crazy stalker fans- I open the bottle and just smell it. My dreams that night are of her in massive crowds surrounded, smothered, chased; they don't wake me but I awaken the next morning anxious. It's a feeling that sticks around the rest of the week. On Saturday morning Iris calls again she's worried and asks if she should cut her trip short. They started work on her place the day before and it won't be finished till Wednesday. She has booked her flight for Thursday. I tell her I'm fine I've just had a busy week. She asks if I'm taking care of myself eating- I don't remember the last proper meal I have eaten. Wait- Baja Monday, it's been nothing but microwaved burritos ever since. Bren would be angry. I convince Iris I'm fine by talking her through my latest English paper, it's a great distraction technique. Deflect.
Getting off the phone I look around, Brenda's home looks like shit. She'd be angry if she knew I was living like this putting her hard work to shame. I spend the day putting it back together. It's not at her level of clean, but I've returned everything to it's proper place, dusted and vacuumed. Once finished I look around and wonder what else to do. I move through the rooms looking for another distraction. I find myself in our room and on instinct open her draw. I lift out her pyjamas and smell them. Her smell is fading it's almost gone. I move to our bed and look at the prints on the wall and imagine her in a black bathing suit nervously watching me and our son. I live happily in that moment until paparazzi invade my daydream, screaming out Raven's name, coming at her and our son. I'm powerless to stop them. I smell the bottle again to calm down. It weirdly soothes me and makes me more anxious for it's salvation.
On Sunday I attempt to find some peace in surfing but as I leave the beach I begin to see the colour red in all the shop windows. I quickly realise why, it's February fourteenth, Valentine's Day. I'm assaulted with memories of the previous year and need to pull over the car in fear I'll crash. Us giving blood together, the play, her joy, excitement and frustration as she tried to guess the nights events. On instinct I start the car and move to the closest florist to order roses for her. Friends, family, can do that. When they ask me the delivery address I stumble, I don't know. I don't know where she lives or her phone number. I don't know anything. I pay for the flowers and take them saying I've changed my mind I'll give them to her myself. I rush home.
The flowers haunt me sitting on the dining table bought for a wife that doesn't exist. One I kicked away. I look around our home. She's no longer here, her smell is gone. She hasn't stayed here in over seven weeks. Her essences is gone. It's taken me this long to realise I don't know where she is, where she lives, where her Fort Knox is located. I don't have her number, my Doctor does, my Mother, her parents, the guy's but me the man who has sworn to love her for eternity doesn't. For weeks I've been calling her my wife in my head but I have no claim to that I can't even claim to know where she is, is she in the country? Last year I took her to see Love Letters, a story of great love shared through letter's of two people never being able to be together. I can't even claim that. I wouldn't know where to send a letter.
I'm a fucking idiot- I give up. I shred the flowers and throw them in the trash. I go back into my house and open the fucking bottle. I wake or best to say I come to sometime around two am. After vomiting what's left of the bottle in my system I look around my house. It's not a home. I have nothing here no family I've pushed away everyone, and I've had my first drink, first fucking bottle, broken the promise I made to her.
I laugh I didn't need the fame, public life to make me fall off the fucking wagon I just needed to push her away, take her out of my grasp.
I think over everything that has happened since I found out, I go through all my thoughts. Is this going to be my life now? Drinking, daydreaming, living in the past, watching her have our plans with someone else, become bitter, alienate everyone from my life because I'm too fucking scared. I want more than this.
My Doctor is right, she is available twenty-four seven. On a phone call at three am in the morning I finally tell her everything, by six am she meets me at the hospital and I'm checked in under her care for detox.
The whole way there, throughout checkin and as I enter my room I repeat the same mantra. I'm Dylan Michael McKay, I deserve more than this, I'm capable of more than this.