Brenda looked at herself in the mirror and had a strange smile. A smile she hasn't recognized in a very long time.
Dylan was about to leave rehab and go home. She was just happy to be there at the time even though she didn't know what was going to happen next. The after, at that time didn't matter at all. One of her priorities was to be there for him in his important moments and she felt she couldn't be anywhere else at that time.
Along with Cindy, Valerie and even together with Daniel they had cleaned up Dylan's house. They had done the washing machines (Dylan still had that strange habit of not owning a washing machine), they had thrown away the empty bottles and even the painful ones that Dylan had hidden everywhere. They had opened the windows and let in the air, removed the dust from those lonely days, they had even had fun. They had sorted the mail, paid the bills, put in chromatic order his books that were consumed by Dylan's fingers.
They had bought wood for the fireplace and put it in the back.
Cindy had put some sandwiches and a small cake in the fridge to welcome him.
Brenda felt happy to be a part of it. She didn't think about how and when she would return to London and yet that moment was approaching and Daniel reminded her with his presence every single day. Choose to stay or choose London and the future?
Brenda closed her eyes in front of the mirror. She didn't want to think today. She didn't want to think about it right then.
She heard Brandon take the cordless and dial the number.
She walked up to the door even though she knew what she was about to listen to.
"Donna, it's Brandon, can I talk to Kelly please?"
Donna looked around, Kelly nodded her head. She didn't want to talk to him. Donna tried to convince her, covered the phone with her hand.
"He's been calling for weeks and coming here, why don't you want to talk to him?"
Kelly felt the tears coming down her throat. They were right there.
She kept saying no with her head. No.
Donna took a deep sigh.
"I'm sorry Brandon but she doesn't feel like talking to you."
Everyone knew about the breakup between Brandon and Kelly but no one really knew why and they had blamed it on a moment of Kelly's depression, on her whim, no one knew about his confession and that kiss given to Emily that for Kelly had been a stab in the heart.
She spent her days in bed, her mother gave her dressings. Kelly read most of the time, or slept. She ate almost nothing and refused to see anyone, especially Brandon.
The only one who was allowed to enter her room was Donna trying to convince her to open the curtains and let air in.
Kelly had forced Donna to remove or cover all the mirrors in the house. She was obsessed with her image, that same image that had been her means of filling the voids that had accompanied her entire existence, and Kelly had never noticed that her physical appearance had actually widened the boundaries of that hunger to be accepted and be a part of something.
Donna walked up to Kelly and stroked her blond hair. They were dirty and had lost in shine.
"Do you want me to help you wash your hair? To take a shower?"
Kelly pulled herself up in a sitting position.
"No" she said she didn't want anyone to see the wounds the fire had left on his body.
"Kelly..." sighed Donna.
Kelly looked at her an empty and sad look.
"Today Dylan is leaving the clinic. We have prepared a small welcome party at his house. A surprise. I'm sure everyone would like you to be there too. Above all, Dylan would be happy to see you."
"I don't want to come"
"Sooner or later you'll have to get out of this room. You have to take your life back, why you don't let Brandon come here and take care of you."
Kelly let the tears come out and wet what little was left of her.
"I don't want him to see me like that"
"He came every day for you, and every day I had to say no to him"
Kelly didn't answer.
Donna could not insist any further.
"Do you want some hot tea?" Donna asked her without any other weapons.
Kelly nodded yes. She wanted some hot tea.
"Okay," whispered Donna, "now I'll bring it to you."
As Donna walked out of the room Kelly lay down again with her back to Donna who closed the door and looked at her with a worried look.
XX
Brandon leaned the cordless and when he turned around he saw his sister leaning against the door.
"She doesn't want to talk to you, does she?"
"No," Brandon sighed.
"Well maybe you should give her time."
Brandon looked at Brenda with a stern look and Brenda immediately understood, loosened her arms and walked up to her brother.
"You can't blame Kelly. She is hurt and after what happened to her...the fire, the injuries, does not allow anyone to approach, except her mother and Donna."
"I made a mistake Brenda"
Brenda sighed. The world was full of people making mistakes. She had committed it herself. Kelly. Dylan. Everyone. The question is: what can be done to remedy this.
"Is Emily gone?"
"That same evening, I stopped that kiss and told her what I had to say, that it was just a moment and that that moment was gone"-
"She got It?"
"She got it, I think"
Brenda chuckled "sorry if I tell you but I remind you that Emily was a stalker.."
"She is changed a lot since then."
Brenda stood up "maybe, but you've changed too"
Brandon didn't answer, Brenda could see the sadness in his eyes and it seemed incredible to her that that sadness was dedicated to Kelly Taylor.
Brandon decided that this might be the right time to talk to his sister.
"Kelly told me that you and Valerie have been very hard on her at the Pit and that you don't want me to be with her, that you think I let her take your place in the house."
"Kelly has always been good at sinking her hands into my life"
"Then it's true" Brandon seemed irritated.
"It's true, I just got back and I was angry"
Brandon jumped up almost to reject that ancestral bond he shared with his sister.
'Why?'
'Why?' Brenda asked with a smile that tasted bitter "Do you want to talk now Brandon? Okay, let's talk about it, when it happened what happened that summer between Dylan and Kelly you were here, it was happening before your eyes and you didn't move a finger to put yourself on my side. When Dylan chose Kelly you all accepted the thing as if it were normal, as if nothing special had happened, something you were waiting for to happen at any moment. I could have expected it from others, but not from you, Brandon, not from you. You are my brother."
"What did you want me to do, Brenda? What did you want me to do? That I would break ties with everyone?"
"Yes," she replied decisively and with tears in her eyes, "it's exactly what I expected you to do, they hurt me to death and you didn't have a word for me, you pretended nothing happened exactly like the others did."
Brandon didn't know what to say to her. It had been a long time since that time. Many silences between him and his sister.
"I wanted my brother next to me. To have my back"
"I was next to you," he replied.
"No, that's not true."
Brandon tried to grasp all the thoughts in a moment.
"I didn't know what to do. That idea of competing with Kelly for Dylan was your idea, not mine. Giving all that power to Dylan was your idea not mine and it seemed like the two of you were fine."
"Maybe you should have stopped me"
"Really? Would you have listened to me?"
This time it was Brenda who didn't have the words and dropped on Brandon's bed.
"It was you who asked Dylan to come to our house after his father died, it was you who invited Kelly and Dylan to our house for dinner right after, it was you who invited them here for Thanksgiving, I didn't want to interrupt the process of your thoughts. I didn't know what to do either. None of us knew, and about that summer, that damned summer, the fact that they acted behind your back surprised you as much as it surprised me, I didn't notice."
"What if you had noticed, would you have told me?" Asked Brenda with fiery eyes.
"Without a doubt," he replied.
Brandon seemed to have acquired a new calm. He understood Brenda's anger, an anger they had never openly talked about. In that year he knew how much she was suffering, he could touch It, what he didn't know was how to act, what to do. Probably Brenda was right, she should have had her back, done something, put himself without a shadow of a doubt on her side but the death of Dylan's father had messed everything up again and had done it almost immediately.
Brandon rubbed his eyes with his fingertips. He was mortified and sorry.
"I'm sorry," he said, "I'm sorry I didn't understand."
It was kind of a failure, something Brandon never thought could happen to the two of them.
"My story with Kelly has nothing to do with it, we fell in love, maybe at the wrong time, but we fell in love, and I need my sister."
Brenda felt confused "I needed my brother."
The two stood in front of each other without saying anything else.
"I'm on my way to Dylan's house, he's coming out of rehab. Do you want to come?"
Brenda asked.
Brandon shook his head. He felt the tears sting him. Dylan's Welcome Party, he had almost forgotten he has been busy as he was trying to recover a modicum of relationship with Kelly.
"I don't think he wants to see me, we haven't been on good terms lately."
"Dylan needs all of us," Brenda said.
Something had remained unresolved between the two siblings . That conversation they had just had was just a gash on a much deeper wound they had between them, but at least it was a beginning.
"He wants you to pick him up," Brenda suddenly asked.
'Me?"
XX
Dylan was preparing his bag, carefully putting away the t-shirts and jeans he had accumulated during his stay. Brenda always brought her clean ones, she took care to iron them and bag them carefully. She usually brought him a new book that they could talk about together in the long afternoons. He looked at the walls around him. Dylan knew that that was a new chance he had been given and that if he relapsed again maybe he wouldn't have another one.
Antonia came in at that moment, smiled at him.
"Are you ready?"
Dylan smiled at her very sweetly.
"I'm not sure I'm ready but I guess I have no other choice."
"It's not going to be easy out of here," Dylan replied to conclude.
"Probably not and maybe you're never really ready."
"I hope I don't have to come back."
"I hope I don't have to see your ugly face in here again," Antonia played.
They hadn't had much time together but Antonia had become a constant presence in Dylan's life, at least in the days he had spent in rehab.
Dylan laughed.
"Who's coming to pick you up?"
"Maybe Brenda"
"Mmmhh Brenda, the brunette who came to see you every day?"
Dylan hid a smile and kept putting his things in his bag.
".. you like her a lot."
"I like her a lot more than a lot"
"Is she your girlfriend?" She asked, looking down.
"She was. She was for a long time during high school. Then I made a mistake and lost her."
"I don't think you've lost her," Antonia replied, "she is been here every day."
"Yes, it's true, but she's with another person, she lives in another city, she just came here to make sure I'm okay."
"So now she's going to leave"
"I don't know that, she said she could only stay until the Christmas holidays."
Antonia nodded and continued to keep her eyes on him.
"What?'
"One day I'd like to meet someone who looks at me the way you look at her," Antonia said.
Dylan was struck by those words.
"Is it that obvious?"
"What are you in love with her? It's obvious, but it's a sweet thing"
Dylan shook his head "anyway I told you she has another guy, a good guy, someone who is finally able to give her the happiness she deserves."
"I'm sure, but you deserve happiness too Dylan..."
Antonia left the sentence hanging.
"What do you mean?"
"It seems that you reject happiness, that you settle for the crumbs because you believe that it is all you deserve and instead it is not so, it seems that of happiness when you are close to you do not know what to it..."
"Doctor Antonia, please don't psychoanalyze me," Dylan replied.
"I don't, but I watched you"
"And these are your conclusions?"
"These are, so the advice is to try to see up close what happiness and love is like, my advice is to try to do something different."
'Like what?'
"Like don't let her go," she replied. Antonia sighed then gave Dylan a piece of paper with his phone number written on it.
"If you need to talk, feel free to call me whenever you want, day and night" Antonia smiled and Dylan hugged her tightly. It was nice to have someone to talk to and he and Antonia had clicked immediately.
"Good luck Dylan," she said.
"You too," he replied.
XX
Brandon waited outside the clinic. He felt nervous. He hadn't talked to Dylan in a long time, they hadn't had a good time and the fact that he had asked about him surprised him.
He saw him appear on the stairs. A white t-shirt, a pair of light jeans, eyes alive, a shy smile. Brandon got out of the car, he wasn't really sure whether to hug him or just shake his hand. They had had a really hard time since Dylan returned from Mexico.
Dylan instead had no doubts, opened his arms and greeted Brandon in a sweet hug.
"How are you?"
"I'm better."
He was really better, Dylan's face was relaxed, his eyes were shining.
"I'm glad you agreed to pick me up, I wasn't sure..."
"When Brenda told me you wanted me to pick you up, I was surprised"
"Yes well... we haven't talked much lately, but I've had a lot of time to think about here, I missed you"
"I missed you too"
Brandon and Dylan smiled at each other, that fraternal bond had quickly re-established as if not a single day had passed, as if there had never been friction between them.
"So," Brandon said, clapping his hands, "are you ready to get out of here?"
"I'm very ready."
Brandon and Dylan got in the car.
During the trip, from time to time, Dylan looked at Brandon, he knew the story of the breakup between him and Kelly, Brenda had told him everything, but he wasn't sure he could ask questions, then he looked at the rehabilitation bracelet he still held on his wrist.
"How is Kelly?" He asked him.
He saw Brandon stiffen.
"I don't know"
"Don't you know?"
"Since we broke up she has never wanted to talk to me, not even see me"
"I understand," Dylan replied, "the story of the fire and then Emily."
Brandon turned his face towards him. He wore sunglasses but it was clear that he was suffering.
"I don't know what to do"
"If I know Kelly well enough I think she wants to see you, but she just doesn't know how to do it either."
"Reject my calls..."
"And since when does Brandon Walsh give up?" Dylan asked.
"I made a big mistake"
"Hey" Dylan pulled on his wrist and moved his bracelet on his wrist "I don't judge you, I understand, it happened to me too, but you have to fight for what you love."
"Is that what you're going to do for Brenda?"
"Nice question, now Daniel is with her and the thing I hate the most you know what it is?"
'What?'
"That I like Daniel" Dylan laughed with irony.
Brandon followed the laugh "Hey, since when does Dylan Mckay give up?"
Dylan looked at him with a serene and more serious look.
"I'll take you home," Brandon said, letting Los Angeles slip out of the windows.
XX
"Surprise!" They all came out as soon as Dylan opened the door.
He looked around and didn't even recognize his house. It was clean, tidy. It didn't look like the hovel that had left on the night of the car accident.
Cindy greeted him with a kiss on the cheek. Brenda hugged him tightly under the gaze of Daniel to whom Dylan dedicated a handshake.
They were all there. His family, his friends, his friends who were his family.
Dylan put the bag down and saw the flowers on the table.
'Flowers?'
"An idea of Cindy" Valerie said smiling and looking at David who was a few steps back.
David smiled back at her.
Donna rolled her eyes but then convinced herself to go further. Now he was hanging out with Ray and David was nothing but a small stain at the bottom of her heart that had already suffered too much. She had to and could give himself another chance and that was exactly what she was trying to do.
Ray and Clare were missing. They were not in the circle of invited people. Ray didn't care, Clare didn't either. They knew the group needed their time and to get together.
Andrea went with Hannah and Jessie.
Dylan had never seen the little girl and immediately seemed like a little miracle to him.
Andrea put Hannah in Dylan's arms and he felt insecure but happy. The little girl looked at him with her big eyes and didn't cry.
She seemed to want to say something to him.
He felt overwhelmed by the innocence of that little soul and perceived the mortification for never having seen her before, for being stuck in the dark period and missing many things.
Cindy took out the cake, sandwiches and soft drinks.
This made Dylan smile.
He wasn't really used to family parties, to those little attentions he normally attended as a guest and never as a protagonist.
Dylan tried to make an effort and have a conversation with everyone. Thanking. Receiving words of encouragement. He kept an eye on Brenda moving inside the living room with a sure step, helping her mother in arranging things to eat and cutting the cake. Brenda and Dylan were looking at each other, she wanted to make sure he was okay, that all those people around, those forced conversations weren't too much for Dylan.
Dylan would have liked to be alone with her as in the afternoons in the clinic, those before Daniel arrived, where their world, their way of rebuilding things, their story was closed in a garden, in cooking classes, in the special way they had to dig inside things, to find their root, to cut it in case it was an evil root, to take care of it in case it was a good root.
Dylan had realized that good things should never be touched. Now Daniel was there, watching him holding a hand around Brenda's waist made him suffer, a suffering that perhaps he deserved, for everything he had done to her, for the way he had done it, without the slightest feeling.
Brandon greeted almost immediately, exchanged a nod of understanding with Dylan. Daniel kissed Brenda on the lips, the two exchanged a few words in their ears. She laughed. He gave her a look of understanding. Dylan would have liked to punch him, and take her in his arms. Undress her. Make love to her. There at that moment while the others were in the living room chatting and eating sandwiches.
Only Brenda and Valerie remained, and Dylan hoped Valerie would leave soon.
However, she didn't move.
"We have to show you something," Brenda said, exchanging a look with Valerie.
Brenda walked up to the desk drawer and pulled out a letter.
"It's Christine's"
Christine's name made Dylan widen his eyes.
"She found Erika, Kevin and Suzanne," Valerie told him.
Dylan hurried to open the letter, there was an address of Cabos san Lucas in Mexico, there were the new names under which Kevin and Suzanne were hiding.
There was the phone number of a certain Jones, which could be useful to Dylan. There were good wishes for Dylan from Christine that soon he could find his peace and his way.
XX
Brandon parked his car in the back of the house. The lights in Kelly's room were off. Donna had given him her key but he didn't want to scare her.
He opened and moved slowly into the dark rooms. Kelly's room was closed.
He knocked.
"Go away Donna, I don't need anything, I just want to rest"
"Kelly, it's me," Brandon said.
Moments of silence followed.
Kelly pulled herself out of bed, she didn't even ask how he got in, she was glad he was behind that door. In a small gesture she regretted having dirty hair and her room smelled of closed air and sadness.
"Please Kelly, I just want to be able to talk to you"
"Go away, I don't want to talk to you and I don't want to... I don't want you to see me like that."
"Kelly it's me, it's Brandon, please..."
Kelly got up and in small steps stood behind the door, touched the wood with her hand, almost to make contact with him.
"We're not together anymore, you don't owe me anything Brandon" tears touched the top of her throat and her voice was broken.
"I owe you everything instead, let me in Kelly, if you don't want to be with me, if you're mad at me, I understand, but the two of us are a great team, remember? And we are friends, even before lovers, at least allow me that."
Kelly didn't answer, she put a hand on the handle undecided whether to open it or not.
She knew he was there, behind that door.
Brandon leaned his forehead on the door, closed his eyes and opened his mouth " I've been becoming the enemy of myself since you left me. Without you, it's not the same anymore. It will never be the same for me again."
Dylan is ready to leave for Mexico, but who will he take with him? Who could his allies be?
Kelly is in trouble, she would like to open that door but the idea of abandonment hits her hard too. Would you Like Brandon and Kelly be back together?
Will they be able to deal with their ghosts?
And Antonia? Do you want a story between Dylan and Antonia?