London
90s
Brenda unlocked the door to her apartment and left her suitcase in the living room.
She threw her heels in unpted order and sank onto the couch.
Daniel followed her a short distance away.
"I'm so tired"she said
Daniel smiled "Do you want me to make you a tea?"
"It would be great Mr. Daniel"
Daniel slipped into the kitchen and put the kettle on the fire.
"It was a fantastic experience," he said while he was still in the kitchen.
"Absolutely extraordinary," Brenda confirmed.
"I've heard some rumors that will call you back"
Brenda pulled herself up in a sitting position.
'Really?'
Daniel nodded as he threaded the tea bag for the infusion "really."
Daniel walked out of the kitchen with both cups in his hand handing one to Brenda.
"And I'm very happy for you"
"Thank you," she replied, taking the cup in her hands.
Daniel sat next to her sighing.
"Tomorrow is Clara and my brother's wedding day"
Brenda looked at him with eyes that expressed understanding and tenderness, she knew that road very well, she had walked it too. She stroked his hair "I'm sorry".
"I also thought I'd go tomorrow but the truth is, I'm not sure I can resist, that it's too much for me"
"Far from the eyes, far from the heart," Brenda whispered.
Daniel smiled ironically "you don't believe it either"
Brenda and Daniel smiled.
After that incident in which they had ended up in bed together in Barcelona they had prevented it from happening again, they had managed to establish a new relationship, different, trying to curb the sexual attraction that undoubtedly existed between the two of them but it was nothing more than sexual attraction and a friendship that became deep to the exclusion of what Daniel could not say to Brenda, about Dylan, about how Daniel had spoken to Roy Randolph.
" What are you thinking?" Brenda asked him.
Daniel shook his head "nothing, I have to go, if you want I'll see you tonight at dinner with the others" he gave her a kiss on the cheek.
Brenda smiled and walked him to the door.
When Daniel came out she took the cordless.
After two rings Brandon's voice emerged from the other side of the ocean.
"How are you big brother?" Brenda asked.
"Finally you remembered me"
"You know I've been around all this time"
"And mom told me it went very well too"
" how are things going at the Boston Globe to you?"
"Ehh... not so good, I missed the opportunity to get a job after graduation"
"Are you? I'm sorry"
"Yes me too, things that happen" Brandon would have liked to tell her how he jumped on Susan so as not to think of a certain blonde they both knew, and that it was precisely that that cost him the job. A flaw of naivety that Brandon had promised himself never to repeat again, never again relationships with co-workers.
"Is Susan get the job?"
"No, neither were she, the reports delivered were not considered good by the boss, neither" selfishly this made Brandon smile. Susan had given him a copy of his report, but Brandon had decided not to deliver it, it would be useless, he would have to explain why he was delivering two pieces, maybe he could explain it, but his sense of discipline had prevented him from doing so."
"I'm sure you'll find other opportunities"
"Yes, me too," Brandon said without really believing it, "however, my period here is over, I'm packing my two things and I'm going back to Los Angeles after tomorrow, before the boss asked me for a last interview"
"Maybe she wants to give you another chance..."
"No, I don't think, Nicole is a tough girl, she doesn't give second chances to anyone"
"What about Susan?"
"What do you mean?"
"What are you going to do with Susan?"
"Things are over with Susan"
"You won't be frightened by the distance"
"I get scared of dishonesty"
Brenda didn't quite understand what Brandon was referring to, after all she didn't know the whole story "do you want to talk about it?"
"Better not, I want to talk about you"
Brenda nodded "the tour was wonderful, I saw amazing cities, and I did nothing but get on stage, attend presentations, meet great people and then pick up the next plane, an incredible thing, light years away from the world of Beverly Hills"
"Does that mean you won't be back?"
"And why should I come back," Brenda asked, "for Dylan? For what? What's there for me there"
"There's your family, there's me"
"C'on, you know well that the two of us don't need promises" Brenda took a few moments and then asked Brandon what she didn't really want to ask "about Dylan, did you hear from him?"
Brandon closed his eyes for a moment and smiled, he knew that his sister would not resist "no, I'm sorry, I've been in Boston and I haven't heard from anyone, apart from Steve, but it seems that he's not in town, that immediately after your departure he left" Brandon would have liked to add that from the news he had it seems that Dylan had left with Antonia but he preferred to spared these details to his sister, they would only cause pain.
"Valerie hasn't heard from him either, the usual Dylan, he disappears then reappears, then disappears again..." Brenda was trying to fight the sadness that Dylan's name alone caused her so she decided to change the subject "Steve instead what news do you have? How is the summer going?"
Brandon took a few moments for himself then told his sister about the hell Kelly had ended up in, about the New York apartment where she lived with Colin, about cocaine, everything that had happened that weekend with Steve.
"I can't believe Kelly ended up in such an abyss, considered everything her mother went through"
Brandon sighed "I wish I could do something but she doesn't want to talk to me, and how to blame her after the things I told her..."
"And when was this a reason for you to stop?"
Brandon sighed again "You're right, I think I'll be back to Los Angeles" he said "I want to tidy up the ideas and see if Steve, Donna and Clare have any news, we could involve Jackie too, I can't give up this way"
Brenda smiled, a smile that obviously Brandon couldn't see. For a few moments she was caught by the memory of the carefree days with Kelly, when they were friends, when Dylan did not exist among them, when Brandon was not among them either. Who knows if things could ever have gone back to the way they were before. Perhaps, Brenda thought, he could have called her, passed for the umpteenth time over whatever she did and said and tried to reach out to her. She Wind ere d if Kelly ever thought of the two of them as friends, what they had lost on the way.
XX
Los Angeles.
90s
Valerie was staring at her Gin . She saw the ice melt slowly as David's infinite time with Ginger was slowly melting. David and Ginger were together. They were together because Valerie had asked David to help her, to spend time with David as Ginger had requested, fuck him as he was fucking Valerie. She had no choice, if Ginger had told about what had happened with Ray, the group wouldn't have forgiven her, just now that they were beginning to accept her, and she didn't have enough money to pay for Ginger's claims.
David had protested, he didn't understand, he had asked for an explanation, in the end for some reason one day he hadn't asked her any more questions and he accepted.
The two had met somewhere, Valerie didn't even want to know, she was just waiting for that anguish to end before she finished her third Gin .
XX
Dylan looked at Jamie with a lost look, day after day he had discovered the truth that the spirits wanted him to know and had fallen in love with Brenda even in that past life, Dylan thought he could fall in love with her in every life. Death scared him, he had seen it in the face many times, with his father, with the accident. Death had always made him feel terribly lonely.
"Maybe because when you had the accident, because when your father died... she wasn't there," Jamie said.
Dylan looked at him and realized at that moment how much that was a truth.
"Yes, maybe that's how it is," he said.
Jemie never smiled, his face was hollowed out by the wisdom and rites of his people.
"Are you ready?" He told him.
Dylan sighed deeply "ready"
Jamie began his singing, light.
Pearl Harbour
Night between December 7 and 8, 1941
Dylan could watch Brenda stand next to him, every part of his body hurt him but somehow her presence gave him relief. They had sent a phonogram, the other battleships in the Pacific were approaching. He only had to hold on a little longer and he had to do it for Brenda and their baby. This was not the way he had imagined that she would tell him, but war is war, and he knew it when he heard the planes coming and recognized that they were not American planes. He knew it when he saw the bombs dropped and the Japanese planes crash. He shouted with all his might. He heard the laments of the guys closed by the water pressure in the cabins, tried to free them, to one he could only shake hands to tell him that he was not alone. He was glad he stayed there until the last, until that soldier left the grip overwhelmed by the water.
For other soldiers he had had the necessary strength to free them, he wandered on the ship trying to get as much out of it as possible, but then that plane arrived and crashed and the flames enveloped him. He had to throw himself into the water, someone grabbed him and pulled him out, he couldn't remember his face, he couldn't see him well, Who he was. He just wanted to go back to her, he wanted to go back to Brenda and tell her that everything was fine, that life had not turned its back on them, that they would have all those days that they always fantasize about the night, together, that it could not be the same destiny that had made them meet for fun and fortunately, the same destiny that would separate them.tincgg
Every two hours Brenda would put the cream on him, carefully inspect his every wound, but the drips began to run out and he needed other care.
Brenda had had a hysterical crisis when she learned that the first rescue ships would not arrive before the next morning, she kept saying that there was no time, she would be willing to take him in weight and take him away if necessary but they were in the middle of the Pacific, with few means and the wounded were thousands, the dead were thousands, young lives, a canceled generation.
Dylan looked at her by his side, his eyes wide open in the night, he couldn't speak and yet he wanted to tell her so many things. He looked behind Brenda's back, a woman was looking at him, a beautiful woman with a serene face.
Mum ... Dylan thought, his mother was there, she smiled at him, she was as beautiful as he remembered her, his mother Nicole had always been beautiful.
"Dylan," his mother replied. The voice was the same, it hadn't changed at all "It's okay Dylan"
"I'm about to have a baby," he said.
"I know, I'm very happy"
Between the two there was no real exchange of words it was their minds that could talk to each other without opening their lips.
"It's almost time to go" she said "but you don't have to be afraid, because I'm here with you"
Dylan understood, a tear fell on his face "Did Brandon come here with you? Didn't he come to pick me up?"
The mother smiled in a very sweet way "Brandon is not dead, he is alive."
Dylan's heart exploded with joy, his brother was alive, his body had not disappeared like a grain of sand but that same joy became painful, he would never see him again, Dylan knew it.
"I know you're scared," said his mother, "that's why I'm here"
"And what will happen to her and my baby?"
"She will come into the world and she will be a wonderful mother and will love her as she loves you, with all of herself"
" And I won't be able to see them?"
"You will be able to see them, as I have always protected you, your brother and even your father"
"So save me mom, don't make me die"
"I can't do this my love, I can't decide what has already been decided"
"I don't want to leave her"
"You won't leave her"
"But I'm going to die"
"Your body is going to die but your spirit will survive, love will survive, the only thing that can stop death is love."
A few seconds passed. Seconds when Dylan began to feel the pain of his body loosen.
"I was so happy, Mom, you know that?"
"I know and that happiness will come back again, loves wander, they find each other, they are always given a chance"
"You mean I'm going to meet her again?"
"If your love is pure, you will meet her again, you will meet me, your brother, your father, all those who in this life have loved you and have been reciprocated by love on your part, life is a circle, a continuous cycle, don't be sad, you will have a beautiful daughter"
"Is she a little girl?"
His mother nodded.
"A wonderful little girl"
"I'm glad," Dylan said.
"Your brother and your father will help her, she's not alone."
Dylan felt the tears rise again, it was hard to leave, but it could only be his decision.
"What if they are going to need me?"
"You will be there"
"But Brenda doesn't know.."
"She will know, such deep loves know everything"
Dylan looked at Brenda who had fallen asleep exhausted holding his hand, closed her eyes.
"Are you ready Dylan?"
Dylan nodded and when he reopened his eyes all the wounds had healed and he found himself next to his mother.
He took the palm of Brenda's hand and wrote with his finger "I will love you forever" then kissed her on the forehead and Brenda had a small gasp.
"I'm ready," he replied.
Boston.
90s
Nicole Drummond was waiting for Brandon in her office. Susan came out just as Brandon entered, there was a cold, mute look between them. Brandon saw her approach the desk and pick up her things.
He sighed and walked in.
"Walsh sit down"
Brandon sat in front of her.
Nicole took Brandon's report "I have to say I expected a lot more"
Brandon was aware of this.
"Honestly this piece doesn't live up to what you've done for us during this time"
Brandon could have explained what had happened but he let it go, his pride and the little bit of love he felt for Susan prevented him from doing so.
"...Because you have talent Walsh, I hope you know that"
Brandon gave a half smile, Nicole Drummond was not a compliment person.
She was watching him.
"I did my best," Brandon replied and by "I did my best" he meant that in a few hours he had tried to put a piece back together that had taken twenty days.
"No, I don't think so," Nicole replied.
She got up and went to the window "I'm sure that as soon as you graduate you will have other possibilities, maybe you can also send your CV here if you want, and you will certainly have all my attention but I can't give you the place, because I need people who are ready, who know how to respond to the pressure of the job, and maybe you are not ready yet".
"I understand that," Brandon said.
"You still have two years to prepare, what I mean is don't give up Brandon, don't let go of this dream because you can make it"
Brandon smiled.
Brandon looked at Nicole from behind and then looked at the photographs hanging on her wall. Nicole had a family, two boys already grown up, probably a photo while they were graduating from Yale, there was a photo with an elderly woman holding Nicole tightly, maybe her mother, there was her husband and she in an elegant black dress. Then his attention shifted to an old black and white photograph, two young soldiers in front of a plane, perhaps World War II.
"It's my father and his brother," said Nicole who had followed Brandon's gaze.
"Were they pilots?"
"Yes," she replied.
"This photo was taken in England, before the United States entered the war, they both went in support of the Royal air Force"
Brandon listened silently, looked at that photo, those two boys had something familiar even though they were not familiar, they were young, they were smiling.
"And they came back?"
"My uncle crashed on the plane near Rouen, but survived, was hidden by a French family for months and then managed to embark for Britain and then return home, my father returned to the United States believing that he was dead and then was sent to Pearl Harbor"
The name Pearl Harbour turned Brandon's eyes to Nicole.
"He died on the day of the attack, the same day, after saving dozens of soldiers, that is the cross of honor they conferred on him"
Nicole pointed to the cross hanging proudly next to the photograph of the two brothers "I never met him, my mother had just known that she was waiting for me when he died"
"I'm sorry"
Nicole nodded "I've never met him but I always felt like I knew him, my mother talked about him all my life, think the day my father died my uncle was going back to the United States. He never had a chance to see him again"
"Is this your mother?" Brandon said pointing to the photograph with the elderly person.
"An extraordinary woman," she said, "after the war my uncle and grandfather took her with them and help her raise me, I still had an extraordinary childhood"
"She never remarried?"
"She couldn't" replied Nicole "She couldn't love any other man who wasn't my father and she did the only possible thing, she took care of the only thing he had done in time to leave her, me, I bear my grandmother's name, I didn't know her either, my father's mother died before the war overwhelmed this world again" Nicole looked at him "do you have siblings?"
"A sister"
"And do you love her?"
"Yes, we love each other"
"I'm happy, family is important, love is important, I was lucky, I had two wonderful children and a husband who loves me like the first day, because my mother taught me this, don't accept anything that is less than a person who loves you every single day, people must be told that we love them, because we never know how much time we have available, my father and my uncle are the testimony of this, a lesson that I learned well"
"Your uncle?"
"In the period he had stayed in France, he had fallen in love with a woman, the woman who had taken care of him during all that time, was a married woman" Nicole smiled "but he really loved her and returned to France after the war, he did not find her, the Germans had taken and shot random people to avenge the death of some soldiers killed in an attack, she was one of those people, and he never loved anyone else in the way he had loved her, romantic stories from other times, he was a journalist for years, he is the one who taught me everything I know."
Nicole took a break.
"None of the people you see in these photos are still in the world," Nicole said, "but what I've been taught survives every day and is part of who I am, including my father"
Nicole looked at Brandon "family is the most important thing in the world, the one you find yourself by destiny and the one you choose"
Brandon nodded.
Nicole sighed "now I have to go, my husband and I are planning a romantic dinner"
Brandon got up and shook her hand "never forget that you have talent Brandon, you just have to learn to become an opportunist too otherwise in this world it's hard to survive" she told him, Brandon understood that she knew, that Susan had probably confessed everything to her and that interview was her chance to take the place at the Boston Globe by delivering the original report. A chance he hadn't grasped.
Brandon nodded "thank you" he replied and then walked out of the room. His phone ringed, Brandon picked it up and didn't pay attention to the New York area code.
"Mr. Walsh?" Said the male voice.
'Who's talking?'
"I'm Dr. Johnson from Mount Sinai Hospital, you're Miss Kelly Taylor's emergency number"
Brandon felt his heart tear itself apart.
"We wanted to inform you that Miss Taylor is hospitalized here for an overdose, you should come or provide us with other family emergency numbers"
Brandon had his eyes wide open. He ran out of the Boston Globe. Everything that belonged to that summer remained on his desk.
XX
Jamie watched Dylan cry as he could hear the heartbreaking Brenda screams that the spirits showed Dylan, sticking them in his ribs.
"Is this," said Dylan, "this is the scene I had seen that night at the lake, I believed that I would hurt Brenda again, that I would hurt her and instead it was not a scene that belonged to this era, to this world, now I understand," Dylan said again with his eyes closed.
Brenda was held back by the other nurses as the pain bent her and made her very small. Dylan's disfigured body lay in bed, soft lifeless, he was gone in the night, silently, as she shook his hand.
From that moment on, Dylan couldn't see anything anymore.
'Why?' Dylan asked.
"Because you die in that life," Jamie replied.
"And what happened to her? What about my brother? What about my daughter?"
"I'm sorry," Jamie replied, "you can only know what was contemporary with you, not what survived you."
"But, what life did she have? Was she happy?"
Jamie shook his head, there were no answers, Dylan could have looked for these people, known where they were, what life they had, but it would take him years.
"you can live the opportunity you have been given now and stop throwing your life away out of fear"Jamie suggested to him
Dylan looked intently at Jamie. They were very long moments.
"I have to go," Dylan said.
New York
Brandon took the first available flight and in an hour was already in the taxi slipping away to Mount Sinai, got out of the taxi without taking the rest and slipped through the sliding doors.
He asked about Dr. Johnson who told him that Kelly had arrived in yellow code the night before, that a man had been arrested by the police, that they did not know who else to contact, Kelly was not life-threatening and if he wanted he could see her.
He saw her there, very small, with the oxygen that was helping her breathe, her eyes closed. Brandon was moved. She didn't look like her either. He approached, stroked her hair.
"Kelly..." he whispered.
He took a chair and sat down next to her. He should have called Jackie, he should have called anyone, but Kelly was not in danger of life and he was her emergency number. This made him smile with tenderness.
Kelly opened her eyes "Brandon" said in a faint voice "I'm sorry"
He shook his head "don't worry" but Kelly wanted to cry "what did I do..." She said.
"You're just a human being"
"I'm a loser"
"No," Brandon said, stroking her hair, "you're just a human being."
"I don't know how to get out of it"
"I'm here for you," he replied, "I'm sorry I left you alone, I'm sorry I didn't understand, I didn't take an extra moment to save us"
Kelly shook his hand.
"Do you want me to call your mother? "
"No," she said, "I want to forget this story, please let's forget this story"
Brandon nodded.
Kelly looked at him with her dark blue eyes at Brandon's cornflower.
"I still love you," she said.
"I love you too," he replied.
"Bring me home," Kelly said.
He smiled. He sat next to her without taking her hand away from his.
New York outside moved frantically, but inside that room was their whole world, a world that came from afar, a time of war, erased from space, from an old cellar in Normandy, a cellar that was no longer there, where she held her hand to him, and where she saved him in all the ways a woman could save a man, but this they did not know, they did not know that it was their precious second chance.
London
90s
Daniel took Brenda home. It had been a nice evening with friends, only Daniel didn't like Brenda coming home alone, he was never sure enough. It was Clara's wedding day that he had let himself flow thousands of kilometers away, he had not been able to go there, he had called his brother, he had told him to make her happy, that if he had not made her happy he would come back to take her back. He hadn't said anything else.
He saw Brenda open her eyes wide and turn pale. Dylan was sitting on the steps of her building.
"Dylan," she barely said, and that whispered name forced Daniel to look in the same direction. He was there, reappeared out of nowhere, unarmed.
Daniel immediately understood he looked at Brenda, he looked at Dylan.
"Go talk to him," said Daniel, "he came to pick you up"
Brenda walked up to Dylan who got up. Throughout the long journey he had thought about what to say, what he would do, but now all those superstructures seemed useless to him, words that would humiliate reality.
It seemed impossible for him to have her in front of him, that Brenda was there.
"What are you doing here?" She said.
"I choose you, I have always chosen you, I am choosing you, please, please Brenda, take me back with you, let's give this love a chance"
Brenda didn't know what to say, he had come out of nowhere, after months of silence, he even looked like another man despite being the same.
Dylan opened Brenda's palm and wrote what he wrote to her in every past life they had.
Brenda followed Dylan's finger moving in the palm of her hand.
I
L
O
V
E
Y
O
u
Brenda turned her eyes to him who was looking at her.
She felt something that immediately silenced her, something strong and powerful that came from afar, that crossed time, and space like a wind, it was unknown, but it was the same thing that had been repeated the first time she had seen him and had no reason, she had no explanation, the same thing that had made her endure the silences of him, the goodbyes and the returns, the fights and the love, the same thing that had made her wait for him, day after day.
Their lips met.
The circle closed. Life resumed.
This story is over, I hope you enjoyed it, I hope you will want to leave a rewiew, it would be very nice for me, maybe I will write some more story, who knows. Sorry for the mistakes but I am not a native English speaker. Thanks to those who have been here with me. Love.