Authors Note: I own nothing. No ownership rights to Beverly Hills 90210.
Chapter Twenty Two
Living with Dylan was intense. Not because we were angry or awkward or unsure how to relate to each other but rather it just stirred lots of emotions in me, and clearly him.
Monday I stayed at the house trying as much as possible to stay off my leg. Dylan left only to attend his morning counselling session, he arrived back convinced that the hospital diagnose of depression was accurate. His counsellor had unpacked what that may have looked and felt like long term, how years of depression was different from an episode like I had suffered. Dylan heard how it was not uncommon for people to self-medicate with drugs and alcohol or self manage by acquiring other medical disorders when they felt they had little internal control of themselves. They often looked for a level of control or escapism wherever they could get it. He identified with all of it.
Dylan's signs of depression he felt presented around puberty and with absent parenting were left unseen. He felt misunderstood and disconnected, he found little joy in his life, he had had such a difficult childhood with his parents relationship it was no wonder the change in his emotions appeared normal to him. He felt that when he reached that puberty age, he began to see the world for what it was, and realised how unwanted, how much of a burden he was to everyone. He disconnected from it all, not trusting anyone to like him for him. That time started years of loneliness and bravado by him to hide the truth of how low he felt.
Dylan told me over tea and coffee, that he felt empowered by the diagnosis. He felt that once he understood it better, and it was officially confirmed that he could manage the illness. That he could manage how he managed it, manage himself rather than turning to the bottle or drugs when he found himself so low and disconnected. That he'd know that those emotions were no longer laced with truth that it was his illness speaking to him and not reality.
Monday, like Sunday had seen Dylan and I slip between these heavy conversations and him making me laugh, it had also seen him still refuse to let me curb his belief that we could sort this all out. With everyday, every new understanding he felt that it was one step closer to us unpacking and seeing these last few years for what they were. He felt that it made it easier to forgive. He didn't see that there was a difference between forgiveness and forgetting. That some scars, even unintentionally made can cut so deep that they are hard to see a point that they could ever be totally healed.
I loved him so much, I literally broke myself without him. I am not sure that even if I am able to get past that, that I would ever want to trust that love for him again. I don't think I want him to ever hold that much power over me.
In my rationale thoughts I know it wasn't just the loss of Dylan that broke me, that it was a build up of big and little things and the collapse of my foundations, twin bond, family and friendships that caused it. I know it wasn't all him but he symbolised it all for me. Literally I had symbols all over my body of his betrayals and hurts. How do you get past that when you see the images in the shower, in the mirror, every time you look at your wrist? How can I forget it all when it's literally inked onto my skin?
Tuesday was the same I kept my leg elevated, and when Dylan got back from his session and unwrapped my ankle he gloated that forty-eight hours in our home and I was already healing more than anywhere else over the last two weeks. I bit my tongue rather than correct him about where my home was, he wouldn't let me get it out anyway. We spoke about his session over coffee, and as it was a rare rainy day in Beverly Hills he lit the fire at lunchtime and we watched old movies, it gave respite from the intensity though his closeness throughout the movies played havoc on me internally.
When evening started to approach I knew I needed some physical distance, I needed to clear my head of the fog he creates, and I felt like cooking and still needed to cook for Nat. Dylan went out and bought groceries and then I put him to work in the kitchen far away from me. Hoping that teaching him to actually cook might distract us away from our situation, the intensity that was almost physically present at times.
"Dylan you need to turn the heat down, the onions are overcooking."
"Bren they look fine, they aren't even brown."
"It's the smell they are giving off it means the pan is getting too hot."
In my peripheral I can see him crease his brow in confusion but turn down the stove anyway. A few seconds later I can see him begin to stir more rigorously, they were starting to colour as the pan lost some of it's heat. "Baby you are like a magician at this, how could you tell from just the smell, you are over by the sink?"
I laugh as I wash the vegetables for the curry I was planning on making, "I cook a lot, it's calming. There is also something nice about nourishing people with food, I don't have much of Mum in me but I feel this is all her."
He looks over at me then, "do you miss them?"
"Yes and no. I don't miss the judgement. For a long time talking to them started to feel like work, I shied away from answering my phone, I became less willing to share my life worried that things I mentioned would garner criticism." As I turn off the tap I consider how honest I should be, I decide to return the candour he has shown me over the last few day's, "we, my parents and I, we never recovered from Baja. There was a distance and a distrust established on both sides."
The smile he gives me is one of sadness and uncertainty, "I love our time down there I love our experience there together, but life would have been so different if we didn't go. It changed the path we were carving out together."
"Yeah." I would never have gone to Paris, my family would have still been embracing him throughout those months. "Do you think even if I had been here that summer you would have-"
He cuts me off with an intensity that tells me he is adamant in his belief, "I'm assuming you are about to ask about Jack's parole because nothing else that summer would have ever been possible."
He moves the pan completely off the flame and turns off the stove. He walks over to me on my stool. "You have always made me the healthiest I can be. You have never hid from my darkness, and have often just offered me a hand to hold, or an ear to listen to what I'm feeling. That gentle, consistent, and understanding support has been the balm to my inner turmoil. My self medicating has only ever started in your absence- coming back from Hawaii I stole bottles off the plane, I drank them on our camping trip when you refused to come back to me, it began my weeks of drinking when mum got too much. Paris..." He moves a piece of my hair off my face, "I don't want that to be your burden to control, that I'm something you need to worry about. I think it's good that I'm starting to feel like I'm getting answer's though I don't like the price it has cost us to get them. If Baja had not happened we would have had a summer almost alone with the other's off working or traveling. You wouldn't have let me lie to my Dad, and maybe with that honesty then when he did get out he and I would have been closer. It took us day's to have a genuine moment, maybe then I would have had many of them rather than only one before he died, I'd have more to remember him by."
His raw honesty and devastation of not just us but what it could have meant for him and his Dad has me reaching out for him. He immediately takes the silent offer and clings to me. He holds me close and I can feel him breathing heavy trying to gain back his composure. I know he's in control again when I feel him relax, once the tension leaves him a few seconds later he begins to lay kisses on my head and my neck. They are light but I feel the energy they generate over my skin.
When his kisses cut a path to my lips I'm waiting for that all consuming rush, I try and build up my walls that are as thin as paper now around him- the walls that desperately want to crumble or just be blown over. He moves close to my lips but then pulls back, he has a weird look in his eyes.
"What's wrong?"
"I'm… this will sound stupid but I'm afraid. I was feeling bad and now I'm not, I'm afraid it's because of-"
"You are afraid you are using me as self medication?" He barely nods, "Dylan did you ever talk to Kelly about your Dad? Ever talk to her about your lows?"
He gives me a look, I guess it's weird being this close to me, inches away and talking about her. "No. I didn't speak at all about that, I never discussed my feelings like that."
"Well maybe that's your answer, you avoided and escaped through- well whatever you two did, you never spoke. Would you have told her that about Jack? About what makes you feel stable, about your worries?"
He smiles, "no. I would have kept that all in. None of that was ever hers to know." He moves back closer, "you are the only one I have ever trusted with me. You are the only one I know who loves me for all the rough and smooth parts of me." He kisses me then, and as his tongue caresses mine I'm drawn back in that frenzy from Saturday night the one I had tried so hard to avoid.
It was the same after the wrap party. Kissing him sends all rational thought, sense out of my brain. It dominates all reasoning, my body screams closer, more, heaven.
I know I'm the one who reaches up to have him pick me up, I'm the one who wraps my good ankle around him drawing my body as close to him as I can get. As I start to do the same with my other, he stops me. Even kissing me he knows to protect me, even from myself. He carries me into the bedroom, holding my ankle so I don't hurt it more. He lays me down and then climbs on top of me, protecting me from his weight. I pull him closer. The small space between us where are clothes lay is too much, I want to feel his weight on me, I need to feel all of him.
The frenzy had taken over, gone was all my good intentions.
There's no Val to answer the phone and interrupt us, there is no knocks on the door, there is no strong walls capable of reminding me that this moment of pleasure will cause him and me a mass of confusion tomorrow.
There is nothing but his touch, his taste. My world has shrunk down to just him, and it's all I need. He has always been everything I need.
I can't stop kissing her. I literally can't take my lips off her back as she lays dozing on her stomach next to me. I avoid the ink though. There is a part of me that knows that if I fall asleep if I give her a moment to overthink, to not trust her instincts, to remember the pain, that she'll runaway again like she did last time. Like she has always done from me. If I keep my lips on her, if I stay awake then I can keep her. I can show her that this is where she belongs, that her and me together with nothing between us is where she is always meant to be.
"Dyl?"
I smile at her sleepy voice but don't lift my lips off her skin. "Mmm?"
"You're going to bruise your lips."
I kiss up her spine then, lick up around the side of her neck over the sensitive skin that sends a shiver through her. Taking her earlobe in my mouth I gently graze it with my teeth. When I know she's dazed I whisper in her ear, "I haven't yet kissed you everywhere-"
She's breathing heavy trying to contain her desire, it's a losing battle when we are like this. "Really, because I think I remember between round one and round two-"
"If you only think you remember then that won't do. I want every inch of your skin to remember my touch. To feel worshiped." I feel her squirm underneath me, Bren has always struggled to restrain herself when my lips are on her neck. I move myself over her back a little more, pushing her legs apart to make room for me. My hands lift up her hips, "do you feel worshipped yet? Do you know how much I want you? How I'm always going to want you Baby?"
Her moan is the only response she give's, as once again we are lost in each other.
Hour's later we are in the kitchen it's after midnight but we haven't eaten and have used up so much energy. She's wearing my singlet that's almost like a short dress on her. I'm wearing just my pyjama pants as she shows me how to make a french omelette. I peer over her shoulder whilst holding her around the waist, she hasn't said anything about the fact that I literally haven't stopped touching her since our kiss by the sink. I know she realises that I'm afraid to break the connection.
When she goes to put the omelette on two plates I stop her, why create more washing up. I carry her to the lounge while she holds the plate with it's two forks resting on it. I put her on my lap. It's when the midnight snack is nearly finished that she finally brings it up.
"Are you going to follow me into the bathroom as well?"
"Is that a new kink for you because-" her gentle elbow in the stomach stops my smartass response. I answer seriously, well somewhat seriously. "Your crutches are somewhere, kitchen I think. So I'll carry you in there when you want to use the bathroom, if you want a shower I should probably join you, wouldn't want you to slip on your ankle."
"Dyl you know what I'm asking."
I put the fork down and bury my head in her neck to breathe her in, it calms me. "I don't want you to run away again. I'm… this is the happiest I've been since our week together before London. It's that night in Baja on steroids happy. I just don't want to give you a chance to regret it."
She leans forward and puts the plate down on the coffee table and turns back to face me. She runs her fingers over my creased brow, and touches the lines around my eyes as she stares into them. "I understand your fear, I can't even say it's not founded. You touching me is like quicksand I get trapped in it and can't get out. If I avoid the touch then I'm okay but once I even graze the sand I'm trapped."
"I'm not sure I like being associated with a booby trap. This feels so amazing to me I want this to feel the same for you. I want you to-"
"It does feel amazing. This here, this intimacy was never a problem. It's the afterwards, the longevity, the commitment, the assurance that nothing is going to come between us, that someone else isn't going to turn your eye-"
I hear her doubts, she's beginning to talk herself out of this. I panic.
"Marry me?"
She pulls back, she's instantly annoyed. "Dylan I'm being serious. I'm trying to be serious-"
"And I'm saying let's go get married. Let me legally swear the commitment the one that we started by my locker, continued outside my condo, began to put words to on Mulholland all those years ago. You know as well as I, that that commitment for me is forever. My parents I'm never going to become them. I want that commitment with you. I want you to know that I'm all in, that you don't have to worry about me…"
I stop when I see the disappointment on her face, "call me old fashioned but I want someone to want to marry me because they love me. Stuart wanted to show his family he was growing up, he wanted what my parents had- a long term commitment. You want to prove you're not going to cheat on me. Who knew marriage was such a great problem solver." Shit her sarcasm tells me my impulsive gesture has not been taken well.
She goes to stand up I pull her closer, "okay so not the best way of asking, and clearly you aren't going to let me follow you around touching you forever so you don't get scared. So tell me. Tell me what I can do, because Bren I'm not sure how to do this. I'm not sure how I can convince you besides time and absolute honesty, but if you get scared and won't give me time what am I to do? How can I show you that I've got a handle on my mental health, that I'm growing up and not running away, that I can be the man I know you deserve? How can I show you that? Make you feel that, if you keep hiding from me. You are the person I want my life with, you are the love of my life, the only pure love I've ever known, the only person I have ever felt romantic love for, and I'll do anything to show you that you can trust me, but I don't know how to if you keep disappearing. Baby I need you to take the lead here I need you to try and not run away, I need you to want to give me more than your body when you get too close to the sand."
I gently lift my hand to her chin gently pushing her to look at me. "If I stop touching you will you try not to run away? Will you try and figure this out with me? I love you, I never want you to be somewhere that you don't want to be but I hope it's just doubt and nothing more that sends you running. I hope you do want me, and want this, us. That like me if you could have anything else on this planet, any wish granted that it would be us to be together again. Baby if that's your wish then let's not make it a dream, let's put the work in to try and get this right. I don't need us to rush this but I do hope you won't keep running away from me. You have been doing it for years, stay this time, stay and let's get this right."