Authors Note: I own nothing. No ownership rights to Beverly Hills 90210.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Monday night I'm in my study writing, I'm moving between journaling and working on the script. The script is becoming ridiculously long as I want to include everything. To try and focus my writing I am now using the journal more to write my memories in detail and then moving to the script to determine how to capture the moment, the feel, the love in the dialogue or scene. It's a new method I've been trying over the weekend; with Bren away I threw myself into my writing to hold her close while she was literally over the other side of the country. Where she had been a number of times last year when I thought she was a world away, had abandoned me completely.
The door closing yanks me from my dwelling on New York. I had been falling into the spiral for day's, wondering why she never came here, or even told me she was in the country; even broke I had miles, enough to get to her in New York just not enough to cross the Atlantic to London. If I knew I'd have been on the first plane, even when the money returned when I thought she was done with me, thrown me away, moved on to better things. If I knew she was here, if she would have reached out, that she still thought of me I would have gone to her.
I move into the doorway of the lounge smiling and flip on the lights, she used the key. She came without checking, didn't even know I was home. My smile touches my ears when I see she has a bag with her. "Hey Baby."
"Hey, I didn't know if you were home. I saw your car but I thought maybe you were out on the bike, it was pretty dark in here."
She is rambling, it's a new sign that tells me she is unsure of herself in the moment. She is outside her comfort zone. I make my way over to her and lift the bag off her shoulder and place it on the floor, I then lean down hold her lower back drawing her to me. Thursday morning when she left for the bike track was the last time I had seem her, it is just too long, too much time without her. "I was working, writing in the study. In future when I'm writing in there I'll leave the light on out here, I know it's not nice to come home to a dark house."
"You don't have to, I'll call-"
"You don't have to call to come home. I want you here always with me, whatever I can do to get you to use your key more. To maybe hang clothes here, to spend nights here regularly- well I want every night, but I know glaciers move slowly. I'm leaving the light on."
"So this is okay me just turning up? It's been day's since your birthday and New York was busy- we kept playing phone tag. I just thought that it's been a while-" I put my finger over her lips.
"Is this you telling me you missed me?" She scrunches up her shoulders, I'm taking the maybe as a yes. Progress, admitting to missing me is progress. Coming over, progress. The bag, progress. "Thank god I've been dying with you being so far away. I hate the idea of not being able to get to you if you needed me. Of you being away for so long."
"It was a weekend." She's mocking me, she thinks I'm exaggerating.
"That's a long time, and then not seeing you Thursday night-"
"We were filming," her tone is starting to get defensive, anything to do with work she guards.
Glacier slow.
"Baby relax, I'm not saying anything more than I missed you. Four and a half day's is just too long."
"Is the half necessary?"
"It's nearing nine pm. You left on Thursday morning at nine am- twelve hours is a whole day. That's twelve hours, seven hundred and twenty minutes, if you want I can probably calculate how many times I thought of you in that time; average three to four times a minute so 3.5 times-"
Her hand goes over my mouth, "you do not think about me that often."
I lift my head up and down. She shakes hers and removes her hand, "you are ridiculous."
"No, I'm just a fool in love, very in love. Scream from the roof tops in love."
Her face tells me she thinks I'm joking, she still doesn't believe me yet. My head yells patience, while my heart hurts.
We used to be in love like this together, we didn't like being too far away from each other, we would think about each other all the time. Now I'm alone against this wall trying to get in, it is lonely here, lonely to be so in love and not sure if the other is there with you; for the first time I understand why Rick seemed like something real to her. How did she feel this for months and not break? I understand why there is a wall and it still kills, she didn't even know why one existed back then- I couldn't even give her that.
"Hey Fool, where did you go?"
"Sorry, I was- you are the strongest person I know."
I see it the pivot, anything deep she is going to avoid. "Not tonight. My body hurts. We flew in overnight and went straight to the set, I've been in the silks for hours, and then this evening some scenes, some things… it was a big day."
"Have you eaten?" she nods. "Want me to draw us a bath, have a soak and then I can maybe help your muscles relax?"
She leans up and kisses me, it is our first kiss in day's. "That sounds perfect."
Glacier slow with glimpses of progress. Me taking care of her, allowed to offer her comfort when she's exhausted is progress.
Hours later she is in our bed; the bath, the massage, my hands, my mouth she is relaxed. As she lays on her stomach with her head on my chest I play with her hair. Her eye's are closed but her breathing hasn't evened out she is not yet asleep.
"Can I ask you something?" Her moan of consent is given, though her eyes remain shut. "Would you tell me what it felt like between us when you got back from Paris for those months at that start of senior year?"
She recoils; her eyes open, her head lifts, her body tenses, "we've discussed this already."
"In fragments, in heated words. I'd like to hear how it felt between us for you. Rick, me telling you I cheated, you didn't leave me because of that. We had forgiven each other for that before, you left because of me. I'd like to know how it felt from your perspective."
My eyes plead to her, "Dylan. I'm not sure that it is a great idea to bring this up if you want me to keep trying."
"Don't you think it may help to get some of these feelings off our chest?"
"Yes, but that's why I have a therapist or had one."
"No, I mean don't you think it might help us to understand each other better, to maybe let go of some of the hurt and pain? To be heard." She says nothing. We used to talk about everything share all our feelings, I want that again with her. I thought the questions when she stayed here would help draw that out again, but since we have got physically close it has dried up. It's like I can have one side of her or the other, but I can't have both. I can't have her fully.
"Do you want me to start by sharing something?" She doesn't respond, the blankness of her face worries me. "I've been going over and over the fact you came back to the States last year and didn't tell me, didn't come here, didn't let me know so I could come there. I know I was completely in the wrong, I'm the one who blocked you when you left for London, but since Roy said it on Wednesday night it has been replaying. I didn't even know which country you were in at times."
"I was in many. You know I traveled, I told you that. You've eaten the food I learnt to make on my travels."
"I didn't know you were home."
"I wasn't, I was in America. Home is London, it's England now."
"It used to Brandon and then when we meet it was me. Home was me to you."
She sighs, she hates all of these conversations, these words. "Dylan, I'm trying can't that be enough?"
"It's everything, but there is a wall between us. I'd like to try and help dismantle it, I want you back completely. I want my Bren back."
She sits up and looks down at me. "Your Bren doesn't exist anymore, if that's what you are hoping for then you are going to be disappointed." She runs her hand threw her hair, "I should go."
"You promised you wouldn't run. Look, if it's too much to talk about you coming home from Paris then we can start on anything, it can be something small. I just… I love having you back in our bed, I love being able to touch you, kiss you again, I just want to have more-"
"What if I'm not capable of giving you more? What if I'm always going to be on guard around you? Will you resent me for it? Leave me again-"
"No, I could never resent you. I know I caused all this, I know that I've made it so you can't trust me. I've always wanted, needed you anyway I can have you. That's why I never could leave you."
She lifts up the sheet to cover herself, "fuck, you romanticise that so much. You left all the time, I'm just the one who had to say the words, you just needed to make me the bad guy who put voice to it." She move's further away to the end of the bed. "From the first date you didn't show up to, to leaving me alone to worry by myself about being pregnant. Running to booze over your mother. Running to Betty. At the locker when you told me maybe we needed space when my dad was losing his shit over Baja. Leaving me in this house for day's when I ran away like all of a sudden spending time with me was unwanted, a hassle. Walking away with her as I was in that shuttle, like you had dropped off the pain in your ass and now could go have a fun summer. Months and months of being alone senior year... Dylan you were constantly leaving me, I just get crucified for the times I stopped letting you, the times I called a spade a spade. When I started wanting more for myself."
Her legs spin over the side, I move and wrap around her physically trying to keep her here in our bed, sharing with me. "Don't, don't run away. I wanted to hear that, I need to hear that. I'm not angry, I'm not going to deny that it didn't happen, because it did. It's how my actions, however unintentional, juvenile or misdirected made you feel. I want you forever, I've made no secret of that but to have that I need to know why two people who love each other more than anything keep missing it, how it keeps running through our hands. I want, I need to hold onto it this time. I need to know this to make sure I don't keep making the same mistakes again."
I kiss her head, she still is like a statue in my arms. "Thank you for telling me that. Thank you, because I know you hate it, I know like me remembering it can pull you back into that time, those feelings." Again I kiss her head and then breathe in the smell of her hair, I talk into her neck. "But we aren't there anymore. It's part of our past, but not our whole past, it's not the only emotions however strong you are feeling them right now. Do you remember our first night here in this house after Iris left?"
The hmmm is quiet, but it's there.
"We had gone shopping because Iris…. well she was Iris she had set this place up with enough incense burners but no food."
"There was food." I squeeze my lips together to stop her feeling my smile, I need to be gentle not give her reason to run away.
"Dried lentils are not food, or at least food I know how to make. We came home and you put me to work… here I was thinking that we would grab food and spend quality time reconnecting, something since we had got back together we hadn't done much of with Iris being around. Instead you have me clean out the fridge, while you label jars you made me buy that you fill with food. You have me reach out and disinfect the top cupboards that Iris and you couldn't reach. Then you collected the incense burners and got me too put them in the top cupboard above the fridge. The shawls she had placed over things, the wind chime tapes, they all got boxed while I was cleaning those damn cupboards. I had absolutely no idea what the hell you were doing, or making me do until you said we were done. Do you remember what you did next?"
She bobs her head, "you know I remember everything."
"Then you remember your excitement and nervousness. You walked me around the house, that had my favourite books on the shelves. My guitar was in the corner, the one I had got back from the pawnshop. You had put my Baja blanket that I used to sleep on the beach at times when I wanted a predawn surf over the back of the futon. You took me to the kitchen and showed me the jar's that you had labeled- Dylan's Trail Mix. You had put it together with all my favourites. Made me a liquorish container when I wanted something sweet. A pre made pancake mix that said use one cup and then add water-"
"I was still so naïve back then, I thought you'd be at least not burn pancakes."
"Baby, you weren't naïve at all. You understood something that I didn't want to admit, that as much as I hated having a full time parent I also was afraid to live alone for the first time- no maids, no nanny's, no Henry, no room service. You made sure all my comforts were around me, that I had snacks to eat, food I could make. You had written up instructions in the laundry on the new blackboard you had put up on how to do laundry. For day's I was finding these little things around the house helping make it easier, reminding me that you had my back, that you understood that it may be what I needed but that it still scared me."
"It didn't stop you from making this place a mess though."
"No, I'm putting that down to youth and a self protest of no longer having cleaners."
"Why are you telling me this, wanting to remember this? It's not like you got your night in bed like you wanted."
"No, but we got plenty of those in the weeks and months that followed. I wanted you to remember that we were more than the hurt, the sex, the kissing in the corridor. I wanted you to remember that we have always understood each other, that sometimes we understood the other better than we did ourselves. We were always so much more than what people saw, and they saw two people very much in love. It's why I want to keep trying to move, to chip away at this wall, because even if it hurts and feels uncomfortable, I want my Bren- not the sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen year old Bren, but this one in my arm's. The one who like me has been through hell and back. I want you to keep your steel, I just want to be let in behind the shield."
She doesn't move, but gradually her body relaxes. Gradually my arms move to rub her skin, to rest under the sheet she is wrapped in, to have her skin touch nothing but my skin.
"I don't know how."
"We could try therapy together."
"No, it's not something I want to be forced to reconcile with on a doctor's schedule. Therapy I have loved, I appreciate it, it has given me tools to help me better understand myself to reconcile with my actions, but I don't want us to sit and tell a stranger things that we can say to each other without word's." She's right, even how I'm holding her now, how she is responding to me, how her fingers have ghosted through mine. There is so much communication that I don't want to have to put this into words because someone doesn't understand, understand that I know her energy, her emotions that are sitting around her, and she knows me the same.
"Okay if not therapy, then can I ask for a little more a little more of you?"
She agrees to that, and I know she tries to be a little more open, answer a few more questions over the next few days in our nightly phone calls. She even comes back over and stays on Thursday night. The next morning after she has left for filming, I find that she left a ramones t-shirt in the laundry basket along with the skirt she came over wearing. I buy her a toothbrush and her shampoo and conditioner that she uses to keep at the house.
On the Saturday I surprise her by attending her training session. Roy is there and I realise why when I see that she's on the high silks. He nods as I come in and continues to stay by the window, watching in interest as she moves through the air. Multiple times I find myself closing my eyes in fear that she's going to fall and break her neck. It's only when she is back on the ground that I feel my lungs expand properly again.
"It doesn't get easier watching. I know she is the safest I can make her, but even then she's going to have to do that spin at least six times for me to capture on film in all angles. It's a lot I'm asking her body to do, it's a lot of mental strain to maintain that focus she needs for hours on hours of filming."
My eyes turn from my girl who is cooling down to the Englishman, "is that your way of having a dig at me?"
"Surprisingly, Mr McKay but it's not all about you. I was talking about her. She's had a challenging week on set, it has been exhausting for her. Monday was especially gruelling she had to film an emotional scene, I had her crying for hours, and then with the song being released, and the request for a music video. Well it was a big day, I wasn't surprised in the least that she escaped to your house, wanting to be away from me, and seek comfort." Shit!
"Sorry, I'm…"
"Hyper-focused on you two?" It's a good description, I nod. "She has a lot going on in her life, a lot of pressures. I trust that you aren't adding to them… From what I understand she struggled for her last two years here to say no to you, even when it's to her own detriment. I know you are trying this again, but I hope you aren't repeating that same pattern." My optimistic mood that had gradually developed over the week is immediately squashed. Was I pushing too hard?
We don't speak again and I merely smile as she comes through the door after getting changed. When Scott has finished his debrief, Roy and him stand. "Sweetheart, are you coming back home with me?" I thought I only saw the one car in the carpark, shit. I keep my face neutral though she doesn't even look at me.
"No, I'll get Dylan to drop me off later."
He leans down and kisses her forehead, "no problem. I'm out with Star tonight so I might not see you till the morning."
She smiles, "try and find out if that's her real name."
"I'm sure it is, she seemed very authentic." She laughs as he leaves the room. Finally, she looks at me.
"She has bleached blonde hair and looks like someone out of Baywatch. Authentic she's not." I laugh, though I'm wondering how much authenticity I'm getting from the woman in front of me.
"Do you have plans today?"
"Nope, I was just going to take it easy."
"Well do you want to take it easy together?"
"What do you have in mind?"
I had so much in mind, I had thought I'd try and take her to some of our old haunts, but in light of what Roy said I'm feeling that those plans are more about what I want than what she needs. "I have nothing in mind. I actually was thinking maybe you could be in charge, I do feel like a day of fun is in order though- that is if you feel like it?"
"Fun hey? I could go for that, you up for anything?"
Her mischievous face makes me smile. "Anything you want."
"What's your thoughts on theme parks?"
I laugh, I had missed senior ditch day and it had honestly never been something we had done together before. I had taken Erica but apart from that it had been years since I had gone to one. If a day of escapism, junk food and adrenaline is what she was after I'd happily comply. "Which one are you thinking?"
"Do you know I never went to Disneyland?"
"Really, but you love Beauty and The Beast, and Sleeping Beauty? How have you not gone to visit them?" She's smiling at my carry on, I breathe deeper I can give her a day of what she needs. I just hate that it took Roy to guide me to what that was.
I hate this fucking wall.