Aevum of Itero

Chapter 3

He'd known Nat for thirty-six years.

He'd occasionally baby-sat Nat's son, Frankie.

He'd walked in on Nat and his wife, Joanie, watching one of Brenda's most celebrated films only a few weeks prior to his meeting Itero.

There was no goddamn excuse for not knowing where Nat lived before he married Joanie.

For fuck's sake, Dylan hadn't even known the neighborhood Nat lived in.

Right near Roxbury Park.

Fucking Roxbury Park.

He and Kelly had trampled Brenda's heart in Roxbury Park, and now he lived mere blocks from the very same park he had purposely avoided for the sixteen years hence.

Where he learnt that Brenda did have the capacity to hate, and her hatred was aimed at him.

Dylan believed it a fair deduction that the universe hated him, too.

He'd been incredibly lucky that Brenda's capacity to love had far outweighed that hatred.

He'd been able to dance with her at prom because of her ability to forgive.

One dance. That was all they had before Tony Miller swooped in to reclaim his date.

As much as Dylan had wanted to, he couldn't sock Tony.

Even though Dylan had planned to break up with Kelly weeks before prom, and ask Brenda to it instead.

She would have turned him down, he was sure, but he'd longed to ask regardless after the way Brenda had been there for him when Jack allegedly died.

Two scenarios stopped that, both of which occurred at Kelly's eighteenth birthday party: Tony had asked Brenda to dance. Brenda had said yes. Dylan had fought back the desire to shove off the guy he knew had spoken with all his buddies in the locker room of his plans to fuck Bren.

Then Brenda found Kelly unconscious in the restroom. Dylan had found out the severity of Kelly's eating disorder. He couldn't possibly dump her after that.

He'd already been the jerk girls loved once. Becoming that had made his best friend hate him.

So he tried to be the best boyfriend he could be; for Kelly, at least. He wore the damn tails. He let her think his manuscript was about her. He lied and told her she was his soulmate, in a failed attempt to curb her insecurities. He took her to prom. He fucking took her to that fucking castle outside of Paris, the one where he would have taken Brenda if he'd been the one to go to Paris with her.

And when he got rejected from Berkeley, did Kelly care?

No. She told him to quit moping and go shopping with her, as if that was supposed to cheer him up after being rejected from the school where his supposedly dead father had wanted him to attend.

They'd fought first over Kelly thinking he'd rather have Brenda there - which was true, though he wouldn't admit it to Kelly; then fought over Kelly's numerous mentions of Brandon, which she hadn't realized; then fought over Dylan's despondency about missing out on Berkeley; then he had to fight against her insecurities again, which he'd repeatedly done ever since he first did in that fucking hotel po -

Fuck.

Had Kelly had half as many insecurities with Brandon?

Never, ever date Kelly Taylor. If Brenda still breaks up with you in senior year for some reason even without you cheating, do not turn to Kelly. It'll take years for both of you to accept you're a fucking toxic mess together. You will accept it, and by then, it will be too late for either of you to have a shred of hope of getting back with your respective twin.