Beyond the end

To go away

Somewhere
"How are you feeling?" JT asked serving her a nice cocktail.
"Well, this cast itches my leg."
"It will take a little longer to remove it. And the soul?"
"There's no cast for that," Brenda replied.
"You'll be fine," JT said.
"Thank you for coming to pick me up, I know how much it cost you to take the plane to come to L.A. and then to come here."
"For you I would do whatever," JT replied, "and anyway I got some sleeping pills to deal with the trip."
Brenda laughed, finally after a long time.
"So, what are we going to do next?"
"We'll be back in the UK," Brenda said, "I still have my job and a lot of things to do. But I wouldn't want to go back to the apartment in Soho."
"And where do you want to go?"
"I was thinking of renting something in the countryside, in Yorkshire."
"Uuuu I love it!"
"Seriously?"
"Sure," JT replied, "I have a restaurateur friend who has a nice cottage in Bredford I can call and ask if he rents it."
"Seriously?"
"Of course. It will be good for me to get away a little too"
"Away from what?"
JT didn't replied. Actually JT was happy to have Brenda back with him. His friend, his adventure companion. He had missed her. Terribly. And he knew she was suffering a lot. He knew her well. But when Brandon called him explaining what had happened he had no doubt. He took two pills and the first flight available. A hero. A guardian angel.
He broke his heart to see her, he broke his heart to see Brandon's sad eyes. They had both changed. It was atrocious.
"Dylan went to my parents in Minnesota and I wouldn't be surprised if he were in London knocking on mine and your door."
"And do you mind?"
"I want to be left alone JT, and he doesn't understand it."
"Maybe because he wants to talk to you."
"Are you getting on his side?"
"No, of course not. He was wrong. But I think before you shear everything at least you should have listened to him"
"Why? To be told what? Nothing happened and that we are always the ones who are wrong? They hadn't any fault and things happen? I'm over This bullshit of the two of them. I saw them and so have Brandon."
"Uh your brother.." exclaimed JT "how is he doing?"
"He threw himself in the job. I know that these days he has to go and get his stuff back at Kelly's house and I really don't want to be in his shoes. I hope it's not devastating. Do you know that he bought casa Walsh?"
"Seriously?"
"Yeah. He had bought it for her. For them."
"What now?"
"And now it looks like he wants to leave his apartment to Steve and move there."
"Why?"
"Because no one knows he bought it back and no one will go looking for him there. No one but me and Dylan."
"Dylan could say that."
"No. He won't. You see, JT, it's not so much what it is or what hasn't happened, it's the doubt, the fear that it can happen at any moment. The hypothesis of a pain that cannot be dealt with. You never have certainties. And then those two are the biggest self-centered in the world. In short, it's not fair to live like this. Not to mention what happened to me."
The voice stopped because the tears couldn't subside.
"I lost the baby, while Sammy is there. I wouldn't be able to look him in the face. Am I a bad person?"
"No," JT replied, hugging her, "you're not a bad person. You're suffering it's normal.."
"I wanted JT certainties, I wanted him to choose me"
"I thought he asked you to marry him... And he certainly didn't ask Kelly..."
Brenda stopped for a moment. She took a few seconds for herself and JT realized how destabilized she was, put a hand on her arm "I'm sure it will be ok."
"Let's hope JT," Brenda sighed, "however, I have too many things to fix. I spoke to Raynolds, the new show billboard is scheduled for November. He is furious because I disappeared. And Dylan called there too. Unfortunately we have this thing in common and I can't pay back the money Dylan put in to Throw him out from the show and have nothing to do with it. He should give up for free."
"He will never and certainly not for the money" laughed ironically JT "is the only bond he has with you."
"He will sign. When I'm ready I'll ask him and he'll sign. This is for sure. And then there's the Brandon issue. He is destroyed. I know, I know him."
"He's an adult man," JT replied, "maybe it will take him longer, but he'll get away with it, I'm sure."
Maybe" Brenda took the crutches and got help from JT "damn cast, I have to go to the bathroom."
"I'll take you," JT laughed, "I'm your little nurse by now."
"You're cool as a nurse," Brenda whispered to him.
"Thank you dear," JT replied sarcastically.
Los Angeles
"What's the problem? I'll leave you my apartment Steve I thought you were glad you didn't have to look for one," Brandon told him.
"I'm happy but I liked having you around here with me"
"I know, but we're big boys and you need your space and I need to get away a little.."
"Yes, but where are you going to go..."
Brandon stopped for a few moments then realized that hiding was of little or no use, Steve was his friend, one of the few he could count on and had always been able to count on.
"I bought Casa Walsh, I'll go back there, but" he stopped "I'd rather this thing stay between us, of course?"
"Seriously? And when did you buy it?"
"Before leaving for Italy. It was a surprise. And instead it imploded" He laughed bitterly "however I want to go back there, take my space."
Steve was surprised but as he watched Brandon's movements he realized he really needed it.
"And when do you move?"
"For now I'm going to pick up my things from Kelly and then slowly I'll leave and leave you the keys to the kingdom that will always be better than living at the Beat."
"And so you are going to Kelly's ."
"Yeah," he replied sadly.
"Do you want me to take you?"
Brandon shook his head "sooner or later it's something I have to do and I have to do it myself. And then I wanted to say goodbye to Sammy."
"As you wish."
"I hope it's not too devastating for anyone," Brandon sighed that he wasn't sure what it would be like for him, for her. He would have avoided if he could. He would have left everything there.
Brandon took the new car and drove without turning on the radio. He stayed watching Kelly's house for quite a while. All his days crossing that driveway, the desire to tell her all about his days, the tips of the trees he stared at from their bedroom when he stayed awake next to her asleep.
He got out of the car and breathed a sigh.
"Hi, sorry for the delay," he told her as soon as she opened the door.
Kelly had lost weight. She looked a little tired. A trick of makeup but it was still beautiful.
"Come in" she told him.
She hadn't taken anything out of the closets, Kelly had staged some kind of tacit protest for him to spend more time in that house. Just the two of them.
"Sammy isn't there?" Asked Bran.
"No he's at school," she replied, " and I wanted to avoid him this."
Bran caught the blow but had a dotted road and wanted to walk it all the way down.
"Can we talk Bran?"
"I'd rather not," he replied coldly, "can I go up and get my things?"
Kelly made his way with her arm and followed him up the stairs.
When he found himself in front of Kelly's bedroom a trail of anger took him with it. He remembered the scene. The shock. The sense of loss.
And suddenly he accelerated what he had to do so as not to feel the pain advancing without respite.
He walked in and began to open his drawers. He took away his jerseys, pants, ties.
"I have some boxes in my car, I'm going to pick them up." He got up but Kel stood in front of the door.
"Is it all over Bran?"
"I don't know what you expect from me Kel, really."
"Nothing happened"
"Yes Dylan told me," he said sadly.
Kel sensed that he didn't believe a single word.
"You can't throw it all away like that."
"You've already done it Kel"
"Why you don't believe me, why you don't want to listen to me"
God only knows how much he missed Kel and how much he would have liked to believe her, but Sammy's words of that morning boomed in his head and Especially what had happened to his sister. That devastated him. That broke him.
"Kel" he said looking into her eyes "I can't live like this. To live with the doubt that anyone who looks at me thinks you actually want someone else."
"But it's not. It has never been like this. I was just a stupid spoiled and insecure little girl but I knew who I really loved."
"Yes it is and until you solve this I can't be with you. Now please, I have to go get the boxes in the car."
Kel made him pass while something in her throat was quickly going up. Tears, the sense of the end, the disbelief.
When he returned to the room it was evident that his eyes were the same as she did.
He began to put his things in slowly.
"Sammy asks about you."
"Yes, I know," Brandon said, smiling at her, "I was hoping he was here to say goodbye and explain to him."
"Explain what to him?"
"Kel.."
"Sorry," she said, biting her lips.
"What did you tell him?"
"That in the last few weeks they had sent you to Washington and I pretended you were calling when he was sleeping, I told him a lot of invented adventures. Lies."
Brandon felt tenderness for her. The way their world had also changed irreparably. Because she refused to tell her son the truth because she didn't want to hear the truth either.
"If you want we can get him to come here and tell him things together," Brandon proposed, "that we are no longer together but that he can call me whenever he wants."
"Can he?"
"Of course he can."
"What about me?"
"Kel.."
"Brandon I miss you from not being able to breathe, I love you, nothing happened, he just fell asleep with me that's all. Sammy had insisted.The guilt towards Sammy overwhelmed us, as soon as he fell asleep Dylan should have gone to Sammy's room. That night I told Dylan how happy I was and loved you. And he told me that he couldn't live without Brenda. We told each other how stupid it was to live in hell knowing that you weren't hell and we said goodbye forever.
"I don't want to hear it."
"Well you'll have to hear it because that's why you're throwing it all away."
"It looks like a kind of Karma."
"What does it mean"
"Do you remember when he offered a trip to you and I proposed ?"
'Yes.."
"You threw it all away."
Kel shut up.
"I've been taking the doubt for a long time Kel."
"But it was to you that I'm always back. Always. It's behind your door that you found me. When you were expecting something from me I was there to take you in my arms. You changed my life and I changed yours and now you expect nothing to happen. I came back to you three times in Washington, I came back to you even when Dylan was in Los Angeles and available, doesn't this tell you anything Brandon?
He couldn't stop the pain and felt it climbing inside him...
"I forgot," Brandon said rummaging through his pocket and pulled out a pendrive" I finished the book, you just have to look at it to correct your part."
"Have you finished it?"
"Yes"
"Why?"
"Because I promised you," he said sadly and closing the first box "and, this is my release."
He handed her a piece of paper that Kel took in her hand "I renounce all rights," he said.
"Why?"
"Because that's okay, it was something I wanted to do together with you and for you, but now it makes little sense,"
"I love you," she said, "and I know you love me."
Bran didn't answer. He looked down and pretended to be a miserable defense that materialized in putting his things away.
"Leave those clothes alone, look at me." Kel whispered
Kelly had a voice shaking.
"Kel I'm not saying this to hurt you, really," Bran replied, "but right now I prefer to stay away from you because I'm not sure what I feel about you."
Those words opened an abyss in Kelly.
"That's not true." She was teary
"Yes it is . I look at you and always see the exact same scene. Over and over again. And I'm tired."
Kel had her head down.
"I just wish you would tell me what's best for Sam, and I want to help you with that."
Kel didn't answer.
"Kel?"
She recovered. She shook her head "It's not your problem Bran".
Brandon lowered his head. He took away the last box.
Kelly watched him open the door. She would have liked to stop him. Bring him back to herself. But now she had something to think about, Sammy, herself, and her life that was changing again And he didn't know.
"Take care of you," he said looking at her.
Kel didn't answer, she couldn't, while he was leaving her life was collapsing taking her breath away.