Floe de Lir

Chapter 8

Six weeks in Paris must have been torturous for her boyfriend.

They had certainly been torturous for her, yet she hadn't quite reached the same level of abandonment he had.

Issues with abandonment left undealt were the only explanation Brenda could think of for why her boyfriend had seemed different since her return.

She had first noticed it the night she had told him about Rick, when their playful roll under the sheets had ended with Dylan's unexpected grief.

"Hey," Brenda had said, sitting up half-naked in the bra Dylan hadn't removed. "What's wrong?"

"It was a long six weeks," he had said, granting Brenda a smile she could tell had been glued on.

She knew him quite well, her Dylan, and she knew when his facial expressions didn't match his words.

A scenario that was becoming more frequent.

She had tried to ask Kelly about it, about whether Kelly had seen a change in Dylan.

Kelly had told her the same, that it had been "a long six weeks."

Six weeks couldn't have changed that much, Brenda had thought, until she had caught Kelly's reaction when Brandon had announced his breakup with Brooke.

Was that hope festering in Kelly's eyes?

Did Kelly still have a crush on Brandon?

Brenda didn't think Kelly had. She had thought the crush was a short-lived infatuation stamped out by Brandon at their spring dance.

There existed, however, the possibility that Brenda had been incorrect.

Though she didn't know what six weeks had to do with it, or why Dylan had become a mess during sex.

xx

He had to pull himself together.

He couldn't tear up every time he had Brenda's naked body in his grasp, or Brenda would start to suspect something.

She would have questions, questions with answers he wouldn't give her.

Couldn't give her.

He and Kelly had their own questions, which they believed would remain forever unanswered.

Questions like Kelly had been engaged before, hadn't she? Yes, Dylan had said in their call, to Brandon. No, said Kelly, it wasn't to Brandon.

"There was someone else...I think," said Kelly. "You - you were dating someone. When I was - when I was engaged to that guy."

"Was it Val?" asked Dylan.

"You didn't date Val," said Kelly. "You just hooked up. And then...you were married once, weren't you?"

"Was I?" asked Dylan. "To Brenda?"

"You never married Brenda," said Kelly.

"I won't make that mistake twice," said Dylan.

It had begun: the erasure of their memories.

Memories Dylan decided couldn't have been all that important, or he would have found a way to hold onto them.

Unwilling for his memories of Brenda to slip as quickly as the other memories had, Dylan had attempted to keep much of the beginning of their senior year the same.

He still hosted a barbeque for the gang. He still worked on his bike around Brenda, who took a different approach that resulted in several shared rides down the coast. He still accepted dinner invitations at Casa Walsh, where he thought Jim might possibly be gradually warming back up to him when he volunteered to take lessons from Jim on how to properly grill a steak.