Brandon Walsh Goes Back to the Hills

Chapter 12

Chapter 12:

A whole nother day went by and night was approaching quickly. Steve had come back to the room that Dylan, Kelly, and him had taken up residence. Kelly woke an hour after they had been escorted out and had just been released thirty minutes ago. Her doctor suggested that she stay overnight, but she refused to stay a second more. Steve was gone all day and when he came back he had a packed bag with just a couple pieces of clothing that he planned to cram inside. Dylan came out of Kelly's room, he had been tending to her since she came in.

"She wants to see you." Dylan said as Steve zipped up his overloaded bag.

The business man draped his coat over his right arm, "I can't, tell her I say hi and bye and wish her a happy life."

"So back to Chicago I presume?"

"No, but good guess."

"So where?"

"Just not here."

"And we're not going to see you until the next twenty-year reunion."

Pausing for a brief second, he wondered why Dylan would use the word 'we're' when he barely had contact with any of them for the exception of a sleeping Kelly. "Or maybe not at all."

"I see."

"You two should leave together, back to New York, see to it that she gets home safely."

"Don't leave yet, at least tell me where you were coming from."

"I just dropped the Andrea and Brandon tape off to a journalist at ET. After her dinner she should be getting to it." Steve said with a blank face.

"Ok, I thought you were going to help me see Kelly home?"

Talking to Dylan was like talking to a person who was mentally ill. There was something about him that wasn't right.

"Dylan what do you want from me?" Steve dropped his bag to the floor. "Yeah, we both care about Kelly, but we're not friends, so I say that we part here."

At the sound of Steve's suitcase hitting the floor Kelly got out of her bed. She heard her boys arguing and she snapped out of her tired state to press her ears to the door to see what was the matter.

Dylan kicked Steve's bag out the way. "Tell me why have you been acting out like a little brat who has a score to settle. You were always crazy Steve, but seriously, smoking in middle school classrooms. Not to mention that it was your nephew's class, embarrassing him like that. Whatever you think you've done, or whatever has been done to you isn't that bad."

"I know that you never cheated on Kelly." Steve remarked.

The comment had come out of nowhere and Dylan struggled to figure out what he was referring to.

"Remember Muntz from the frat house, yeah him, I called in with a solid, 'you owe me one.' I told him to come to the door with the news that you and Brenda were kissing behind Club 99. He asked the regular questions of 'why would I want him to do this' blah, blah, blah. Noble me I said that I was protecting Kelly, that I knew you would hurt her and that she would end up in the grave like your first wife. Teared up a little bit, and it was enough to clear his guilty conscience and he did it. At first everybody was in shock, figuring out how to respond, and that's when I stirred the pot and drummed up the drama, put my acting skills to the test. And you know what by the time you and Brenda came in the damage was done and the wedding was officially called off. All throughout our friendship I've watched Kelly go back and forth between you and Brandon, and then you would go back and forth between Kelly and Brenda, and Brandon would go back and forth between Kelly and girl #302, I dunno. I just didn't want her to get hurt!"

"If you loved Kelly Steve why didn't you just tell her?"

"You don't get it, I don't love her like that, never have. You don't have to be romantically involved with a girl to deeply care about her something no one in this God forsaken town seems to get. I just want her to be safe, at peace and out of harm's way. Ever since I broke her heart in high school by spreading those rumors I've always wanted to protect her."

"Ok, so is that why you're acting out? Because you care about Kelly, is that why-"

"No!"

"So, it's Brandon, you don't like Brandon is that right-"

"BECAUSE I CAN'T DO ANYTHING RIGHT!" Steve blurted out. "In high school I faked my grades! I nearly got Brandon and myself expelled from college!" He cried hysterically and then came to a calm point. "I look back at my life and I can't remember ever doing things the right way, there was always some short-cut. Now in this part of my life I've been laundering money from my clients. I can't stay one place too long. The police came to my apartment yesterday looking for me and they'll be looking for me when I get back."

"Steve... they are going to find you."

"I know, I just want to see how long I could keep it up. Believe it or not, I'm not anxious to go to jail." Steve picked back up his bag and headed for the door.

"Wait." Dylan exclaimed. "Don't leave, I want to tell you something."

Steve looked on him with grief, like he was a soul that wasn't worth saving. He left, and when the door slammed shut Kelly, who was still listening, wept on his behalf.