The Beautiful Truth

// 16

Monday night's dinner proved to be much less painful than expected. Of course, there was the requisite discussion of the book, in which I passively participated—agreeing when necessary, pointing out one or two missing, yet commonly made points when I could, but otherwise staying disengaged.

The kids, though, were pretty cool—Jenny turned out to be a double-major in art and English, and the guy making dinner—Sal—was from New York, son of Italian immigrants with the cooking skills to match. Trey and I talked music after the discussion of The End of it All died down, and Scarlett promised to meet me at the gym next time Micki bailed on me.

Things were moving right along—I felt at home here in Berkeley. I was settling in. Micki and I had our ritual roommate dinners, and if I was lucky, I could get her to run with me in the evenings, if she hadn't killed herself at cheerleading practice that morning. Apparently, her stunt partner was nagging her to lose weight, despite the fact that she was already in danger of blowing away when the bay breeze swept up the hill.

I usually saw Barton almost every night of the week. He made me feel like I was in, God forbid, my own Kerry Fitzgerald novel, complete with snappy one-liners and dry wit quips. The way he talked to me, he made me feel like it was 'us against the world'...or sometimes just the world against me, when he patiently tried to teach me to surf every Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning.

Cal's football season was going well—by the time USC was set to visit, our record was 4-0. USC's was exactly the same. I couldn't wait for Talyn to come to town. It was like Christmas, and Barton couldn't help but laugh at my excitement...although I kind of thought he was covering for me making him massively uncomfortable...which in turn, made me nervous.

And as if I weren't nervous enough about having Talyn meet Barton, and everyone else here at Berkeley, I eventually realized that I was a different kind of nervous. I was actually nervous to see him. I didn't tell anybody this, of course—Micki would have had a field day, telling me she knew all along I had a 'thing' for my best friend, and who knows how Barton would have reacted. I, myself, had no idea how I would react until the moment I saw Talyn.

I was limping down the stairs by the library, my muscles, sore from this morning's surf session, stiffened from sitting in the stacks for the last two hours with my Spanish book. And there he was, sitting on the edge of the fountain, as unassuming as a USC quarterback could be. He was looking down at his phone, typing away...completely oblivious. I couldn't help but grin as I walked toward him. It was hard, trying to be nonchalant, when I was nervous and excited and...