The Beautiful Truth

// 21

"So, are our field passes under Sawyer Fitzgerald or Evan Parrish?" Alex asked, smirking at me as we finally headed toward will call from his frat house where we'd been pre-gaming since early afternoon. It was now almost six, and we were headed in to check out the pre-game warm-ups.

I shot him a disapproving look, but restrained myself from saying something profane.

The conversation in the cab last night went something like this:

"So...who's Evan Parrish?" Barton asked from the front seat.

I was squished into the corner behind him, next to Micki and Alex. I scoffed a short laugh and muttered "Who is John Galt?"

Barton and Alex both chuckled to themselves at my Ayn Rand reference. Micki was even more confused.

"Wait, John Galt? Who's he? And who's this Evan guy? I'm way confused now."

I leaned forward to look at Alex with eyes that said 'dear Jesus.'

"Uh, well," I settled back into my seat and began clumsily. "It's the...pseu—uh, pen name" (I simplified for Micki's sake) "I use in English class...and those people were from my English class."

Alex was the only one in the dark. "Why do you—"

Suddenly rejoining a sensical plane of thought, Micki answered for me. "Because she's Kerry Fitzgerald's daughter and she doesn't want anybody to knowww..." she explained dramatically, as if this had been explained to Alex forty-seven times.

"The End of It All—that's my dad's," I explained.

"And your professor lets you go by this other name?" Barton laughed, still skeptical.

"Actually, it was his idea. It was his solution to me wanting to drop the class," I explained as Micki leaned her head over on my shoulder. I wondered why she hadn't leaned over on Alex. She was quickly asleep.

"OK, so why Evan Parrish?" Alex continued, making an effort not to emphasize my chosen last name.

I figured Barton was probably the one that really wanted to know, but Alex was doing his best to alleviate some of the awkwardness that I should have expected if he'd ever found out.

I sighed and looked out at the sidewalks, still abuzz with people despite the early hour. "My middle name's Evangeline. And Parrish is obviously my best friend's name. We grew up across the street from each other and his mom...pretty much raised me, so...yeah."

That seemed explanation enough. Alex and Barton were quiet after that, and Micki was out cold.

"So who's Barton going to talk to today?" I asked, making a super obvious change-of-subject.

Alex laughed. "Well, Madam non-sequitur, as if you don't already know, he's going to Sire to talk about our tour schedule for the spring."

I only nodded. He was right, I did know that. Luckily, we were now standing in front of the stadium Will Call, and I bounded up to the window with my student ID in hand.

"Sawyer Fitzgerald?" I told the man behind the counter before he started rifling through an overstuffed box resembling a card catalog.

"Here you go," he said, shoving my ID and an envelope back through the glass.

I handed Alex one of the credentials in the envelope and pulled out a folded piece of paper I'd left behind.

"Oh, woah!" Alex hurried forward to grab two fluttering pieces of heavier paper that fell out when I unfolded the note.

I grinned, and read it aloud. "If you're gonna be Cal fans, keep it down, OK?"

Alex was studying the papers he'd saved, and looked up at me with wide eyes. "These are $500 tickets."

I jumped to his side and steadied the tickets in his hand so I could read them. "Holy hell."

"They're on the USC side, but damn if they're not on the 50 yard line. And we get club level access. Wow."

I looked at Alex with a blank expression. "You want to sit there, or the student—"

"Are you kidding me? I'll never be able to afford tickets like this myself, we're sitting on the Trojan side today."

I laughed and linked my arm through his. "Well then, let's go check out the field."

I had to consider, as we walked down to the turf, that Alex was probably wrong—a tour, I would think, would have him making plenty of money to buy a premium college football ticket every now and then, but that was beside the point. As if we weren't excited for the game before, the two of us were practically giddy.

"Oh hey, looks like she made it up OK after all," Alex nodded across the field to where the Cal cheerleaders were practicing.

I recognized Micki's blond curls at the top of a flying basket toss. My stomach lurched, thinking about being thrown that high into the air.

"Yeah, I think she puked it all out last night when we got back," I grimaced at the memory of holding her hair back in the dorm bathroom.

"Yikes," Alex agreed.

"She jumped out of bed this morning like nothing was ever wrong," I shrugged.

We stood silently, staring at her from across the field, not really knowing what to do now that we were here...on the field.

"Hi, are you...Sawyer?" someone asked from a short distance.

Alex and I both snapped our attention downfield to the left. A younger man in a shirt and tie walked toward us cautiously.

"Uh, yeah," I answered.

"Hi, I'm Greg. I'm the Sports Information Director for USC football," he greeted me, extending his hand. "Glad you could make it."

I shook the cobwebs from my thoughts and smiled. "Ah, you must be the one that got our passes. Thank you."

"Yeah, thank you," Alex chimed in beside me, reaching to shake Greg's hand, too.

"Greg, Alex, Alex, Greg," I introduced them to each other superfluously.

"Great to meet you, Alex. So you grew up with Talyn Parrish?" Greg stepped back from us and returned his attention to the field where his team was warming up.

"I did," I smiled.

"He worried the hell out of me about you," Greg admitted, laughing softly. "Thanks for not dressing in head-to-toe Cal, though. That might have been awkward."

I looked at Alex, who had conspicuously not worn any Golden Bears attire, either. He looked very collegiate today—worn out jeans and a black t-shirt. I'd opted for nearly the same—my favorite jeans and a loose white tank top over another, more fitted one.

"Thank you so much for setting this up," I told him. "I am very aware of how...persistent he can be."

We started walking down the USC sideline, making small talk about Talyn along the way. Every now and then I looked up and find him in the middle of the field, one of the warm-up leaders, facing his team, doing all kinds of pre-game drills and exercises. He looked made for the job. And I knew he was.

"Well, I better get back to the press," Greg told us, having stood along the sideline and watched practice with us for a few more minutes, "but you're free to stay down here til the band comes on."

Alex and I nodded, and thanked him for his attention.

"Wanna head up?" I asked him, noticing that the stands had started to fill as we'd been pacing the sideline. USC was slowly moving off the field and toward the visitor's fieldhouse.

"Sure," Alex said, but he didn't seem to be paying much attention to me. I followed his line of sight and eventually realized he was fixated on Micki, who looked rather upset, her shoulders shaking as she faced the brick wall of the field bowl, as if she were crying.

"Oh no," I sighed. "Come on, let's go talk to her."