The Beautiful Truth

** 43

According to her Facebook status, she was headed to see some indie film with that kid from Third Rock From the Sun in it. He'd already forgotten the kid's name. One of those hyphenated deals.

He hated that he obsessively checked her status, but the way he saw it—football season was over. He didn't have that to occupy his mind with. Nor did he have classes to occupy his mind with at present. No one wished the semester would start sooner than he did.

Pathetic. He couldn't remember ever being so miserable. He was so miserable that he briefly considered calling up Hadley. Surely she'd be up to something entertaining, albeit with the slight inconvenience of television cameras following her around. He would have even endured that, if it meant he could find some escape from his internal maelstrom of irritation, boredom and general gloom.

But no, sadly, and perhaps even ironically, Hadley, too, was in Park City for Sundance. Idly, he wondered how much it would cost him to get there. Actually, he could probably find someone to take him. He knew people, right? But again, no, that would most likely cause him more heartache and disappointment, and he definitely wasn't up for that.

At least in all this there was a silver lining. John Winter was gone, thank God. Talyn, despite having been recruited and fostered by the guy since sometime last winter, couldn't wait to see him go after all the bullshit he'd brought upon his team. He'd've gladly given him a personal escort out of town, but the bastard packed up his office and left in the middle of the night last Friday.

Besides, he wouldn't have wanted to give Winter the satisfaction of knowing he cared. He'd done a great job so far of pretending that it was just another step along the way, rather than what it really was—a huge fucking pain in the ass disappointment. No bowl games for two years? Really?

All he really wanted was to talk to Sawyer. His best friend would know what to do—or at the very least, what to say. She always did know the perfect thing to say in these situations—the ones that seemed impossible. But, he wouldn't know where to begin what with the way things ended last time he saw her.

He had yet to sort out his feelings about that one. After all, thinking about the last time he saw her would require him to think about how he'd stupidly told her he loved her. How moronic could he be?

Jerome was out, being questioned for the umpteeth time, probably about to lose his scholarship. Talyn couldn't stand sitting still any longer. He had to get out of his football team dorm. Time for a run, and some serious thinking. No music, just his own thoughts.