The Beautiful Truth

// 57

I was a little annoyed at myself that I'd had to ask what my best friend's favorite place in LA was—if I'd had two active brain cells, I would have already known, but at least the question had gotten him to bring me here. We were currently standing on the top row of Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, staring northeast at downtown LA while the sun set behind us.

It was remarkably clear this evening. The heat wave cleared out the night before, and the air was left much lighter in exchange. I was almost shivering in my longsleeve shirt and worn out jeans.

Seeing this, Talyn laughed and pulled me into his side by my shoulder.

"It's beautiful up here," I smiled, instantly warmed against him.

"It is, isn't it?" he replied rhetorically. "Kinda makes you forget how weird everything is out there for a second, doesn't it?"

I laughed softly, thinking of all the strange things we'd seen in Los Angeles this weekend. "Maybe. I could see living here, though. I think it might be fun for a while."

"Something like that, anyway," he sighed.

"Are you happy here, Tally?" I asked, still looking out over the vast cityscape in the distance, avoiding his eyes because I knew they'd probably break my heart in ways I wasn't sure I could handle at present.

I wasn't surprised when he hesitated. The way I saw it, he had a lot of reasons to be unhappy. He knew it, too.

"Well, let's see," he finally began, sarcasm sharpening his voice from the first word. "The coach that recruited me just got my team blackballed from the BCS for the next two years while he skipped off in the night for the NFL. My roommate, who until he left was my best friend here, went down with the ship, evidently after apparently and basically getting paid to play this whole last season. My dad thinks I should transfer to Oklahoma—God, kill me. And my best friend lives five hours away."

I turned to look at him. I didn't like him this way—I never had. It was rare when Talyn Parrish felt sorry for himself, but when he did, it was absolutely unbearable. This angry, ungrateful twat (his words, once, not mine) version of himself was absolutely unbearable. Although, all things considered, I supposed I knew a thing or two about covering deep disappointment with abject bitterness. 

"On the upside, the weather here is amazing, and if I stay to play for no championship next season, I'll be captain," he shrugged.

I nodded off to the side and returned my eyes to the horizon. "Way to look on the bright side."

Talyn scoffed. "Right."

"I'm sorry, Talyn."

He just shook his head. "What are you sorry for?"

"I don't know. I know this isn't how you thought it would turn out down here..."

"Oh, because I thought you might apologize for being a world away this weekend," he muttered.

And I knew he was right. I could feel my heart cracking in half. I looked at him, knowing how badly it would hurt, and sighed. "Jesus, I'm sorry. You're right."

He shrugged again and looked away. "It's OK. I know you're going through it right now," he brushed me off.

"No, it's not OK!" I exclaimed. "You're the one that needs his best friend, and I've only been half-here. I'm sorry."

Talyn turned from the concrete wall and stepped up over the steel bench of the top row. "Come sit down with me, SF."

I looked at him apprehensively as he gracefully bent to sit on the bleachers. Reluctantly, I walked around to sit next to him.

"What are you gonna do, Talyn?"

He sighed. "I don't know yet."

And that was the truth—I could tell by the weight of his tone.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I offered, already knowing I'd ruined any chance of that happening with my own self-absorption.

"No more than you want to talk about what's going on with you," he muttered.

I frowned. "I... I'll tell you whatever you want to know, Talyn, but I don't think you want—"

"No, tell me, SF," he all but pleaded. "We—it didn't used to be so difficult between us, did it?"

He was right—it wasn't this difficult before Jason Mandrino had told me how my best friend was in love with me, and how my best friend had all but told every guy I'd ever liked to stay away from me in high school because I was his girl. Except I wasn't, and I was still a little sore about that, but I wasn't about to bring it up. As far as I was concerned, he didn't have to know Jason had given him away. I was still trying to deny it, myself, because accepting it made things so much messier and so much more confusing. 

So instead, I stayed focused on the obvious.

"I miss him, Talyn. I miss Barton Black. And well, you know me...'people always leave' and all that," I sighed, quoting some line from a television show we used to watch. "I mean, I know he's coming back, but there's just something inside me that...I don't know, expects this to all fall apart before then. My brain can't wrap itself around the fact that I'm—"

Talyn laughed a little, and I couldn't tell if it was bitter, or sympathetic. "What, that you're happy?"

I bit my lip and considered this. "Maybe."

"Christ, Sawyer, you're only happy when you're miserable, you know that?"

I stared at my feet. "That's not true."

Talyn scoffed and looked off over the stadium. "Yeah, it is. Be happy Sawyer. It's time you figured out how to handle that. I think you've spent so much time being pissed at your mom that you don't know how to act now that you know what really happened. Finding out that her leaving was the culmination of a lot of bad decisions, instead of an impulsive choice, turned your world upside down, and now you don't know how to feel, since you don't have to be so fucking angry anymore. It's like...you're looking for a reason to be mad again, because if you're not mad or sad—and you accept that you're happy, you have to worry—"

"That the other shoe's gonna drop?" I interrupted. "I know. You're right. It's just easier not to get my hopes up."

Talyn rolled his eyes. "Instead of looking at all the things that are wrong in your life, why don't you start looking at all the things that are right?"

I sighed. I didn't know whether to be mad at him for having such a negative impression of me, or hurt because he was totally right. I leaned my head over on Talyn shoulder. It flexed at my touch, and a sat up again after a few moments, not knowing how to react. "I'll be happy if you will, Tally."