The Beautiful Truth

** 93

Two weeks after exams were over, and two weeks of spring practice as the sophomore captain of USC's football team under his belt, Talyn sauntered off the jetway into DFW.

Despite how tired he should have been, what with all the extra conditioning he'd subjected himself to for no other reason than he needed a distraction, he was wired. All those protein shakes must have been paying off. Or something.

He felt like he could jog all the way back to Pontiac...although cotton blossoms were blooming and he'd probably asphyxiate before he got there. God, he was going to have to sleep in one of those bubbles for the next month. He'd always been violently allergic, but having been away for a while, he'd probably swell up and die within a week.

Talyn laughed at his own hyperbolic digression. See? This is why he'd done so much running and stadium stairs and weight lifting in the past two months...just trying to keep his mind under control. He sighed, and hoisted his bag higher on his shoulder, heading for the exit.

"Ah-hem!" a little voice cleared her throat on the far side of the stairs from the ground floor as he skipped down them.

Oh. They did it. Talyn made a mental note to kick his mom. Much like trapping him while he was in the shower, his mom had sent Sawyer to pick him up at the airport, essentially trapping him, but this time in a large moving vehicle.

Suddenly, he wasn't so sure jogging was a bad idea.

Not that he didn't want to see Sawyer. He did. That was the problem. But, since that disaster concert in Norman, he'd given her more 'space' than he had in all eleven years of knowing her, and he wasn't sure how to...close the gap now, so to speak.

They'd never gone so long without talking. What had he missed? He wondered, simply staring at her like an idiot.

She was wearing cutoffs, and a criminally thin white v-neck t-shirt with flip flops, aviators and her trademark dark summer tan. Her hair was wavy, and sun-streaked and wild, and she glowed like she hadn't worn makeup for weeks.

"Lookin' good, TJP!" she exclaimed, standing on her toes to reach up and hug him. "God, I've missed you. How long are you here?"

"A month. Sawyer, are you OK?" he asked cautiously, returning her hug and frowning. Nice as it was, this was not the greeting he'd expected.

Sawyer pulled away and took off her sunglasses so he could see her pretty eyes. "Talyn, I'm fine."

Despite himself, he smirked at her. "Whatever you say, SF."

He threw his arm over her shoulder, and she put her Ray-bans back on.

"Mmm..." he sighed, taking a deep breath. "Smell those cotton bloss—" he involuntarily hacked out two deep coughs before he could get the words out.

Sawyer chuckled, and led him to her Tahoe in the parking garage. He tossed his bag in the back. As he climbed into the passenger side, Sawyer tossed a box of Zyrtec in his direction.

He grinned at her, and put on his own sunglasses. "So what's new, Say?"

She smiled one of her most genuine smiles, and nodded at the dashboard as she backed out of her spot.

Talyn leaned forward and reached for the manila envelope that was about to slide out the window.

"Don't read it now!" she warned, laughing. "Pages will go everywhere!"

Talyn wrinkled his nose and pulled out the stack of paper far enough to read the cover page.

The End of It All

Written by Sawyer E. Fitzgerald

Story by Kerry Fitzgerald

© 2009; Original Draft

"Holy shit," Talyn exclaimed, almost involuntarily. "You wrote—this is yours? Is this what I think it is?"

Sawyer glanced at him as he flipped a few pages. Yep, it was her screenplay. Hot damn, she'd actually done it.

"That's your copy, by the way," she told him, the smile audible in her voice.

"Wow."

That was all he could say.

But that was OK with Sawyer. She happily told him about sharing it with her dad, and sharing the epilogue with her class, which had somehow not only incited a 90-minute post-class discussion, but also magically eliminated one of her final exams.

Barton Black or no, Sawyer Fitzgerald was different. She seemed...free.

They were more than halfway home before it came up. Sawyer had barely stopped talking, and he was simply admiring her from his side of the car while she talked over the warm air pouring in through the windows.

"I'm sorry I blamed you," she said after a short pause.

Talyn wanted to laugh, not because of what she said, but because it seemed like she'd been waiting to get that out there the entire time.

"You didn't do anything wrong," she continued. "And I'm sorry it took me so long to move past...all that."

Talyn considered her for a second. "SF, what else happened?"

She pressed her lips together and pulled her left foot up into the seat. "He didn't talk to me the whole rest of the tour. I called once, after...oh shit, that's another story."

Good God, Micki was in eating disorder rehab?! Christ, Sawyer's world had been falling down around her and Talyn had been nowhere to be found. He felt sick.

But somehow...she'd made it through. Had she always been this strong?

"Have you talked to her?"

"Yeah, almost every day on the phone since I got home," she smiled. "Pretty much all day by text. We can call her later. She'd like that...She's doing great, Talyn."

Talyn couldn't help but smile back at her. But she'd gotten off track. They were just about to cross into Oklahoma. "You called him?"

"Ah," she mellowed out again. "Yeah, he didn't answer. And then I tried to go to the show when they got back to town...I saw him makin' out with some other girl..." she trailed off.

Sawyer might have been strong, but she wasn't completely over it, either. Talyn sighed. At least he was back to being able to read her like a book.

"What's that song?" he asked her suddenly.

She looked at him, confused.

He grinned. "We could drink 'til you forget about him," he sang.

Sawyer cued up the song, grinning as they crossed into Pontiac County.

We could drink 'til you forget about him,
It's not like he waits up for you...
I'm sure he'd do the same thing, too.
But I am on your side...

Talyn couldn't help but think that if Barton Black had two brain cells to rub together, that was exactly what he was doing. Or trying to do, anyway.

Talyn missed the old Sawyer—the one only he knew. The semi-sad, always-sarcastic Sawyer most people ignored. But there was no way anybody was ignoring this Sawyer—this enthusiastic, strong, openly vulnerable version.

And as if he could've fought it, Talyn was dismayed to find he was right back where he started.

In love.