The Beautiful Truth

// 116

"I'm sorry, you have a date with who?" Micki asked as she packed her things a few weeks later. I could hear her rifling through her bathroom drawers while we talked on the phone.

I sighed. "Tim Lincecum."

Radio silence.

"The third roommate got us all tickets to the Giants game on Sunday, and when we went out afterwards, he met up with some guys from the team...and he introduced us, and motherfuckin' Chase gave him my number...and he called Monday afternoon and asked me if I wanted to go to dinner, so...yeah, there's that."

"Motherfuckin' Chase, huh?"

I laughed, albeit uneasily. Chase had unilaterally decided that I needed to 'get back out there,' and well, Tim was nice enough. We'd talked mostly about music. I couldn't see this going anywhere, ever, but hey. It was a free dinner downtown, right?

"Hmmm... a baseball player. Here I thought football players were more your type."

I chose to ignore that. "Yeah, so apparently this Lincecum guy is pretty good, I guess."

Micki scoffed. "Pretty good?"

"You know I don't care about baseball."

"Jesus, Sawyer, even I know who Tim Lincecum is. You've spent the last two months living with jocks and spending two hours a day in the gym, where I know ESPN is on all day long. How do you not know that Tim Lincecum, aka 'The Freak' is a phenom, almost guaranteed to win the Cy Young award?"

What the? "Who are you right now?"

Micki laughed happily. "Outside of, you know, the whole rehab business, I've done nothing all summer but read the paper and watch TV...which is pretty much all bad reality in the summertime. So, there's been a lot...and I can't emphasize this enough--a lot of SportsCenter."

"Cheater."

She laughed again. "I know, but it sounded good, didn't it?"

"Yeah, speaking of athletics," I segued past my impending date night with some pitcher on his next off-day, "are you still gonna cheer this fall?"

"Oh!" Micki exclaimed as if she'd suddenly remembered we hadn't talked about this. "God no. At least not for Cal varsity. There's an all-star team across the bay I might try out for."

"An all-star team?"

"Ha, basically it's a bunch of ex-high school and college cheerleaders that still like to stunt and compete."

"I had no idea that even existed."

"Oh yeah, it's huge in the south...but there are a ton in California, too. This one, my friend cheers for—he was my stunt partner when I was a high school freshman, so it would be cool to cheer with him again. Besides, they do a lot of stuff with kids, too—classes and clinics...I think it would be fun, and I could make sure someone teaches them how to do the sport the right way, you know?"

I smiled. "That sounds great, Micki."

"Yeah, so I'll see you on Tuesday, all right?" she assured me.

"Yep, Chase and Travis are gonna help me haul my stuff down the hill that morning, so I'll see you when you get there."

My phone showed another incoming call. Travis was on the other line.

"Speaking of," I told her, "Travis is calling me. I better see what he wants."

"OK, have a good night, I'm sure I'll text you later."

"Yeah, yeah, later!"

I flipped over to Travis and exited 24 toward campus. "What's goin' on," I drawled.

"Hey, hot stuff! Dinner's on us tonight, come straight to Maki."

"What's the occasion?" I asked apprehensively.

I could hear Travis smile on the other end. "Chase and I just wanna say thanks for everything."

I smiled, too. "Ah, well, I'll never pass up sushi. I just got back to Berkeley, but I'll be there in ten minutes, is that cool?"

"Perfect, we'll be there."

I'd spent every waking moment teaching Chase and Travis—mostly Chase—the new Cal offense. At breakfast, on the treadmill, over the phone, at the bars—it had been a nonstop crash-course. Fifteen days from their season opener against Utah and Chase knew his playbook cold.

That night, after sushi and a trip to see some of my favorite Phi Delts, we ended up at the bar on Claremont. I sweet-talked Charlie while my boys played pool, and I reflected on my summer.

And despite my impending date with that baseball player, and the salacious text messages I was trading with Jason Mandrino...and the plane ticket to OKC I bought for late September, and all the friends I'd made since deciding to come back to Cal for the summer, I realized I'd never missed Talyn more.

The sad part was, I had also never been more clueless—I had no idea how to fix it. I did this. I decided it. And now I had no idea how to take it back. Talyn had finally given up, I supposed. I hadn't heard from him in weeks.

It wasn't a secret that we'd all gone out that night to get drunk. Charlie made sure we left happy. But on the way back up the hill toward my summer home, as Chase and Travis lagged behind since I'd long since stopped complaining about the walk, I was struck by a sudden pang of loss. For the first time in months, I pulled out my phone and sent him a text. It was the cowardly thing to do, but I doubted there was enough alcohol in the town to get me to do anything more.

I miss you.
Nothing has changed.
Nothing will ever change.