The Beautiful Truth

// 121

He softened a little—his agitation eased, and for a second, it was easy to see how much this record, or maybe the woman behind it, meant to him.

"I don't know what she's doing," Black sighed, almost sounding defeated as he rubbed a hand over his coolly unkempt surfer hair. "I don't think I ended up being her type, though."

Oh? Who wouldn't want an album as heart-wrenching as Charming California written about her?

"Football players, baseball players," he explained. "Not guitar players. Maybe I should've held onto my soccer cleats a little longer, huh?"

I asked whether he thought this mystery woman would turn up again, now that an album that had drawn more than one comparison to the iconic Jagged Little Pill around the offices of Spin this week, was about to be released.

Lost in his own thoughts, I think he missed the point.

"Jagged Little Pill?" he repeated, and laughed softly, sounding bemused. "I think maybe I overshot myself. I was more going for something along the lines of Out of the Vein."

Third Eye Blind's least known album?

"Sure," he shrugged, offering no further elaboration. "Oh well, there's always the next one."

--E.H. Spin Magazine

Monday after class I'd returned to my dorm room to find Micki reading my subscription copy of Spin, sitting cross-legged on her bed with the magazine in front of her.

She gasped when I walked in, and I looked at her suspiciously as she froze in place.

"You pretty much read all my mail, anyway; why would I care if you read my magazine?"

Micki was suddenly apologizing all over herself, rambling on about how she'd meant to just throw it away, but then she'd started reading, and well...

She closed the magazine so the front cover was visible. Even from across the room, I could feel the memory of those silvery eyes burning into me. Barton Black, billed on the cover as Michael's Mistress' Mysterious Front Man, had never looked more devastatingly gorgeous.

This time, I froze.

Micki didn't know what to say, and I realized, then, how careful she'd been this last month, and how ungrateful I'd been.

I closed my eyes and let out a long breath. "I'm sorry," I told her, opening my eyes and sitting on my bed.

"No!" she exclaimed again. "I'm sorry! I'm such an—"

"No, Micki, listen," I interrupted her. "I've been so...God, I think I've been so jealous of you all semester that I hadn't realized until now just how hard you've been trying to...tiptoe around me and my feelings. I'm a horrible friend."

Micki pressed her lips together. "You really didn't know about this?" she nodded at the magazine.

I shook my head. "No, my internship ended when school started. Plus, I worked for digital, not print."

She frowned.

"No, I never talked about him."

"You should read this."

I cringed at the thought.

"And then you should listen to that," she nodded toward the CD on my nightstand that hadn't moved since Alex put it there last week.

"I don't—"

"If you don't want to hear his voice, at least read the lyrics."

We stared at each other for a second, having reached a stalemate.

"Well, I've gotta go over to practice," she broke in. "But I'll be back by 7:30. You wanna grab dinner?"

"Sure, I figure I owe you a few."

"Sawyer...you don't owe me anything," she reassured me. "Call me if you need me, OK?"

She slipped out of the room and headed for the BART, which I knew would take her over to the Bay City Cheerstars, where she'd been cheering for the last couple weeks.

I hesitated on the edge of my bed for a while. But, just as I'd suspected, curiosity got the best of me.

I picked up the magazine and read every word of the feature. And then I picked up the CD.

My head still spinning from the last bit of the Spin article, I knew I couldn't listen to him, so I pulled out the liner notes and read.

For you. It's always gonna be for you.

As in...me? The first page dedication was written in his own handwriting, although it wasn't real. Just part of the graphics. I could dream, I supposed.

Pages of heartbreak and bitterness unfolded in tiny text, and if he'd meant for every word to cut me, he'd succeeded. I was crying by the time I got to the end. I was expecting that much.

I curled up on my bed and wished with all my heart that I'd never met Barton Black.

Afraid of what's next,
So scared of the fight—
Just make up your mind,
And don't be afraid to take flight.
You'll always have part of me,
And my broken black heart,
But this is me letting go,
So go make a new start.
Your smile lit the room,
But someone else saw it, too.
You were just charming California,
And I should have kept loving you.