If You Really Love Me (11 page)

She’s angry and getting angrier. Fear is sinking into my stomach, taking my appetite away. How do I explain this to her? It’s not Breeze I don’t like. “Mom….”

She waits a moment. “Say it. Whatever’s on your mind, just say it.”

I am so going to die. “Mom… I don’t think this is right.”

“You don’t think what is right?”

“You and Breeze.”

Her eyes go round with shock and outrage. “Oh, you have got a hell of a nerve.
Seriously?
You’re saying this to me?”

“Mom—”

“I had my suspicions about you even before I came home and saw you letting some boy take off your clothes. Half the parents in this country would have fucking kicked their kid out of the house after seeing that. Did I do that to you? Huh?”

Now I’m looking down at the table. “No.”

“I accepted you for who you are. I loved you just the same. You bring home this big, handsome guy you like, and I’m happy for you. So how can you sit there and not be happy for me and Breeze? How dare you judge our relationship?”

“Mom, you like guys.”

“And now I like Breeze.”

“But that’s not you.”

Her mouth drops open. “You’re a kid who can barely remember to put on a jacket when you go out in the cold. I brought you into this world. I changed your fucking dirty diapers and wiped your snotty nose. Where the hell do you get off telling me who I am?” She pauses, so angry now that her fist is trembling. “You know what? Don’t be here tonight. If you can’t accept me as I am, if you can’t accept the person who’s special to me, then I don’t want you in that part of my life. Get out of my sight, Ellis. Get out of my sight before I slap you!”

She bangs her fist on the table, making the dishes rattle. I get up and rush to my room.

L
ATER
,
AFTER
Mom has gotten dressed and walked out of the apartment (without telling me where she’s going or when she will be back), I leave a note on the fridge explaining that I’m going to be out with Saul for the rest of the day. Then I grab my jacket and go down to Cary’s so I can use his phone.

Saul doesn’t answer. I leave a voice mail message asking him to come by and pick me up as soon as he can. He’s probably at the Y working out. He actually does work out three times a day. He starts out with weightlifting in the morning, aerobic exercise in the afternoon, and more weightlifting in the evening. He looked guilty when he told me that. “I know this is weird,” he said. It does seem to be a lot of exercise for one person, but it’s given him the perfect body, so what’s the big deal?

Cary is giving me this really deep stare when I turn to give him back his cell phone. “What’re you running from?” he asks.

“What makes you think I’m running from anything?” I pull out the chair from his little desk and sit. Annoyance is beginning to eat at me. I can’t tell whether I’m pissed with Mom for being so upset with me, Saul for not answering his phone, or Cary for asking questions I don’t want to answer.

Cary is lying on his bed, a hand propped behind his head, chewing on one end of a fat peppermint stick as though he’s smoking a big cigar. He was watching some old sci-fi movie on his television, but now I seem to be the only object of his attention. “Come on, man. I know you. You got that look like you wanna get away. You in trouble with your mom or something?”

“She’s mad at me,” I admit. “This morning, she started asking me all these questions about why I’ve been avoiding Breeze.”

“Yeah. I kind of noticed how you’re always down here when Breeze is up there.”

The annoyance takes over, and I scowl. “I don’t like it.”

“You don’t like what?”

“Mom and Breeze together. It’s not right.”

“Wait. Hold on.” Cary sits up, shoves his finger in his right ear, and roots around as if he’s digging up potatoes. “Now say that again,” he begs after taking his finger from his ear. “My hearing must be way off.”

I keep scowling at him to show I’m in no mood for his jokes.

“Did you actually say that to your mom? Did you tell her it’s not right for her to be with Breeze?”

“Well… it
isn’t
right,” I reply defensively. “My mom’s not gay.”

“Technically, when it’s a woman, the word is ‘lesbian.’”

“My mom’s not a lesbian either.” Cary has lots of posters on his walls, all of them featuring hot young actresses he wants to have sex with. I look at the posters to keep from shouting at him.

“What makes you so sure of that?”

“Mothers aren’t gay or lesbian or whatever.”

“You’re telling me there’s no such thing in the whole wide world as a lesbian who’s given birth to a kid. Is that it?”

“I know my mom.”

“
Maybe. But man, you don’t know everything about her.”

The annoyance explodes into rage. “My mom’s not gay!”

Cary freezes for a moment. Then he shakes his head slowly, as if there’s something awfully sad or tragic about me. “You really need to grow the hell up, dude.”

I just glare at him, wishing Saul would hurry up and get here.

“H
EY
. L
ET
’
S
get out of here.” I’m barely in the car before the words rush out of my mouth.

Saul immediately takes my hand. “Okay. We’ll go to my place.”

That surprises and excites me. We’ve been dating for about two months now, and Saul has never taken me to his home before. Several times I wanted to ask him why his place was off limits but could never get up the nerve. My surprise and excitement only last a couple of seconds because his hand on mine is cold. At first I think it’s from the wintry weather, but his hand is also moist, very damp. And that’s when I really look at him.

His smile is odd, stretched wide and fixed, almost like it’s been drawn onto his face. His hair has none of its usual curly fluffiness; it lies flat and wet-looking on his head. The skin on his face and neck is pale, sort of waxy, and his breathing seems to be a little too fast. His hand on the steering wheel is shaking as he drives across the parking lot and hits the street. The hand holding mine is squeezing firmly, which is probably the only reason it’s steady. There are three new, unopened packs of gum on the dashboard, Big Red, Dentyne, and Juicy Fruit. The packs still have little price stickers on them. That’s strange, because I’ve never seen Saul chew gum.

“Are you okay, Saul?”

“Yeah. I had a really good workout this morning.”

His voice is upbeat and strong, but that seems as forced as his smile. He is suddenly tapping his index finger on the steering wheel in that weird rhythm of his.
One two three, stop. One two three, stop
. At least it stops his hand from shaking. He’s so out of it, I wonder if he should be driving, and then I get even more worried because I don’t know how to drive. I can’t take over the wheel for him if he needs it.

“Maybe we should just go back to my place.”

“No, I’m fine. Cross my heart.”

We talk as we make the drive uptown. About our midterm exams. About what we’re going to do together during our winter break. He wants to spend Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve with me. And all the while his finger taps away. I get really scared, because something is wrong, and I don’t know what that something is.

I take Saul’s hand in both of mine. “It’s going to be okay, man. You’re going to be okay.”

He still looks freaked, but his breathing seems a little better. His smile seems a little more real. “I know. I was okay the minute I saw you.”

T
HE
HIGH
-
RISE
building where Saul lives is right on the edge of the lake, a lean, futuristic tower of steel and black glass. It even has a marina lined with sailboats and yachts that look locked down for the long winter ahead. You have to pass through a security gate just to get into the building’s parking lot. Saul flashes a smile at the husky guard huddled in the booth beside the gate, and the guard waves us through.

I can see the first three floors of the building are one big garage. My guess is that the garage is for the residents’ cars, while the parking lot is for visitors’ cars. At the garage is another guarded gate. Once the guard sees Saul, she nods, reaches down, and the metal gate slowly swings open. Saul drives into the garage and up to the second level. He parks in an empty slot with a sign mounted at the back that reads “Reserved for Brooks PH2” in bold block letters. There are similar signs mounted at the next three slots. The slot beside this one is occupied by a shiny black sedan. I don’t recognize the make or model, but it’s obviously very expensive.

Seeing the car calms me down a bit because it’s in a space marked for Saul’s family, and that means at least one of his parents is home. A parent who will see what kind of shape he’s in and will know exactly how to take care of him. Two seconds later, I feel even more anxious than before, because I realize I’m about to meet that parent.

“Come on,” he says as he turns off the engine. He plucks the key from the ignition, grabs the duffel bag from the backseat, and is out of the car before I even think about opening my door. He waits impatiently, looking over his shoulder, and the moment I step toward him, he takes off for the elevator banks.

In the elevator, he punches in some kind of code on the panel that makes the PH button there light up, and the elevator begins to rise. It’s only when we reach the building’s top floor that I realize PH means penthouse. We step from the elevator into the most elegant hall I’ve ever seen. It’s lined with benches upholstered in leather and fancy wood tables sporting fancy brass lamps. The hall is not very long. Saul leads me down the north end of the hall and unlocks the door labeled PH2.

We walk into this huge living room. You could fit my whole apartment in here and still have space left over. The long outer wall is lined with large windows that look out on the gray clouds of the sky and the wide, darker gray of the lake’s freezing waters. There is a black grand piano straight ahead, and to one side of that is a group of sofas, chairs, and tables. That’s all I have time to take in before Saul shuts the door, drops the bag, says, “Come here,” and then grabs me.

He’s as big and sturdy as ever, and he smells of soap. But every part of his skin that touches me—on his lips, his cheek, his chin—is moist, sort of slick, and cold. He is sweaty and pale. Little tremors go through his arms and his chest as he holds on to me. He moves his hands up and down my back in a way that seems afraid and searching. The only sounds I can hear are the loud smacks of the kisses he plants on my mouth and all over my face. As sexy as he is, I can’t get into the kissing and the holding, however, because I don’t know what to make of all this.

After a couple of minutes, he lets me go and backs away fast. “I’m sorry,” he says, looking down at my feet. “I know I’m all gross. I gotta take a shower. You can wait in my room.”

He grabs his duffel bag and grabs my hand and tows me across the living room and down the hall. There are pictures on the walls here, pictures of the Brooks family. At least, I think the people in the pictures are the Brooks family. Saul has us moving so fast I can’t really look. He opens a door, and then we’re in his room.

His room is about three times the size of mine. The furniture is all metal and glass, even the desk where a couple of his schoolbooks are stacked. Everything here is so unbelievably neat, the place looks like some sort of magazine layout instead of a teenaged guy’s bedroom.

“Sit down, make yourself at home,” Saul says. “I’ll be with you as soon as I can.” He opens the door to the adjoining bathroom and slips inside. But just when the door is almost closed, it flies open and Saul is standing there looking at me again. His eyes are full of worry. “You’re gonna wait for me, right? You’ll be here when I come out?”

Strange questions, but he looks so anxious I have to reassure him. “I promise, Saul. I’ll be right here.”

He nods, and this time when he disappears into the bathroom, he closes the door.

There’s plenty of stuff here to keep me from being bored: a television mounted on the wall, a game system, the iPad on which we watch TV shows and movies Saul has downloaded. I’m afraid to touch anything. I take off my jacket and hang it neatly over the arm of a chair. Then I sit on the edge of the bed.

From the bathroom comes the sudden hiss of the shower. I look through the stack of magazines on the table by the bed.
Reader’s Digest
.
Time
.
Better Homes and Gardens. US Weekly.
All are the current month’s issues. None of them seem to be anything that a guy like Saul would be interested in. Even after all our dates, even after the sex, he is still mysterious.

“Hello.”

I put the magazines back on the table fast, feeling guilty, feeling that I’ve been caught at something, and look up. A man is standing in the room’s open doorway. His face is almost exactly like Saul’s, except for lines around the eyes and mouth and a thick, salt-and-pepper beard. The man is a lot leaner than Saul, but just as tall. He’s wearing blue jeans and a green sweatshirt, which make him seem sort of average, like one of the teachers at school.

“Uh… hi.” My heart is drumming like crazy. The man doesn’t sound angry or look as if he’s going to yell at me or anything, however, so I relax a little.

He walks right into the room and holds out his hand to me. “I’m Benjamin Brooks, Saul’s father. You must be his boyfriend.”

I shake his hand, but I’m too surprised that he knows about me and my relationship with Saul to do anything else except nod.

“And your name is Ellis, right?”

“Oh. Yes, sir. Sorry.” I clear my throat and let his hand go. “I’m Ellis Carter.”

“I can hear Saul’s in the shower,” Mr. Brooks says, looking apologetic. “He could be a while. His showers either take three minutes or thirty-three minutes, depending on his state of mind. It seems he’s going for a thirty-three minute session this time. Did he offer you any refreshments while you wait?” He is keeping his voice quiet, apparently so Saul won’t be able to hear it over the sound of the shower.