Tell Me It's Real

by T. J. Klune

  “You know, for someone who talks highly about the worth of another, you don’t seem to know your own,” she said.

  I tried to stop myself from rolling my eyes, but I didn’t succeed. “I know you’re probably filled with a bunch of medicine right now, but I hope you’re not so high that you think you’re a fortune cookie.”

  She laughed. “I like you, Paul.”

  “You do?” I asked, surprised. “I’ve broken into your hospital room, chewed you out as I criticized your parenting skills, all the while reminding you that you probably only have a few days left to live and demanding that you do things the way I want you to. And then you say you like me? If I were you, I’d probably hate my guts and get the Secret Service in here to take me away and throw my body in a ditch near the Mexican border. If you do that, I ask that you tell them to make it quick because I think I’d be a big baby under torture. It’s probably why I could never be a spy.”

  “And that’s the only reason?”

  “I can act,” I said with a scowl. “I played a block of cheese once, you know.”

  “Paul?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you care for my son?”

  “More than I thought possible,” I confessed. “I tried to fight it. Honestly. My parents….”

  She waited.

  I pushed forward. “They married a week after they met. And the way they met was weirdly mirroring how Vince and I met, and it’s just so damn implausible and it doesn’t make sense. It’s like the universe is trying to shove your son down my throat and I’m trying to show I don’t have a gag reflex, and now that I think about it, I really wish I hadn’t just said that to you. That your son goes down my throat, not that I don’t have a gag reflex.” I blushed furiously. “Er. Both, actually. Look, can you please not think about me having sex with your son? It’d really make my day. Where is that fucking time machine when you need it?”

  She grinned at me. “I don’t think I’ll get that image out of my head for as long as I live.”

  I choked on my tongue. “Did you just make a dying joke?” I asked in awe.

  “Too soon?” she asked, arching her eyebrow and looking so much like Vince that I wanted to see him so badly right that second I almost hurt.

  “Well, at least we know that regardless of whatever else you could have been, a comedian would have been one thing.”

  “Is he going to be hurt, after I’m gone?”

  I frowned. “You’re his mother. It doesn’t matter what happened before. He’s still going to lose you. Yes. It’s going to hurt him.”

  She nodded. “Then I need you to promise me something.”

  “What?”

  “That you’ll take care of him. That you won’t let him hurt for too long before you make him smile again. I am asking that you watch over my son, Paul. To make sure that he will come out of this okay.”

  I started to backpedal. “What about his dad? Or Darren? Or anyone else who has known him longer than I have? What if we decide we hate each other next week? What if he decides he hates me like an hour from now? He doesn’t know I’m here. I’m pretty sure this constitutes as lying. Already.”

  “My husband won’t understand,” she said sadly. “And maybe that’s my fault. I’ve sided with him for far too long. I’ve put his career ahead of things that I should not have ignored. I thought it was for the best, but I was wrong. Hindsight is a dangerous thing, especially this close to the end.”

  “What about Darren?” I asked desperately. “He’s got to be able to do more.”

  Her eyes hardened. “Darren,” she said slowly. “There’s something you should know about Darren. He and Vince are—”

  “Paul?” A surprised voice. A confused voice. A hurt voice.

  I closed my eyes. Oh, fuck.

  “What are you doing here?” Vince asked. “Mom, what’s going on?”

  “Paul was kind enough to stop by and bring me flowers,” Lori said lightly, her skin going a little paler than it was before. She knew as well as I did that we’d been caught. “Wasn’t that just sweet of him?”

  Vince pushed past me until he was standing in between me and his mother, as if he was protecting one of us from the other, though I couldn’t say which one was which. I know which one I hoped, but it immediately made me feel like an ass, so I pushed it away. This wasn’t supposed to be about me.

  “How did you know she was here?” he snapped at me. He looked angry, the first time I’d ever seen it. His eyes were narrowed, nostrils flaring. His chest rose and fell rapidly, his arms tense at his side.

  “I was unaware that I couldn’t have visitors,” Lori said from behind him.

  “The girl from the bike store,” I told him honestly. “She mentioned your mom was sick and who your parents were. I wanted to come see her before there wasn’t a chance to. That’s all.”

  “That was days ago,” he said, taking a step toward me. “Why didn’t you say anything before then?”

  I was on the defensive, though I didn’t want to be. Going on the defensive meant I felt I had done something wrong, and maybe I had, but I needed to find a way to stand my ground. “Why didn’t you just tell me who your parents were?” I asked him. “Jesus, Vince. You’ve met my whole fucking family already. For fuck’s sake. You told my mom about your parents. Why wouldn’t you tell me anything about yours?”

  His eyes grew wary. “She told you about that?”

  “No. She didn’t. I was on my way back in to rescue you and heard you talking to her. Don’t you try and blame her for anything, Vince. She didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I want you to go, Paul,” he told me coldly. Somehow, his tone hurt more than his anger. He sounded like he was talking to a complete stranger.

  “Vince, you need to calm down,” his mother scolded. “Paul didn’t do a damn thing wrong. If anything, this should show you how much he cares about you.”

  “Vince—”

  “I can’t see you right now. Please.” His voice broke as he took a step back. “You shouldn’t have come here. You shouldn’t have gone behind my back.”

  “I just wanted to make sure she saw you as I do,” I said helplessly. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

  He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “I guess I shouldn’t have expected you to. You were right, after all. We’ve only known each other a few days. You said it over and over and I didn’t listen, so how could you possibly understand why this would hurt me?”

  “The only way I’ll know is if you tell me.” I stood, rooted in my spot.

  “Go away, Paul. Please.” He reached up and wiped his eyes furiously. That hurt more than I ever thought it would, to see him upset and not able to do anything about it. Worse, being the cause of it, though I didn’t understand why. “I don’t want you here.”

  And that broke my trance, my reluctance. Those five simple words were enough to bring me back to my senses. I nodded at him, wondering how I could have possibly allowed him past my defenses, how I could have thought this would have worked. Being in love after days was stupid. It was foolish. It wasn’t love. It couldn’t be, not really. Love at first sight was a sweet thought, a romantic notion, but it wasn’t real. Removed from the situation, I’d see that. I’d know. I’d see clearly. He didn’t want me here to help him through whatever he was going through, and who was I to argue with him about that? He’d made himself very clear.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, but not to him, to his mother. I looked over his shoulder into her wet eyes. She shook her head at me, but I ignored it. “I’m sorry for what you’re going through, and I’m sorry I won’t be able to promise you anything. I wish… I wish I could have gotten to know you better. You seem like a very nice lady, and my heart breaks for your family.” I turned my gaze to Vince, just for a moment. And for you. Somehow, you’ve gotten past all my defenses and you almost made me believe. My heart breaks for you most of all.

  I turned and walked away.

  Chapter 17

  Int
erventions: Not Just For Addicts And Hoarders Anymore

  “GO AWAY,” I moaned from underneath my blanket as Sandy pounded on my bedroom door. “The light, it burns! I’m all alone and it burns.”

  “I knew I shouldn’t have let you go into the bedroom!” he said through the door. “You open it right this minute or I swear to God I will break it down.”

  “You weigh, like, twenty pounds,” I reminded him. “The only thing you’ll be breaking is the idea that you could break down anything. Now go away and let me wallow in my own pity. Or you could go out and buy me six boxes of Ding Dongs so that I can eat them all at once and drown myself in chocolate while I decide if I’m going to go find Christ as a monk in the Himalayas or if I’m going to turn straight.”

  “I’ll buy you so many Ding Dongs,” he said soothingly. “Just open the door and we’ll go get them together. I promise. I’ll eat them with you and then we’ll go to Los Betos and I’ll buy you the biggest burrito your face has ever seen. Or if you decide to turn straight, I’ll find you so many girls and all the vagina you can eat. We may need to get you a couple of practice girls first just to make sure you’re doing it right. Or we could just go get a cantaloupe and cut it, and you can practice on that while we look up technique on the Internet.”

  “You want me to perform cunnilingus on a cantaloupe? It’s like you don’t even know me at all!”

  He pounded on the door again. “Open this door!”

  “No! It’s all your fault! I told you!”

  “What? It was your idea to go!”

  “No, not that. When we were ten years old! I told you then! You promised me!”

  “Are you doing lines of coke in there or something? What are you talking about?”

  “The promise!” I bellowed at him. “When we were ten and I accidentally told Billy Harvey that I had a crush on him and he ran away screaming, I made you promise me to never let me think of ideas on my own ever again, and furthermore, if I did think of ideas on my own, you were never to let me act on them.”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said. Then he chuckled. “I saved you on that one, though. It turns out Billy Harvey wasn’t that great of a fuck. He had a small penis. Even at sixteen, I knew the difference.”

  I glared at the door. “You had sex with him? You do everyone! I can’t wait until it’s your birthday because I’m going to buy a sign for your front yard that says, ‘Sandy lives here and blows everything that moves.”

  “If you open the door, I’ll blow you,” he promised.

  “I don’t want your love,” I said dramatically. “Ha, I bet I’m the only person in the free world that’s ever said that to you.”

  “Open this door!”

  “Allllll by myyyyyyselllllf,” I sang forlornly. “Don’t wanna be, allllllll byyyyyy myyyy—”

  Something slammed into the door. “Ow,” Sandy muttered. “When did you replace the doors with sheets of steel?”

  I rolled my eyes. “They’re not. They’re oak. Maybe that’s like your kryptonite. Or maybe you’re just a tiny, tiny man.”

  “Oak? So if I was a superhero, all anyone would have to do is bring a log of oak to a fight and I’d lose? That sounds supremely lame.”

  “Or, like, what would happen if your arch-nemeses lured you into the middle of an oak forest in the middle of fall? He would stand above you cackling as the orange leaves fell from the trees and you writhed in pain on the forest floor.”

  “What would my superhero name be? The Oak Diva? Got Wood? Lincoln Log?”

  I considered. “Got Wood works, only because it’s kitschy. But you can’t be named after your weakness. It’d be too easy to kill you. Duh.”

  “And what would my superpower be?”

  That one was harder. “Insatiable dance moves,” I finally decided. “You can woo anyone with the magic roll of your hips.” I started getting excited at the idea, already picturing the superhero costume in my head, complete with bitchin’ thigh-high boots. “And then you could have a catch phrase that’d be all like—Wait a minute… you’re trying to distract me!”

  He sounded bewildered. “‘Wait a minute you’re trying to distract me’ would be my catch-phrase? That sounds kind of dumb.”

  “No, you bastard! You’re trying to distract me from the fact that you totally helped me fuck up everything!”

  He snorted. “I didn’t do jack.”

  “I knew this was a bad idea. I knew I should have never gotten involved with him in the first place. Stupid shit like this always happens. It’s fucking ridiculous.”

  He groaned. “Are you really going to have an ‘I feel so bad for myself’ bitch fest? Really?”

  “I’m allowed,” I said. “I think. While it was possibly the shortest relationship on record, it burned pretty brightly.”

  “Who said it’s over?”

  “You didn’t see the look on his face, Sandy,” I said quietly. “I don’t even really know why he got so mad, but he was. He didn’t want me there, he made that much clear.”

  “That doesn’t mean you guys broke up,” he pointed out. “It could mean just what he said: that he didn’t want you there.”

  “Yeah?” I sniffed.

  “Yeah. Why don’t you open the door now?”

  “Yeah, I’m not going to do that.”

  “What?”

  “Apparently your superpower is deviousness because I can see right through you! Trying to act like you’re on my side and shit and then make me open the door so you can bite my head off like a gigantic praying mantis! I won’t be your dinner, Sandy! I fucking won’t!”

  “That’s it,” he growled. “I’m calling Matty and Larry.”

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “And Nana. And yes I would, you just watch me.”

  “I’m calling your bluff.”

  “I’m dialing my phone! That noise? That’s me pressing the buttons!” I could hear the loud tones of a number being dialed. “You better come out before I tell your mom that you’re pouting in your room because you and your boyfriend had a fight! You know what she’ll do, Paul.”

  “Go to hell!”

  “Hi, Matty? I’m good, sugar, thank you. Hey, you won’t believe what Paul is doing right now.” His voice faded as he walked down the hall.

  I quickly looked to my window to make my escape, only to remember I’d put stylish safety bars on the outside after I’d moved in so no one could break in and rape me in the middle of the night. I cursed my intent to keep myself pure because I could not escape from my prison now. I was pretty sure I could take down Sandy if I tried, but then I remembered what he looked like as Helena and that was one fierce bitch and I didn’t think it would be good for my already bruised ego to get knocked flat on my ass by a man who weighed forty pounds less than I did.

  I just couldn’t seem to get the look on Vince’s face out of my head, like I’d betrayed him somehow by going in and seeing his mom. Lori had been right when she talked about how much hindsight sucked. Granted, hers was a bit more profound, what with a lifetime of regret, and mine made it sound like I was a thirteen-year-old girl since I was pining after my weeklong relationship.

  But I still couldn’t get him out of my head. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I should have opened my mouth the night before and said aloud what I’d thought when I’d looked at the star he’d named after me. I should have told him then that I knew about his mom and dad, how he was going to regret it for the rest of his life if he didn’t spend every waking moment with her until she was gone. I should have told him to put the past behind him and to just let it be until it was no more. It’s easier to be angry at someone when they’re gone, not when they’re still here and suffering. He could have hated her then. He didn’t need to now.

  But she didn’t seem like someone to be hated. She didn’t seem like the wicked bitch I thought she’d be, the stereotypical bigot who didn’t love her son because of who he was. Granted, it sounded like she’d put her husband’s political aspirations ahead of her own fa
mily. That was a different kind of negligence. Indifference might not have the connotations of hate, but it could hurt just as badly.

  I must have been lost in my thoughts a while, because the next thing I knew, there were the murmur of voices outside my door. I rolled my eyes and tried to shut them out.

  There was another pounding on the door, this one a little lighter than Sandy’s egregious wailing. “Paul?” Nana called sweetly. “We’re here for your intervention. I brought you Ding Dongs and Los Betos.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Mom said. “You can’t tell him we’re here for an intervention and then try to bribe him with food. He’s not going to fall for that. We tried that when he was a kid, and he locked himself in his room until we promised to get Zack Morris from Saved By The Bell to come to his birthday party. He didn’t believe it then, either. He said that if that was true, we’d put the food near the floor and blow on it so he could smell the burritos through the crack in the door.”

  Yeah, yeah. I was a fat kid. So what. I liked food. Bite me.

  “And Zack still never came to the birthday party,” I retorted through the door. “That’s probably one of the reasons I’m so messed up today.”

  “Your father tried to dress up like him for you,” Mom said.

  “He dressed like Screech! No one likes Screech. All the kids at my party thought he was a homeless clown! And I don’t smell Los Betos, you liars!”

  “Oh, he’s a smart one,” Nana said, obviously sounding impressed. “You don’t fall for the bait unless you have proof of life.”

  “I don’t think that’s quite what that means,” Dad said. “And a homeless clown? Really, Paul? I never made fun of you when you dressed up like an orange dice for that play you were in.”

  “I told you,” Sandy crowed.

  “He was so wonderful in that,” my mother said tearfully. “What was his famous line, Larry? You know, the one that everyone was quoting?”