If You Really Love Me

by Gene Gant

Mom and Breeze are sitting side by side on the sofa, practically cuddling, talking in whispers, giggling like teen girls. I look away, making a beeline for the hall door.

  “There you are, El,” Mom says. The sound of her voice stops me. “You were so quiet in there, I thought you’d sneaked out on us.”

  “I was just telling your Mom what a cute couple you and Saul make.” Breeze’s voice is smooth and hushed.

  My whole groin feels like it’s about to explode. I press my knees together. “Okay. Thanks. I think I’ll go to bed now. Good night.”

  “Well, I’m so glad I met you, Ellis,” Breeze says. “I’m sorry you and I didn’t get a chance to talk much this evening. But we’ll have other chances for that, won’t we?”

  “Yeah, sure. Uh… good night.”

  “Good night,” they call together as I rush down the hall to the bathroom.

  If I wake up tomorrow morning and find out Breeze spent the night here with Mom, I think I’ll just die.

  I WAKE up not long after sunrise with soft, pale yellow light slanting onto the floor through the partially open blind on my window. I don’t want to go parading around in my underwear in case Breeze is here, so I pull on the slacks I wore yesterday.

  After my ritual stop in the bathroom, I head for the kitchen. The door to Mom’s room is open. The bed hasn’t been slept in. Thank God.

  Mom bought orange juice, cereal, milk, Pop-Tarts, and frozen chicken biscuits when we were at the store. I get the box of Wheaties from the pantry. When I turn to the fridge, I spot the note on the door.

  El, I’m staying over with Breeze. We’re taking a little trip out of town Friday morning.

  See you sometime Friday night.

  Love,

  Mom

  I take the note off the fridge, ball it up, and toss it in the garbage can. This whole thing with Breeze is not good. It is so not good.

  I’M SITTING on Cary’s bed while he sets up his television and game system so we can play Grand Theft Auto. It’s going to be a short game, since we only have until Auntie Jeanne finishes her shower and gets dressed. Mom and Auntie Jeanne have always taken the Friday after Thanksgiving off from their jobs so they can go shopping together. I should have known something was up when Cary told me yesterday that he was going with his mom today.

  “What’re you gonna do, El?”

  “About what?”

  He gives me a look over his shoulder. “About college.”

  The question makes me anxious. I shrug and fiddle around with the controller as if I’m practicing my moves.

  He switches the mode on the TV to show the input from the game system and then comes over to sit beside me. “This movie theater thing just might be it for me,” he says. “I’ll start out working concession and the ticket booth. If I’m good at that, I could get a shot at being the projectionist. They have a manager trainee program, and I’ll probably get into that at some point. I love movies, so I can see myself being a manager at a theater somewhere. I think I’d like that.”

  I don’t say anything, just wait for him to start the game.

  He looks at me, waiting for something else.

  Finally, he says, “Man, you must have some idea what kinda career you want.”

  “I don’t know, Cary. The only thing I can think of is being a teacher, but I’m not really sure about that. You know how crazy the kids at our school are. Kids are probably like that everywhere, and I don’t know if I can deal with that kind of crazy.”

  “You gotta stop being so afraid, El. If you want to be a teacher, then be a teacher. You’re smart. You can do it. Bottom line is that you’re running out of time, and you need to start making some decisions.”

  I don’t say anything. It’s too big of an idea, going out into the world and becoming somebody who works and pays bills and takes care of things. And yet, I know I need to get out of my mom’s hair for good. That’s so important. But I don’t want to think about it.

  Cary picks up his controller, flicks a switch, and the game is ready, waiting for us to begin. “Your move,” he says.

  A FEW minutes before one, the doorbell rings, and I know it’s Saul. I start smiling on my way to the door. And then he’s filling the doorway, looking really flushed and a little tired but excited too, a happy grin on his face. Before either of us says anything, he leans over and kisses me full on the lips. He smells fresh and cool, every part of him shining with cleanliness. I just had a shower and washed my hair and brushed my teeth, and I’m wearing clothes that I pulled out of the dryer thirty minutes ago, so I think I match him in freshness today.

  “I’ve been waiting all day to do that,” he says when he pulls back.

  “I’ve been thinking about you too.” I step aside, he walks in, and I close the door.

  He shucks his jacket, and I look at his butt, which is just about totally lost beneath the baggy jeans he’s wearing. He has a nice butt, a great body, and I still can’t figure why he tries to hide it.

  “Should I just toss this on the chair or something?”

  Startled, I look up and see that he’s peering over his shoulder at me and holding out his jacket. “Oh. Sorry.” I take his jacket and hang it in the hall closet. When I return to the living room, he’s sitting on the sofa. He holds out an arm to me. I go and sit next to him, and he wraps that arm around me. “Where’s your Mom?”

  “She’s out….” I stop myself from adding on a date.

  He pulls me closer. We look into each other’s eyes, and his face lights up. I can feel my face light up too. “Have I ever told you that you’re cute?”

  The blush slides up my neck in a tingle. “No.”

  “Ellis,” he says formally, “you are a cute guy.”

  A big grin spreads slowly across my face. “Thanks. So are you.”

  He slips his other arm around me, wrapping me in tightly, and he kisses me again. The kiss is long, soft at first, but it gets serious fast. Suddenly, his tongue is in my mouth. He’s never done that before, and it sends a shock of excitement through me. He pulls me closer, crushing me in a way that feels so good. My heart speeds up.

  I want to touch him. I want to touch him in a way I’ve never dared touch him before. There’s a part of me that has always been terrified of the urge, but this time the terror isn’t strong enough to win. I reach down and grab Saul’s crotch as we kiss.

  He pulls back. “When is your mom coming home?”

  “Tonight.”

  He hesitates. For a moment, there seems to be fear in his eyes. His hand strokes my shoulder three times. “Show me your room.”

  We get up. He takes my hand. I lead him down the hall and into my room. The bed is made, but the clothes I wore yesterday are scattered across the floor. I don’t think Saul notices; if he does notice, he doesn’t seem to care. There isn’t much else to see. I don’t have a lot of stuff. There aren’t any posters on the walls, just the pictures of motorcycles and kids playing soccer that Mom hung up. The only electronic thing in here is the alarm clock on my nightstand. I’ve never brought Saul to my room before, afraid of what would happen here if I did.

  We lie down side by side on the bed. I wait to see what Saul is going to do next, but he just lies there, and I can’t wait any longer. I slide my hand over his crotch again. He pulls me on top of him. With my chest pressed to his, I can feel how hard his heart is beating. He kisses me again, and his hands slide down into my jeans, under my boxers. After that, everything seems to happen in slow motion, in some type of weird dreamtime.

  We take off each other’s clothes. We touch, and I’m startled by the hard smoothness of Saul’s naked body beneath my hands. I have a final fear, the ultimate worry, but Saul has come prepared, with condoms, and that fear too goes out the window. What we do in my bed is exciting beyond words. Some of it hurts a little (okay, a lot) for both of us, but Saul is patient and tender with me, as I am with him, and finally it is all wonderful.

  We lie together afterward, my head on Saul’s chest, his fingers
stroking my hair.

  “Are you okay?” he whispers.

  “Yeah,” I sigh.

  His body is so warm. The rise and fall of his chest is like a slow dance.

  “Ellis.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I think I love you.”

  The words rush against my ear in the whisper of his breath and stun me. I don’t move for what seems like forever.

  Saul shivers beneath me. “Uh… did you hear—”

  I look up at him quickly, cutting him off. “Do you really mean that?”

  “Yes, I mean it. And I’m not just saying that because of the sex. I’ve been feeling that way for a few days now. I don’t know everything about you, but I do know that you make me feel everything is okay.”

  I can’t believe it. I can’t believe Saul is lying here with me, holding me, saying these things to me.

  “There are things you don’t know about me,” he goes on, “so I understand if you don’t feel the same way I do. But that’s why I wanted to see you today. I wanted to tell you how I feel.”

  He seems to be ready to say more, but I don’t give him the chance. I reach down and take his hand, squeeze it, and then say, “Saul, I think I love you too.”

  He shivers again. I lift myself up and kiss him. And everything is good.

  Chapter Eleven

  THINGS GET strange.

  Saul is strange. He’s waiting at my locker every morning when I arrive at school. He greets me with a kiss, sometimes right on the lips, even with students and teachers all around us. It makes me nervous the first few times he does it. I’m not out at school the way I am at home, and with all the weird stuff that has already happened to me there, I wasn’t planning to add to my troubles by letting the real me out of the closet. But Saul doesn’t seem to give a damn what anybody thinks. We get funny looks the first couple of times we kiss, but after that, nobody even glances our way.

  He makes a point of leaving little notes in my locker between classes, notes that say sweet, goofy little things like “Miss you,” “Hi, there,” and “I want a hug.” Every afternoon, once school is done, he takes me out somewhere, to a movie, or for hot chocolate at Starbucks, or to the art galleries downtown. My favorite kind of date is one where he parks on the lakefront, and we make out in the cozy warmth of the backseat while boats skim along the icy waters in front of us.

  He smiles and laughs more than ever when he’s with me now. He seems so happy when we’re together, as happy as I feel. But sometimes when we’re alone and everything is perfect, he gets so afraid he shudders, and he grabs onto me as if he thinks something is going to tear him away from me. “How do you really feel, El?” he asks at times like that. “Are you really into me?” I tell him yes, definitely, because it is so true, but ten minutes later, he asks me the same question again.

  Mom is strange. Most days, she goes from work straight over to Breeze’s place, wherever that is, so I don’t see her that much. When I do see her, she looks relaxed and fulfilled in a way I have never seen. One morning, after she came home from an overnight date, I actually caught her singing in the kitchen. She hasn’t yelled at me or hit me in forever, it seems. I’m glad for that. I’m glad she is happy. But I miss her. Sometimes being in the apartment by myself in the dark, late-night hours freaks me out, and I wish Saul could be with me. Mom deserves happiness. I just wish her happiness wasn’t coming from Breeze.

  On the rare occasion when Mom is home, she plans something like a nice dinner or brings home a new DVD. These are things she and I are supposed to enjoy together with Breeze. I don’t want to enjoy anything with Breeze. Mom hardly seems to notice when I slip out the back door to go downstairs and hang out with Cary.

  This strangeness with Mom and Saul goes on for days and days. With Cary leaving after Christmas, I’m always either smiling or crying or going what the fuck? in my head.

  “TONIGHT. SIX o’clock,” Mom announces. “I’m cooking dinner for you, me, and Breeze. Make sure you’re here.”

  It’s Saturday morning. Christmas is just two weeks away. Mom and I are having oatmeal and coffee for breakfast. I’m glad she plans to cook dinner today. That means she’ll be going to the supermarket. Lost in her new life with Breeze, the food supplies get pretty low around here before she catches on. But I’m not going to be around for dinner. I have plans. Or at least, I will as soon as I call Saul. It sucks not having my own cell phone. I have to go down and use Cary’s whenever I want to call my one and only boyfriend. “Sorry, Mom. Saul and I have a date, so I can’t be here.”

  “Yes you can. Invite Saul over. The more, the merrier.”

  I have to think fast here. “We’re… going to a movie. It starts at five.”

  Her eyes narrow. “What is it with you?”

  “Huh?”

  “Every time I set up something for you to do with Breeze and me, you disappear or give me some excuse about having something else to do. What’s going on here?”

  “Nothing’s going on.”

  She closes her hand into a fist around her spoon. “Ellis, you can really drive me straight up the wall at times. Breeze wants to get to know you. Why are you avoiding her?”

  “Shouldn’t she be getting to know you first?”

  “She is getting to know me. She wants to see what my life is all about. You are part of my life.”

  I can’t think of anything safe to say here.

  “Why don’t you like Breeze?”

  “Mom, I don’t know her well enough not to like her.”

  “Exactly, yet I can tell you don’t. I repeat, why don’t you like her?”

  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.

  LATER, 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 weightl
ifting 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.