If You Really Loved Me

by Anne Schraff

  Destini didn’t hear from Tyron over the rest of the weekend. But on Monday morning, soon after she arrived at school, Tyron walked up to her. “How’s your grandmother? Did she get to the hospital okay?” he asked. “It must have been hard for you and your mom to drive way up there in all the weekend traffic.”

  “Yeah, everything went well. Thanks for asking, Tyron,” Destini replied, but she felt strange. There was something troubling in the expression on Tyron’s face. He looked tense. He didn’t look like himself. He was not smiling, but a strange, disturbing grimace turned the corners of his mouth.

  “So what was wrong with your grandmother?” Tyron asked. He was nervously twirling his watch on his wrist, turning the silver band around and around in a frenzied way.

  Destini felt a creeping, numb sensation moving through her body. “Uh . . . heart problems. She’s, uh, had them for a long time . . . she had a pacemaker put in,” Destini answered. Her mouth was going dry.

  Grandma did have heart problems. That part was true. She had a pacemaker too. Grandma was seventy when she died of a massive heart attack.

  “She live alone?” Tyron persisted. “That’s kind of dangerous. An old lady with heart problems living alone. Maybe she could move down here with you and your mom. Then you could look after her better.” Tyron’s half smile disappeared entirely. His face looked cold and rigid.

  “Maybe,” Destini responded. She was frightened. Did he know something? Was he toying with her? Had somebody in the van betrayed her? She couldn’t imagine any of her friends doing that.

  “So, was the traffic bad going up there?” he asked again. “Friday nights are usually pretty heavy . . . ”

  “It was okay,” Destini said.

  “So, how about after school today we go over and have some more of those good egg rolls? Remember how you liked them, babe?” Tyron suggested. His lower lip trembled.

  “Oh, that’d be great,” Destini said, hoping against hope that everything was all right and that her imagination was just working overtime. Maybe there was trouble in Tyron’s house and that was why he was acting so stressed. If there had been more violence, naturally he wouldn’t be himself.

  After her last class that day, Destini hurried to meet Tyron in the school parking lot. Bennie was there, waiting in the old Chevrolet. Tyron leaned against the car, drumming his fingers in his open hand.

  Destini climbed in the back seat with Tyron and Bennie said, “Here we go.”

  But they didn’t turn at the intersection that led to the fish restaurant where they had had the egg rolls. They turned in another direction, down a narrow, tree-lined street that fronted on a park. Bennie slowed down and then pulled onto the shoulder of the road. Bennie got out of the driver’s seat and started walking down the road. Before he got more than a few feet, he said, “See you in about thirty minutes.” Then he walked on.

  “We need to talk,” Tyron insisted.

  Destini felt sick. For a minute she thought she might faint. All day she had been hoping and praying that everything was all right. Now she knew with a dreadful certainty that things were not all right.

  “Babe, why did you lie to me?” Tyron asked bluntly.

  “What do you mean?” Destini asked him.

  “You wanted to be with that dude Derrick Shaw, right? That’s why you blew me off, right?” Tyron asked bitterly.

  “Tyron,” Destini cried, “what are you talking about? You’re talking crazy. I don’t care one bit for Derrick. I care about you.”

  “If you really loved me, babe, you would have gone to the movies with me on Friday night. Instead you went to the movies with Derrick Shaw. And you made up that lie about a sick grandmother to cover it up. Jasmine saw you and Shaw getting popcorn at the movie theater,” Tyron declared.

  Destini started to cry. “Oh Tyron,” she sobbed, “I’m so sorry that I lied to you. I know that was wrong. I didn’t want to hurt your feelings when you called for a date. I’d promised those foster kids to go to the movies with them, and I knew if I told you the truth you’d think I was choosing them over you, but I wasn’t! On the spur of the moment I lied, Tyron. I’m so sorry. But it has nothing to do with Derrick Shaw. It was mainly because of this one little girl—Amber. She had her heart set on me being there and I couldn’t cancel it.”

  “More lies,” Tyron snarled. “Jasmine said you and Derrick looked real cozy buying that popcorn.”

  “Tyron, I swear, the only reason I went to the movies on Friday night with the foster kids and not with you was because of this little girl, Amber. She’s so vulnerable—” Destini was about to explain about Amber’s scar and all she had been through, but she never got the chance to finish her sentence.

  Tyron’s hand came up and slammed against Destini’s mouth in a stinging blow that made her lip bleed. Destini gasped and began to sob. Her shoulders convulsed as she cried, and the blood ran down her chin and onto her pale blue sweater.

  Tyron looked horrified. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and tried to stem the blood from Destini’s lip. “I’m sorry, babe, I didn’t mean to do that,” he stammered, beginning to shake. “I’m sorry—I’m sorry. I just can’t stand the thought of losing you, of you betraying me.” He pulled out a second handkerchief and this time stopped the blood flowing from Destini’s lip.

  Tyron took Destini into his arms and stroked her head. He was crying now. As he held her, he was shaking with sobs too. “I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I love you so much. Please forgive me. I love you so much. I didn’t mean it . . . I didn’t mean it . . . ”

  Destini looked into Tyron’s face. Tears streamed from his eyes down his cheeks. His lips quivered. “I’m sorry, babe,” he said. “I’ll make it up to you, I swear I will. I’ll never hurt you again. I swear on my life I’ll never hurt you again.”

  “I just went to the movies for the kids,” Destini whispered. “There was nothing else . . . ”

  “I know, I know,” Tyron said. “I don’t know what got into me. I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

  “Yes, I’m okay,” Destini replied. Her lips tasted salty from the blood. She got out her compact mirror and saw the nasty bruise and cut on her lower lip. But it had stopped bleeding.

  “Will you forgive me, Destini? Please, please say you’ll forgive me,” Tyron urged.

  “I forgive you,” Destini said.

  Tyron took her in his arms again and stroked her head and her back. His hands moved gently through her hair, along her shoulders. “I love you. I love you so much,” he told her. “Nothing like this will ever happen again, ever. I swear on my life that it won’t.”

  “Okay,” Destini said. “I believe you . . . I guess we better . . . you know . . . go home.”

  “You’ve really forgiven me?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Destini answered.

  Bennie returned to the car. He did a double take on Destini. He swore under his breath, then he got behind the wheel and drove.

  “Take her home, man,” Tyron told his brother. “I lost it. I could kick myself across the county. I lost it, man. Ohhh!” He seemed genuinely grief stricken.

  From the front Bennie advised, “It’s not bad, sweetheart. It’ll heal quick. Just tell your mom you slipped and cut your lip on a fence or something.”

  Destini said nothing. All the way to the house she said nothing. Her mind was whirling like a windmill. As the car stopped at her house, Tyron was agitated. “Baby, I’ll make it up to you. You’ll see. I’ll do something so wonderful that you’ll forget this day, okay?”

  “Okay,” Destini agreed.

  As the car pulled away, Destini walked slowly to her house. Her mother was in the living room. She turned and looked at Destini. “Honey, what happened to your lip?” she asked.

  “I . . . I stumbled on that stupid fence at school and I cut it. It’s not bad though. Tyron’s brother drove me home so I wouldn’t have to take the bus,” Destini explained.

  “I’ll put some benzoic acid and camphor on it, b
aby, and it’ll be fine,” Mom assured her. “Nice of those boys to bring you home.”

  Destini went to her bedroom after her mother doctored her. Her lip didn’t hurt anymore. She lay down on her bed and started to cry.

  How could he have hit her like that? He said he loved her. How could he have hit her? But she had lied to him. She never should have done that. How would she feel if Tyron had made up a story to cancel a date with her, and then she found out he was out having fun, maybe with someone else? Destini knew she would have been devastated too. It was so wrong of her to lie like that. She should have had the courage to tell Tyron she had promised to be with the kids Friday night. He might have gotten upset, but it would not have been as bad as a lie. It wouldn’t have come to this.

  “He got so mad because he loves me,” Destini thought. “If he didn’t really love me, he wouldn’t have cared if I was out with somebody else. That proves he loves me. But he hit me! He struck me. He cut my lip and made a big bruise. Mom said there was a special place in hell for men who hurt women and children” she agonized.

  “But Tyron did not mean to do that. It was almost like an accident. He was just wild with fear that he was losing me. He was so sorry at once. He was crying. He was really crying. He was grief stricken over what he had done.” Destini got up slowly and went to her diary. She reread the poem Tyron had given her.

  She is lovely as a rose, she is my dearest treasure,

  She is the one I chose, loved beyond all measure,

  I thank the fates that brought us together.

  Destini clutched the poem to her chest. She had never been loved like that by a boy. That love had transformed her life. She felt so sad and lonely before Tyron came into her life, and now he made her feel lifted up and happy. Everything was beautiful since she met Tyron. The air itself had a fragrance that she never noticed before. Everything was different and brighter.

  Tyron made a mistake. He made a terrible mistake. But so did Destini. She lied to him. She must never lie again. She must be honest with Tyron. Their relationship must be built on truth.

  “I’ll never lie to him again, never,” Destini resolved. “Then everything will be all right. It’ll be as it was before. He’ll never hurt me again. Never.” Lying was something Destini had control over. All she had to do was be honest . . .

  It dawned on Destini that Jasmine had done a very evil thing by telling Tyron that she saw Destini at the movies and that Derrick Shaw was there too. Why would she do such a thing? Why didn’t she come to Destini and ask her why she was at the movies with other people instead of with Tyron? Destini could have explained herself.

  Jasmine was the real culprit in all this, not Tyron. She had caused the whole thing, and Destini hated her because of it. Destini felt like going to her and smudging her hideous green eye shadow and telling her she looked like a witch—and she was a witch.

  But Destini couldn’t do that. Jasmine was Marko’s girl, and Tyron thought everything Marko did was perfect, including his choice of Jasmine. So Destini had to be nice to Jasmine even though she hated her. It made Destini sick, but that’s the way it was.

  Chapter Eight

  At school on Tuesday morning, Destini made a big deal out of telling everyone how she had stumbled and fallen into the school fence and cut her lip. She called herself a clumsy oaf. She laughed about it. She made jokes about it. She didn’t want anybody to suspect for a minute what really happened.

  When Destini saw Tyron, she smiled at him as if nothing had happened. He looked at her nervously. He leaned close and whispered, “After school, meet me by Harriet Tubman’s statue. I got something for you. I got something to prove how much I love you.”

  Destini smiled at him and headed for her first class. On the way she met Alonee Lennox. The two girls looked at one another. Alonee grabbed Destini’s hand, “Girl, you okay?”

  “I’m fine, I’m great,” Destini replied.

  “For sure?” Alonee asked, “because . . . ”

  “I couldn’t be better,” Destini cried almost fiercely, rushing for her English class.

  All day Destini struggled to concentrate on her classes and to appear normal. Inside her mind there was turmoil. She would be angry and hurt one minute and then blame in all on herself the next. Once or twice she even considered breaking up with Tyron. She would tell him that what had happened had changed everything and it couldn’t be fixed. But the thought of doing that filled her with a desperate loneliness. And then she quickly made excuses for him again.

  Destini had come to love Tyron. There was no getting around that. At first it was just the thought of having a boyfriend, but now it was more. Every time she thought of him, her heart stirred. She had begun looking forward to seeing him as the highlight of the day. At night she dreamed about him. He was the first person she thought of in the morning when she woke up and the last person she thought of before going to sleep at night.

  When the last bell of the day rung, Destini walked to the statue of Harriet Tubman. She sat on the grass there and pretended to be reading her American history textbook.

  Maybe he wouldn’t come, she thought. Maybe he wouldn’t show up at all. Tyron had been so emotional about the whole thing. Maybe now he was ashamed to face her. Maybe the incident had damaged him even more than it damaged her.

  The flow of students going by quickly thinned out. Only a few passed by now. A few said “Hi” to Destini. She looked up briefly from her book as if she were very intent on reading it. She glanced at her watch. If he didn’t come soon, she would miss the regular bus and have a long wait for the next one.

  And then the shadow of a boy fell across the page of Destini’s book. “Tyron,” she breathed, looking up at him and smiling. It hurt her lip when she smiled, but she did it anyway.

  Tyron reached down and took Destini’s hand, pulling her gently to her feet. “Want to go across the street to the pizza place?” he asked. “Don’t worry about being late getting home. Bennie will drive you.”

  “Okay,” Destini agreed.

  They walked across the street and Destini decided against pizza. The chewing would only start her lip bleeding again. She ordered a mocha, and they sat in a little alcove. The place was not busy now but later on it would fill up fast.

  Tyron took a box out of his pocket. It was not large, about the size of a cell phone. He put the box on the table between them.

  Destini looked at the box. “For me?” she asked.

  “You bet. Nothing but the best for the best,” he said. “Open it up, beautiful.”

  Destini’s hands were shaking as she opened the box. She gasped at the sight of the gold chain curled up on a bed of cotton. The chain held a heart-shaped pendant with the word Love in the center. It was the most beautiful thing Destini had ever seen. “Ohhh Tyron, it’s real gold, isn’t it?” she breathed.

  “Yeah, you think I wouldn’t get you gold?” he exclaimed. “Try it on.”

  Destini tried to clasp the chain around her neck but she was fumbling with it. Tyron took it and put it around her neck with the little heart at her throat. “Just wait till you’re wearing a nice vee-necked dress, babe. That necklace will really stand out. You’ll be the envy of every chick at Tubman.”

  Destini looked at the gold chain in her compact mirror. “Oooo,” she gasped. “It looks so beautiful!” Then she felt sad thinking he couldn’t have afforded such a thing. “Tyron, it must have cost a fortune . . . ”

  “Marko helped me out. Marko always helps me out. He knows how much you mean to me, babe. If I could have given you a real star from the sky, I woulda ridden on one of those spaceships and pulled it down. I want to prove to you how much I love you. I’ll never get mad at you again, babe . . . not like I did. Never. I swear. You believe me, don’t you?” Tyron’s voice was high-pitched and shaky.

  “I believe you, Tyron,” Destini sighed. “Oh, this is so beautiful. I never thought I’d ever have something like this in my entire life. I feel like a movie star or something. I fee
l like a princess.” Destini threw her arms around Tyron and kissed him. “I love you!” she cried. “Thank you for the most beautiful gift in the world.”

  When Bennie dropped Destini off at her home, she had made up her mind not to mention the gift to her mother. Mom wouldn’t understand how a junior in high school could give Destini such an expensive gift. So Destini went into her bedroom and opened the bottom drawer of her dresser. She had a little ivory box there with a lock. Inside was her diary, and now she slid the jewel box in beside it.

  One of these days, Destini thought, she would buy a really lovely dress and go on a date with Tyron and wear the gold chain with its pendant and feel like Cinderella at the ball. None of the girls at Tubman had such a piece of jewelry, except maybe Jasmine. Destini had envied them for their boyfriends and their beauty and popularity. Now they could envy her. They would see that Destini had a boyfriend who treasured her so much he would buy her a gold chain.

  At school the next morning, Marko and Jasmine met Destini on her way in. “Hey Destini, how’s it going?” Marko asked. Jasmine didn’t say anything. Destini figured she knew she had done a rotten thing ratting Destini out. Destini wondered if she knew what a terrible incident she had caused.

  “It’s going great,” Destini replied. “I’m ready for the history test. I really studied. I got a C plus going in history, and I think I can bring it up to a B.”

  “How do you like your bling, girl?” Marko asked. Apparently he knew about Tyron’s gift. Tyron said as much—Marko helped him get it.

  “It’s so beautiful. I love it,” Destini said.

  “You know what it means, don’t you?” Marko asked.

  “Well sure. It means, Tyron really cares about me,” Destini answered.

  “That too,” Marko agreed, “but it also means that there is a little invisible stamp on you, girl. It says ‘Property of Tyron Becker. Do not touch.’ Nobody can see the stamp, but it’s there. You know it’s there.”