If You Really Love Me

by Gene Gant

  “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.

  Chapter Twelve

  “HEY. LET’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.”

  THE 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 wo
uld 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.

  I keep my voice quiet too. “No, sir.” Somehow, that admission feels like a betrayal of Saul, so I add, “But he probably knew I didn’t want anything.”

  “I see.” He sits down in the chair where I put my jacket. “Saul doesn’t usually talk very much to his mother or me, which is typical of teenagers, I suppose. His brother wasn’t like that, thank God.” Something about him seems very friendly and easygoing. “But he’s told us quite a bit about you. He only does that when he likes someone. In fact, he’s told us you guys are in love with each other.”

  Again, I am stunned speechless. Saul and I haven’t said the L word to each other since that afternoon we had sex in my room. We’ve fooled around a lot after that, but the circumstances haven’t been right for us to have full sex again. Not yet.

  Mr. Brooks is studying my face carefully. “You seem a bit surprised, Ellis. Is this news to you? Has Saul never told you how he feels about you?”

  “Yes, sir, he has.” Maybe some people only feel love when there’s sex involved. But that’s not Saul or me. I know we love each other, sex or no sex.

  “I hate to ask such personal questions when we’ve just met, but do you have feelings for Saul?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “You love him?”

  I don’t even have to take a moment to consider my feelings. “Yes, sir. Definitely.”

  “Ellis, emotions can be tricky when you’re so young. Kids fall in and out of ‘love’ at the drop of a hat.”

  My phys ed teacher said something like that way back in eighth grade, how kids can have mood swings because of all the changes in their hormones and stuff. I know what Mr. Brooks is saying, and I know what he’s saying doesn’t apply to me now. “This isn’t like that, sir. I really love Saul.”

  His eyes seem to bulge with doubt. “After only two months, you’re sure of that?”

  His doubt makes me angry. “Yes, sir.”

  Mr. Brooks settles back in the chair. He looks tired suddenly. “Saul is not well. Has he told you that?”

  A little tingle of fear goes through my chest. “What do you mean?”

  “Has he done anything that makes you… uncomfortable? That makes you feel he’s smothering you, staying too close?”

  Okay. This man is officially starting to creep me out. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “What I mean, Ellis, is that Saul has become obsessed with you.” He gets up, grabs the books off the desk, and brings them over to me. He flips open the books. On the inside cover of both books, I see my name. Just my name, written over and over again in Saul’s neat block printing. My name in lines and columns, covering every inch of blank space.

  It’s so sweet. No one has ever liked me this way. He thinks about me. This proves that I actually matter to him. That brings a smile to my face.

  Mr. Brooks sighs. He seems to know exactly what I’m thinking. “You may believe this behavior is cute. It is not cute.” He closes the books and returns them to the desk. “When he’s not writing your name over and over or talking about you, he’s staring at your picture on his iPad. I’m sure he’s texting you every five minutes. I’m surprised he doesn’t call you up and keep you on the phone for hours at a time.”

  “I don’t have a phone.” Saul can’t text me, but he does leave lots of notes in my locker. I keep every one of them, and they have filled up a whole grocery bag, which I keep under my bed. He shows up a lot between classes, just so we can smile at each other or exchange a few words, even though our schedules send us to opposite sides of the building most of the day. I’ve never thought about it before, but that has to make him late for some of his classes.

  “Ah. No phone. That explains it.” Mr. Brooks nods grimly. He sits down in the chair and leans forward, staring into my eyes. “Ellis, do you know what obsessive-compulsive disorder is?”

  “No, sir.” But the words bring a bigger rush of fear to my chest.

  “Saul has been diagnosed with the condition. He’s controlled by his thoughts and impulses, and that makes him take ordinary things to an extreme. By now, you should know that Saul is into bodybuilding. When done right, exercise is a very healthy activity. Bodybuilding requires a respite between sessions because it works by tearing down the muscles. The muscles need time to recover. Saul knows he should only lift weights every other day. But his mind compels him to work out three times a day, every day. That’s harmful to his body.”

  “But he looks so strong….”

  “Strong doesn’t necessarily equal healthy. Saul works out so hard and so much it dehydrates his body. He not only loses fluid, he loses electrolytes, and that can make him very sick. He can die from it. He knows how worried his mother and I are about the workouts. He wears oversized clothes trying to hide the fact, but we can see how big his body is getting. After workouts, he becomes obsessed with cleaning his body. That means he showers three times a day. And, as you may have noticed, he is also obsessed with the number three. There are certain things he feels he must do in sets or multiples of three. None of this is healthy behavior, and it is ruining his life.”

  Now I’m so afraid, I can only sit here and blink stupidly at this man. This man who speaks so calmly while his eyes are burning with anxiety and my heart is jumping for my throat.

  “His mother and I tried cutting off his allowance so he wouldn’t be able to pay for his YMCA membership. We instructed the school that he was not allowed to use the gym there except as part of a class. He stopped participating in all of his classes and let his grades drop to zero until we allowed him to reinstate his Y membership. We have tried to get him in therapy. We make appointments for him, and he doesn’t keep them. If we take him to the doctor’s office, he sits through the entire session without saying a word. We have grounded him, taken away his privileges, done everything we can think of to get him to accept treatment. None of it worked. The only other option is to have him committed. I don’t want to do that to him, not at a point where he has to make so many crucial decisions about his life, but I may soon have no other choice.”

  “Why won’t he let the doctor help him?”

  Mr. Brooks sighs. “I can’t pretend to understand exactly how his mind works. He seems to have come up with a system to justify his actions. If he can steal three things from different stores without getting caught, or upset a teacher three times without getting suspended, or break three traffic laws without getting a ticket, that means it’s okay for him to do three workouts that day. When it comes to you
, one of the things he talks most about is his doubt about your feelings for him and his fear that you will leave him. He worries whether he is good enough for you.”

  “Good enough for me? But why would he wonder about that? I love—”

  Mr. Brooks raises a hand, cutting me off. He takes a quick, worried glance at the bathroom door, beyond which the shower is still going loudly. “There’s not much time. I don’t want Saul to find me here talking to you. Here’s why I’m telling you all this. Saul has skipped Thanksgiving and Hanukkah with his family to be with you. We don’t observe the religious aspect of Christmas, but we set aside the day to be with each other as a family. Saul has announced he won’t be here for that this year because he intends to spend the day with you. For whatever reason, you mean a lot to my son. Guys your age are full of juice—forgive my crudeness—and some of you just want to spread it around as much as you can. I don’t know what kind of person you are. But if you are seeing other guys, if you’re not ready for a relationship with someone who is facing a very difficult challenge, if you’re going to dump Saul, do it now, when he can handle it better. Don’t let him get more deeply involved with you, because if you dump him then, I’m afraid it will destroy him completely.”

  The sound of the shower stops. Mr. Brooks gets up and hurries quietly from the room, closing the door softly. I’m sitting on the bed, frozen, with the feeling that a bomb has just gone off in my face. It’s sort of like the room is spinning around me and all the air is being sucked out of the place. I lean forward, head down, taking deep breaths and blowing them out. In another minute, I’m going to break down and cry. I can feel it.

  The bathroom door opens, and I look up. Saul is standing there completely naked, rubbing a thick bath towel over his hair, looking at me with eyes full of apology and insecurity. He is actually bigger than the first time he showed me his bare body. I can see that now. His physique looks so amazingly good and hot. He could probably break my bones if he squeezed me in those huge arms. But with all his size and strength, there is something about him right now that is like a lost little boy who needs a hug. “You’re still here,” he says in this amazed voice.