Page 56 of Like a Love Story
He doesn’t look back at me, but he does stop. “It’ll be okay, Art,” he says. “But I have to go. Someone needs to be there for her.” And he’s off. Gone to support his niece, who I just royally screwed over. He’s not my father, he’snot even my uncle. He’s hers. He doesn’t belong to me in any way, and he’s probably done with me now.
I’m alone with Reza. It’s so cold out that barely anyone is walking on the street. It feels like it’s just us in the world, or us against the world, because everyone seems to have turned on us. I wished for him, and now he’s here with me. So why does it feel so bittersweet? “Art, I came here for you,” I hear him say again, and I wish he would say it again right now. Wish he would remind me that I matter to him.
But instead he says, “I’m so scared, Art.” He’s shivering. Maybe from cold. Maybe from fear. Probably from both.
“I know,” I say, taking his hands in mine. “But this won’t even be on your record. As long as you don’t get arrested again in the next six months, it’ll be forgotten about.” I try to sound as soothing and supportive as Stephen sounds when he reassures me, but I can hear the worry in my own voice.
“It’s not that,” Reza says. “It’s... I was on the news. I thought...”
I’m such an idiot. He’s not worried about the arrest, or about Judy. He’s worried about his family. I can only imagine how upset they’ll be, how much they’ll hate me too. They’ll blame me for corrupting their son, just like my parents blame Stephen. Ugh, why am I thinking about my role in this? Why am I making it about me?
I don’t know what to say. If I tell him it’ll be okay, it would be a lie. I know firsthand how cold andunsupportive parents can be, how deeply their homophobia can cut. “I’m here for you,” I say. I wish I could think of something better than that generic platitude, but it’s all that comes to me.
“I wanted to see you. To be with you. I didn’t think I would be on the news,” he says quietly. “I didn’t... I’m not ready to tell my mom.”
“I know,” I say. “I know. I get it.”
He sobs, warm tears falling down his cold cheeks. “What if she won’t look at me anymore? What if my stepfather doesn’t want to stay married to her because of me?”
I take his hands in mine. I cup them and blow into them, warming him up. Do I see a small smile through his tears?
“I hate this,” I say, shaking my head. “I hate that a moment that should be joyful is filled with so much anguish.”
“I also feel joy,” he says through tears.
Now we both laugh, because it’s just so absurd, and because there’s nothing else to do. I kiss his sweet hands, his slender fingers, and I hold his hand to my cheek. “I can be with you if you want, when you tell them.”
He shakes his head. “No, that wouldn’t feel right,” he says. “I need to do this alone.”
“Okay,” I say. “I can walk you home.”
“That would be nice,” he says.
We walk home, side by side. “What was it like when you first told your parents?” he asks.
I want to lie, but I can’t. He deserves my honesty. “It was horrible, Reza. But I got through it. And you will too. I can promise you that.”
He nods somberly.
“And if they kick you out, we’ll go somewhere together.”
He laughs. “Like where?”
“Like San Francisco,” I say, excited. “I’ve always wanted to move there anyway.”
“Why?” he asks. “You’re already in the greatest city in the world.”
“Yeah, but San Francisco is thegayestcity in the world,” I counter. “It’s a place where queers are the defining part of the city’s identity. There are queers in New York, but no one thinks of New York as a place for queers. They think of it as a place for everyone. When someone wants to call you a fag, they don’t tell you to go to New York, they tell you to go to San Francisco. That’s what Darryl Lorde always used to say to me.”
I hear Darryl’s voice in my head.
Go to SAN FRANCISCO, fairy.
You belong in SAN FRANCISCO with flowers in your hair, faggot.
Why don’t you just admit you’re from SAN FRANCISCO?
“San Francisco,” Reza repeats. “Maybe the two of us will go there someday.”
