Page 97 of Like a Love Story
“Shut up,” I say, blushing. “Or I’ll never let you onto the junior varsity blow job team.”
He laughs and kisses me. The heat quickly returns. He enters me again, and it’s like we are flying together, soaring above the world and its problems, and there is no more death or grief or distance.
We collapse into each other when we’re done. After a while, Art gets up and opens the curtains. He’s speaking to me, but I’m still in a haze, floating.
“That was incredible.” And then, sadly, “I wish I could tell Stephen about this.”
I crawl out of bed. It hurts a little to walk, but in a good way, like my body wants to remember him inside me. I walk over to him. I wrap my arms around him, and we gaze out at the city together. We don’t say anything for a very long time. We just stare at the city that brought us together.
The next morning, I put on the most celebratory item of clothing in my closet, the beautiful shirt Judy designed for me. Stephen requested we all wear something fabulous to his memorial. He wanted it to be a celebration of life, not of death. I stare at myself in the mirror. When she first designed this for me, I did not feel worthy of it. Now it feels right. This shirt was designed for someone who loves himself.
There is a knock on the door, which means it’s Abbas. Nobody else in my family knocks. “Come in,” I say.
Abbas enters. He wears a black suit, a white shirt, and a pink tie. “Your mother and sister are both running five minutes late,” he says.
“Because they are getting dressed or because they are arguing?” I ask.
He smiles as he sits on my bed. “A little bit of both.”
He stares ahead at my Madonna posters, records, magazines, all funded by money I stole from him, and suddenly I feel a desire, no, a need, to confess. “Abbas, I... there’s something I need to tell you.” He turns his head to me curiously. I take a deep breath. “I stole money from you. More than once. From your pockets when youwere in the shower, and...”
“I know,” he says, with no trace of anger.
“You do?” My throat feels suddenly dry.
“When you grow up and make your own money, you will always know how much you have in your pockets too,” he says.
“But you didn’t say anything?” I ask, shocked. “Why?”
“At first, I thought it could be Saadi.” He crosses each of his legs over the other so that he’s sitting on my bed like a pretzel. He leans closer to me, speaks in an intimate whisper. “But then I noticed the things you were buying and I knew it was you.”
I can’t believe this. He knew all along. “Did you tell my mom?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I knew you wouldn’t do it forever. And I knew that you needed these things. These records and posters. If you were spending the money on something unhealthy, I would have stopped you.”
“Wow,” I say, with surprise and gratitude. I sit on the bed next to him. “I learned how to do it from Art. He steals from his father. But his dad deserves it. You don’t.”
“Thank you,” he says, a hand on my knee. “I appreciate that.” Then he pulls me into a hug and says with sincerity, “I’m proud of you.”
I almost push him away. It’s too foreign to hear a man claiming to be my father say words like that. “Why?” I ask.
“Because it took courage to tell me what you did,” he says. “And courage to be who you are.”
“Do you think my mom is proud of me?” I ask, myvoice shaking. I’m so afraid of the answer.
“I know she is,” he says with certainty. “Even if she doesn’t know how to say it yet.” He looks me deep in the eyes. “She loves you so much. But you must understand we come from a culture with no history of this. She hasn’t been exposed to people like you, or to gay rights. I’ve been in New York for a decade. I’ve met people, seen things. She needs time.”
“How much time?” I ask.
“I don’t know, Reza,” he says, shaking his head. “She’s scared. She’s scared life will be difficult for you, scared you could get sick. Being a parent is terrifying. All we want is to protect our children, and there is so much out there to fear. So much to blame ourselves for.”
“I’m scared too,” I say, on the verge of tears now.
“I know,” he says, pulling me into a hug. “It’s okay to be scared.”
I appreciate him. So much about him. His gentleness, his patience, his understanding. The second chance at life he has given my mother. The way he has accepted me and my sister. “I love you, Baba,” I say.
Abbas smiles, moved. He may not be the father who created me, but he is the father who loves me. I always thought my own father hated me, but Stephen said to me that nobody truly hates anyone. Hate is just fear in drag, he said. So maybe my father was just afraid of me. But Abbas isn’t.
