Like a Love Story(62)

“What does this have to do with me and Reza?” he asks desperately.

“This is not about you and Reza,” I say. “And it’s not about me and Reza.” That’s when it hits me how little I’ve thought about Reza today, and how much I’ve thought about Art. This is my real heartbreak. “Are you an idiot?” I ask. “This is about me and you.”

He stops again. I don’t want to stop walking. I’m on a roll. I’m saying things I never even knew I felt.

His lips tremble a little, and then, in a defensive whisper, he says, “I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to apologize for my parents’ wealth or my gender.”

“And I don’t know how to apologize for my heterosexuality,” I snap back.

We’re at an impasse now. We’ve both said what we never dared admit aloud before.

I start walking again, but toward home this time.

“Judy, please,” he begs as we walk. “I know we can make this right. I know we can figure it out.”

“No.” I hold my hand up.

“This will suck without you,” he says. “All of it. Our last few months of high school, me and Reza . . . what about Sunday movie nights?”

“What about them?” I say, being intentionally cruel.

“Stephen loves them as much as we do.” He’s desperate now, grasping at straws.

“Don’t use my dying uncle to get forgiveness that you don’t deserve,” I say. “Stephen has lost over a hundred friends. I think he can handle the grief of not having us both at Sunday movie nights.”

“You’re still going to go?” he asks, incredulous.

“He’s my uncle,” I spit out. “I’ll do whatever he wants me to do, and he’ll do what I ask him to.”

Stop now, Judy.

“Please don’t . . . please don’t make him stop seeing me,” he says. I can see tears forming in his eyes. They fall down his cheeks. It’s like the thought of losing Uncle Stephen is more devastating to him than the thought of losing me, and this reminds me of all those times I wondered whether Art would’ve liked me as much as he did if I didn’t have a gay uncle he looked up to. These tears give me my answer. I guess I always knew it, though. I just looked the other way, like I did with so many things when it came to Art.

We reach my apartment building. We face each other. His tears stop. His cheeks are moist, and his eyes are gauzy.

“Goodbye, Art,” I say. It sounds final.

“You’ll still see me, you know,” he says. “In the hallways. In class. Let’s be civil, at least.”

“Goodbye, Art,” I say again.

He fixes his stare on me and tries one final plea. “I know there’s a version of this where I say I’ll give him up, but I can’t do that. I care about him too much. If you were a real friend, you would understand.”

“Guess we’re not real friends then,” I say. Just saying those words brings tears to my eyes. I don’t want him to see me cry, so I turn away from him.

“Guess not,” he says, his voice full of sorrow.

“Goodbye, Art,” I say for the final time.

I can hear his voice breaking as he says, “I love you and I always will.”

They’re all gathered in the living room when I get home. I sit next to Uncle Stephen, who asks how it went.

“Can we not talk about it?” I ask. I suddenly feel exhausted.

I can tell my mom is disappointed, that she very much wants to talk about it, but Uncle Stephen quickly says, “Of course. We can never talk about it if that’s what you want.”

My mother gives me a look that at once tells me she supports and loves me. Then she says, “Sweetie, we were talking . . .”

Uh-oh, a sweetie sentence.

“Let’s let Stephen share the news,” my dad says.

News? I’ve been gone for like thirty minutes, and already there’s news that needs to be shared. I brace myself.

Stephen turns to face me. “Christmas is coming up,” he says. “You know how José loved the holiday season. He was such a goofball when it came to stockings and Christmas carols and all that stuff, and I loved it of course, and your mother doesn’t want me to be alone for the holidays, and this could be my last Christmas . . .”

“Oh God,” I say, and it’s like all the sadness that was hiding under the anger comes out in a rush. Tears, so many of them, flowing down my face.

“No, no, this is good news!” my mom says, hugging me. “It’s happy news.”

“The nice thing about dying is that you can spend whatever you have,” Stephen says. “And of course I was always planning on leaving the little I have left to you and to ACT UP, but before I go, I thought I could take us all on a holiday, a proper vacation. I think, maybe, that’s the best possible way to spend the money.”

“And we decided,” my mom says with a big smile, “that you should pick the destination, Judy. It’s your last holiday as a child, and we want you to choose.”

“Anywhere in the world,” Stephen says.

I don’t know what to say. I’m processing all this. This isn’t who we are. We are not the Grants, who jet off to foreign lands like they’re just another borough of New York. And Stephen is sick. “Is it safe, I mean, for you to be away from your doctors?”