Page 64 of Tell Me You Love Me

“Exactly. So put your hands up and show me the combo I asked for.”

“Did you ever meet Mas Oyama?”

“Did I…” Stunned, I lower my hands. “What?”

“Mas Oyama. He was the founder of Kyokushin Karate.” He looks me up and down with an unimpressed sweep of his eyes. “It’s a full-contact style of karate. As a full-contact fighter, I would expect you to know that.”

“I know who Mas Oyama is! How doyouknow who that is?”

“I read a book about it.” He strikes out with a left jab, grazing my jaw and grinning. I’ve been bamboozled.My hands weren’t up. “Did you meet him?”

“No. Did you?”

He straightens his legs and searches my eyes.Like fuck, Tom. Are you really that stupid? “He died before I was born. Of course I didn’t meet him.”

“Oh, well…” I grab his wrists and reset him again. “Just checking. Left-left-right, let’s go.”

“In Japanese, did you know Kyokushin means the ultimate truth?”

“Mmhm.” I pull his hand forward andmakehim perform the movements before I’m forced to admit I might be a shit teacher. “Read that in your book, too?”

“Uh-huh. You do MMA when you compete for money, but Chris told me you learned Kyokushin Karate. That it’s your favorite style.”

“Sure is.”Left-left-right. “It’s thebeststyle. Mas Oyama was a legend.”Left-left-right. “Can you try a left, right upper hook, right middle hook?”

“Do you know what ironic means?”

I sit back on my haunches and try, so fucking hard, to understand. “What?”

“According to Merriam-Webster, ironic means?—”

“I know what ironic means!”Jesus. The kid thinks I have meatballs for brains. Which, now that I think about it, is probably why his mother dumped me and married a dude who went to college. “Are you gonna quiz me every single day we’re in here? Or can I have a day off soon where I don’t feel like an idiot?”

“Oh. So youdoknow.”Damn, Tom, I underestimated you. My bad. “So, since we both know what irony means, I guess I want to know why Kyokushin means the ultimate truth, but you and my mom keep lying to me every time I ask a question.”

“What?” I cast my eyes to the right, to the rest of our class who work independently of us, then to the left, where Alana sits by the wall with a paperback novel folded over at the spine, her eyes glued to the page and not on us. Then I bring my focus back to Franklin. “What do you mean?”

“When my mom cries, and I ask her what’s wrong, but she saysnothing. That’s a lie.”

She cries?

“When I ask about you partnering up with me in class, and you say we have odd numbers when we don’t. That’s a lie.”

“Well—”

“When I ask Grandma Bitsy if she’s sick, but she says she’s not and that I don’t have to worry, that’s a lie. And when I ask Chris why my mom is so mad at you, and he says he doesn’t know and that I shouldn’t worry about it, that’s a lie, too.”

Fuck.

“When I ask Eliza why she’s mad at my mom, and she says she’s not—but she totally is—that’s a lie.”

“Franky…”

“When everyone in Plainview says how proud they are of your gym since you’re famous and all that, but your gym is founded on Kyokushin—which is the ultimate truth—it’s ironic. Because everyone is always talking about someone else, and most of the time, the things they say aren’t even the truth. They think I’m not listening because I’m a kid. But I am. Everything here is a lie. Plainview is a lie.”

Can’t argue there, buddy. This place is a fuckin’ shithole.

“Anyway…” He throws his combo, smacking me in the jaw and following it with an awkward hook to my ribs. “Mrs. Middler says she doesn’t want to sell the bookstore, but then Caroline says she does. And Grandma Bitsy says Oliver and Eliza’s sister isn’t a real doctor, but I looked her up on the internet, and she totally is. Not all doctors work in a hospital.”

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