Читать книгу Help Me Hold Onto This - Zachary Leonard - Страница 4

“You have gonorrhea,” the doctor said plainly. Like he was telling me I had the common cold. Like it was no big deal. I honestly couldn’t help but laugh a little bit. Or a lot. And soon, he stood there in silence while I full on cackled.

The sounds of my laughter bounced around the sterile white room of the clinic. The paper I was sitting on crunched and the doctor, with his glasses low on his nose, stared at me.

“Are you okay?” he asked me. I’m sure he thought I was insane. That the sexually transmitted infection had reached my brain and was making me mad.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” I said calming myself down. “It’s just funny.”

“How so?” he asked and I started giggling again.

“Because I am the biggest prude you’ll probably ever meet. I don’t have sex for this exact reason! Because I am so terrified of something like this happening. And last month I was home alone and feeling a certain way, if you know what I mean,” I started to choke on my words. “And so I texted my ex-boyfriend. I picked him up in the middle of the night and we had sex in the back seat of my car in the middle of a Taco Bell parking lot.”

It felt good to get it out but now I was crying. Hysterically crying while this old doctor stared at me probably terrified of the mess that was unfolding in front of him.

“And he gave me fucking gonorrhea. I mean how random is that? The boy I was happily in love with and who broke my heart has gonorrhea and he gave it to me! I don’t know whose karma this is, his or mine, but it’s funny and sad and...” I had more to say but I was crying too hard to get it out.

“Right,” the doctor interjected. “Well, the treatment is really very easy. A nurse will be in soon to administer the shot to you and you’ll have ten days worth of antibiotics. And really, I hope you get past,” he moved his hand in a circle gesturing at all of me, "whatever all of this is.” And then he left.

A few days later and my symptoms were almost completely gone. I laid in bed on my day off, still unsure of how to tell David about it. Should I call him? Was a “Hey, you gave me gonorrhea” text good enough? Was it proper etiquette? I wasn’t sure what to do in this situation that I never thought I’d find myself in.

What if he knew and had already been to a doctor and wasn’t planning on telling me? Or what if he thought it was me that gave it to him?

Most likely, he didn’t know he had it at all. I knew very little about sexually transmitted infections, but what I do remember from that terribly awkward day of sexual education in middle school is that different people may have different symptoms, or maybe none at all.

My biggest fear was that he would tell me I must’ve gotten it somewhere else; that I probably was the one that gave it to him even though we both know that’s not true. Even he would know that whether he wanted to believe it or not. I am too emotional for random hook-ups with random strangers, and he knows it.

I sent him a text: Think you could stop by my apartment today?

He responded: I have to work in a few hours, but I’m free now.

And within ten minutes I was buzzing him into the apartment complex. Not enough time to decide exactly how to tell him, but I guessed I would have to play it by ear.

A knock on the door. A flail in my chest. How could I possibly tell him this? I opened the door and David embraced me. He slammed the door behind him, spun us both around, shoved me back up against it, and started to kiss me.

It felt good to be wanted like this by him again. I pulled his jacket off of him and his shirt next and my hands roamed his whole body before I remembered this isn’t why I invited him over today. This was actually the worst thing that could happen.

“David, we ca-“ I tried to get out but he interrupted my words with more kisses. He moved to my neck and I said, “David we can’t be doing this.”

“Why not?” he said into my neck. “Why are we doing this to ourselves? I miss you. I want to be with you.” He tugged at my shirt and I let him pull it off of me.

He was saying everything I wanted to hear. Everything I wanted to say. Why were we doing this? Why were we torturing ourselves by being apart.

“David, we just can’t do this right now,” I said as firmly as I could muster, even though he was on the sensitive spot where my neck merged with my chest at my collar bone.

“It sure seems like you’re enjoying yourself,” he said as he moved down further.

“I have gonorrhea,” I let out like a hiccup, and he stopped with his face frozen at my belt line.

Slowly, he got up from his knees so we were face to face.

“How long have you known?” He asked.

“A few days,” I said. “I got tested and treated and I’ll be okay by the end of the week.”

I saw his eyes doing the math in his head. From the time when we were still together to when we broke up. From when he slept with someone else and contracted the infection to the night when he passed it on to me.

“I knew I had it,” he said as he left me and went and sat down on the couch. His face in his hands.

“You knew?” I said. Any sympathy I had was gone, and honestly, I think I could have punched him in the dick for it.

“Yes, I knew but I thought it would be gone by the time I was with you again. I was tested and got the shot and that was at least ten days before we slept together. Anything less and I never would have considered it.”

The ticking of the clock on my living room wall seemed louder than normal. The only noise to put a break between my emotions and his. But honestly, I had no idea what I felt. Somewhere stuck between anger and understanding. I sat down next to him on the couch and put my arm around him.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I know you wouldn’t do anything to purposely hurt me.” He pulled his face from his hands and leaned into me, and I added, “But also, we both need to get our shit together.”

He nodded into my chest. We sat there cuddled on the couch, our arms and legs tangled. I tried to think of the last time I felt this good with David. And was there something wrong if it was a sexually transmitted infection that brought us back together?

“Did you really think I called you for a quickie?” I asked remembering how fast he jumped me when coming through the front door. David sat up and looked at me nervously. “It’s okay if that’s what you thought, but where does that leave us?”

He looked around the newly green room. “You painted,” he said, avoiding the question, which of course was an answer in itself.

“Yeah, it’s been a weird couple of months.”

“What was wrong with the blue?”

“It felt too sad. I was sad, and the room felt sad. And green felt,” I stopped to think of the right word. “I don’t know. Fresh? Like the beginning and not the end of something."

The room not only had a new color but was also rearranged and messier than normal. Sheets of work papers scattered heavily across the desk, a candle burnt passed its expiration, unfolded blankets on the floor around the couch.

“I’m sorry I gave you gonorrhea,” David said shyly putting his head back into my chest.

“I forgive you,” I said even though I wasn’t sure if I actually had.

The next morning I laid in my bed, uncomfortable. My entire body felt off. Like the meds that were working against the infection in my body were attacking the wrong cells. How could he do this to me? How could I do this to myself?

I was ready to take part of the blame. After all, we should not have been hooking up. I should not have called him that night like I did. We weren’t together at that point, and he had every right to sleep with whomever he wanted.

But still, it made me question every part of our relationship. If it was so easy for him to have a random hook up now, who knew how easy it could have been for him at anytime. Especially during our final year of college when we lived a full three hours away from each other.

My phone vibrated on the nightstand. I unlocked the device to see a text from my friend Becca asking to meet her for a drink.

“I am on antibiotics for a few more days so I can’t drink but sure I’ll meet ya,” I responded.

“Why? Are you sick?” She texted back.

“I’ll catch you up when I see you,” I added a crying laughing emoji and hit send.

A week passed and I felt completely normal again. No more symptoms, no more gonorrhea. Which meant one thing: David and I could talk about what was next for us.

We decided to meet at a coffee shop we frequented when we were still officially together. The barista knew us by name and gave us free coffee when his manager wasn’t around. David always argued that it was because he thought I was cute and I argued that maybe he was just a nice guy to all of the frequent coffee shop patrons.

I sat alone on the couch in the back, reading a book that a co-worker gifted me at our last holiday party. A murder mystery book wasn’t my normal go-to but I decided I would read it to be polite. So I could act shocked about how the person you least expected ended up being the killer even though it was foreshadowed on the very first page.

The book was actually holding my attention until I heard David’s voice saying hello to Eddie, the barista with the free coffee. I watched as he talked and chastised myself for ever letting that beautiful man get away from me in the first place.

How could three years end in a single moment? Because of what? I was in a bad mood that day? Or because his anxiety kept him up late the night before? There wasn’t a real reason for it. It was like a tornado touching down. A fight that only lasted a couple of minutes but the damage would take months to fix.

“Hey,” he said as he took a seat next to me with his iced mocha.

“Good morning,” I said with a smile, folding the edge of the book page to keep my place. David had obviously tried to make himself look extra nice. His hair had gel in it, he was wearing a nice polo shirt, and I could smell his cologne pretty much from the second he walked into the shop.

“So you will never believe what just happened,” he said.

“Tell me all about it!”

“Eddie just asked me for my number!”

My cheeks were warm. “Oh. Really?”

“Yeah, I guess I was right this whole time about the free coffee thing, except it wasn’t you, it was me!” He was grinning.

“Well, what did you say?” I asked hoping he politely turned the cute barista down.

“I gave it to him,” he replied flippantly. “He’s cute. I’d totally take him out.”

Growing up my mom always told me that I needed to be careful about my facial expressions. When I was in elementary school I would be sent to the office multiple times a week for rolling my eyes or frowning when someone said something I didn’t like.

“You’re very expressive,” she would tell me. “And that’s okay. It’s a good thing. But there is a place to show your emotions and there is a place to hide them.”

This is one of those times where I should not have let my expressions speak for me, but my face disagreed because David was already apologizing for being stupid and not thinking about what he was saying.

“He’s cute but that doesn’t mean I want to date him, I was just being polite,” he argued while I was packing the book into my backpack. “Come on please talk to me. I came here today for you. I want to talk to you.”

“David, I came here so we could try to make this work. I want to make things with you work. I want it so bad. I want to not feel like I made a huge mistake by losing you.”

“I get that and I want the same…”

“You don’t though,” I said, my tone getting more and more annoyed. “We break up and within weeks you’re sleeping with some gono boy, and then you give it to me in a Taco Bell parking lot.”

“I know and I said I was sorry for that but come on-“

“I’m not done yet,” I interrupted him, my voice growing louder. “And then you come over to my place again just assuming that I want to sleep with you, and you say you're sorry and you cry in my arms and now you’re going to do the same thing to the barista boy over there. And you’re going to brag to me about it? Like I’m your best gal friend?”

The entire room was looking at us now. I was standing over David, still in his chair. He tried to say something but the words were stuck in his throat.

I still had plenty to say and had no problem saying any of it. But I wasn’t going to waste any more of my time.

“I hope you figure out,” I said gesturing at him in a circular motion, “whatever all of this is.”

And then I left.