Chapter 19 Jamison #2
“Oh, honey.” I squeezed his hand comfortingly, but it had already gone lax again in mine as he drifted off again.
That Xanax was no joke. “I’m sorry,” I whispered against his cheek.
And I was: sorry that he’d ever been put in the position of having to worry about HIV transmission, sorry that he had gotten the ‘positive’ yesterday, sorry that it was hurting him so badly.
And sorry that I couldn’t give him the ‘all clear’ in relation to myself so that he could take at least one worry off his plate.
I didn’t make a habit of recriminating myself for what had happened - it involved both of us making poor decisions, but it had also led to us getting together, and honestly, mistakes were part of the human condition - but in this moment, I hated myself for letting it happen.
I could have saved Hen all this fear and grief if I’d just paid a little more attention while drunk and horny.
I sighed. As Charlie had reminded me, there was literally nothing that beating myself up now could do about what happened then.
I might as well make use of the rest of her advice and try to distract myself.
It would be nice to do that by napping with Hen, but I knew my brain well enough to know that wasn’t going to happen any time soon, so with another sigh, I carefully eased out of the bed and stood up.
I’d see if I could sink into work for a while while Hen slept the sleep of the drugged.
***
A few hours later, I was putting the finishing touches on my latest community consultation draft text when I heard footsteps in the bedroom.
I put my laptop to the side and twisted on the couch to watch Hen as he padded out into the living room, eyes still at half-mast and t-shirt twisted up around his stomach.
Honestly, I wasn’t entirely sure he was awake, walking or not. “Hey,” I ventured.
He pulled up short and blinked in my direction. “Oh, uh, hey.” He smoothed a hand down the front of his shirt, untwisting it so it fell to cover him again. “I didn’t think you’d be…” He shrugged.
“Here?” I finished for him. “I told you I wasn’t going to go. You’re kinda stuck with me.” I offered him my best cheery smile. “Whether you like it or not.”
He continued to stand there, blinking owlishly. Fucking Xanax, I mused. It probably hadn’t worn off, which meant he was floating and in no shape for any kind of serious conversation. I held out a hand to him, beckoning. “Come on and sit down before you keel over.”
It took him another few blinks to process that, and then he walked the rest of the way into the room and crossed to where I was sitting on the couch.
Carefully, he lowered himself to the cushions.
“You didn’t have to stay. I’m gonna be a zombie until this pill wears off, anyway. I know you have work.”
I waggled my laptop where it was balanced on my legs. “And I’m doing the work. Laptops are great. I’m pretty much done for the day now, though, which means you’re stuck with me.”
He yawned, then slapped a hand over his mouth and blushed. I gave him a smirk. “Ah, so that’s the effect I have on you? Tsk.”
His head drifted to my shoulder in a movement that looked almost involuntary, and he burrowed his face into my neck and took a deep breath, then let it out in a cloud of moisture against my skin. I shivered at the sensation. It wasn’t sexual at this moment, but it was…a feeling of connection.
“You have lots of effects on me,” he mumbled into the crook of my shoulder. “I like them. But you still don’t have to stay…”
“Ah-ah,” I cut him off, slipping my hand into his hair and trying to untangle one particularly sleep-snarled strand. “Stop protesting and relax. I’m here and I’m staying here. I’ll even make sure you eat lunch, now that you’re awake. Ish,” I tacked on as he yawned again.
He offered me a weak smile. “At least the voices in my head aren’t screaming anymore. Fucking magical go-to-sleep pill.”
I was choosing to believe he didn’t literally mean there were voices in his head, because I was pretty sure that was a whole other diagnosis besides anxiety.
I patted his shoulder and gently lowered his head to the couch arm as I levered myself up to my feet.
“What do you feel like eating? For that matter, what do you have in your kitchen to eat?” Without waiting for his answers, I headed for the fridge and stuck my head into it. Hm, the pickings were sort of slim.
“Hmm.” He snuggled into the couch and pulled the afghan over his legs. “Something easy.”
I switched from the fridge to the pantry.
Oh, pancake mix. There had been eggs and milk in the fridge, too.
And some butter. Breakfast-for-lunch was sounding like a good option.
I pulled out the box of mix and set it on the counter, then went hunting for a skillet.
“You still awake?” I asked when there had been silence from the other room for a few minutes.
“Mmm. Mostly. It’s too bad I can’t take these pills every day, things are so much nicer. And fuzzier.” A yawn. “And sleepier, too.”
“No going back to sleep,” I ordered as I poured the first pancake onto the now-heated skillet. “You have food to eat coming up in a few minutes.”
Silence, and then: “My stomach just growled really loud. Could you hear it?”
I grinned. “No, but I’ll take your word for it.
Pancakes are on their way.” I flipped the pancakes I’d poured, pleased to see that both were a nice golden-brown on the flipped side.
Pancakes tended to be hit-or-miss for me; half the time I overanticipated and ended up with pale, sickly-looking flapjacks.
But the pancake gods were smiling on me today; at least something was going right.
“Your phone just vibrated,” Hen said from the couch, lifting my phone over his head so I could see it. “You want it?”
It was probably Charlie with advice I hadn’t asked for, but if so, I didn’t want Hen to see what she had to say, especially if she referenced his anxiety.
“One sec.” I flipped the current pancakes off the skillet onto a paper-towel-covered plate and then crossed over to Hen and took over my phone.
“Thanks.” I carried it back into the kitchen and set it on the counter, then poured two more pancakes into the skillet.
As they began to cook, I unlocked my screen.
It hadn’t been Charlie. It was a notification from my doctor’s patient portal.
I sucked in a breath, trying to keep it as quiet as I could manage so as to not alert Hen, and clicked the notification.
Login details…birthdate…two-factor authentication…
why the fuck did I have to jump through all these hoops to get my own information on my own phone, dammit?
But finally, I was at the test results screen. I tapped hard on the “HIV” line item and bit my lip as the screen loaded.
HIV antibodies: non-reactive.
My breath escaped me in a heavy whoosh and I sagged against the counter for a moment before a slight smell of burning hit my nose.
I jumped to attention and quickly flipped the pancakes, which were only a bit over-browned, and then looked back at my phone, reading the results again.
Non-reactive. I was negative. I hadn’t passed HIV to Hen.
Hen. Shit. This meant he’d been the carrier that night, that he’d probably gotten it from his scumbag ex who cheated on him.
He was going to be devastated on both fronts: that he’d been screwed over that badly, and that he’d inadvertently put me at such risk.
If I could get him through those freak-outs, though, I thought he’d ultimately be…
well, not ‘pleased’ exactly, but he’d find comfort in the fact that I didn’t have the same life sentence he had.
Shit, this meant we were in a…what was the word, serodiscordant?...relationship. We had to worry now about him transmitting HIV to me every time we had sex. Note to self: do not forget to take your PrEP.
Or would he want to break up? I could see Hen being so anxious about potentially transmitting the disease that he’d think it would be better to just stop seeing each other. I tensed my shoulders. I wasn’t down with that. None of that self-sacrificing shit was going to fly in this relationship.
“Jamison?”
I jumped, startled, at the sound of my name from just behind me and whirled to find Hen standing there, face still bleary but eyes sharp. “Um, hi,” I managed, sticking my phone behind my back. Because that doesn’t make it obvious I have something to hide, or anything.
Hen eyed where my phone had disappeared and then looked back at me, raising his eyebrows. “Problem?”
“Heh. No.” Shit, how did I tell him this? Good news, it’s just you who has a life-threatening disease! My fuckboi ways protected me and I’m good.
He looked thoroughly unconvinced by my evasiveness. “Good news, then?”
“Um.” I swallowed. It was good news. It was just…good news that highlighted the existing bad news. Gulp. “Sort of?” I finally squeaked out.
He yawned, then scrubbed the heels of his hands over his eyes, but before I could relax, he’d dropped them and focused back on me. “Jamie. What’s going on?”
I smelled burning again, and quickly flipped the pancakes off the skillet onto the plate. Yup, burned. Probably still edible, though, if we weren’t too picky. Buying time to think of the right answer, I poured two more into the skillet.
Hen sighed. “You got your test results, didn’t you? How bad is it?”
My throat was suddenly parched. I crossed to the fridge and helped myself to a Coke, drinking half the can in one nervous go. “They, uh.” I ran out of words.
“Hen.” His lips were tight and his face was tense, and I got the impression that, Xanax or not, I was on his last nerve.
I sighed. “I’m negative.” I waited for the storm.
But instead of a storm of emotion, I got the summer sun coming out after the rain. Joy dawned on his face, erasing the angst and tension, and he smiled. “Really? You’re ok? You’re not infected?”