told stories and laughed and happiness fell into place.
We sat across from each other at the restaurant, margaritas in hand. “So,” Harrison said after we clinked our glasses. “What do I need to know about you? What’s something people don’t know about you?”
“Hmm,” I thought. “Well as a writer, I am pretty much an open book. You can ask me whatever you’d like.”
He sat back in his chair quizzically, “Do you have siblings?” He asked.
“Yes, two older sisters and one older brother.”
“And you’re out to them?”
“Of course. My whole family knows.”
He smiled and nodded. Like I had passed a test. “And how is your relationship with your parents?”
“It’s…complicated,” I said. “But getting better every day.”
“That’s so wonderful!”
“Yeah,” I said with a nod. “It was mostly me and my mom. It feels like I am at the end of a hard race with her. Like we were taking turns being in first place and finally, we figured out that we could cross the finish line together.”
“Hmm,” he leaned forward in his chair. “Do you ever write about her?”
“I do, but I would never publish anything that is so blatantly about the stuff we have gone through. It was a lot of miscommunication and I could probably write an entire series of it but I love her, and I don’t want to hurt her by publishing something too incredibly honest when mostly there was just a lot of confusion between us. Neither of us were ever at fault I don’t believe."
He smiled, “That’s good. Mom’s are important, and Dad’s too.”
“I agree,” I replied. “It’s weird I never talk about it. I’m usually too shy to let it be brought up.”
“It can be tough sometimes for sure."
“How is your relationship with your parents? Any siblings?”
“I actually don’t have any siblings and my parents passed away a few years ago.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t…”
“It’s okay,” he assured me with a subtle smile.
The server dropped off two plates of tacos in front of us and refilled our basket of chips. I wasn’t exactly sure how to move the conversation forward, so I was happy when, finally, he said, “Yeah, it was a tough few years but I had good people in my life to take care of me.”
I envied him. I had plenty of friends, but being a writer was sporadic just enough that it was tough to keep relationships alive. Late nights with a bottle of wine on the balcony of my apartment, early mornings in coffee shops beating my head on the table when my brain refused to function.
Of course, I had Becca, but she was also a writer and a lot of times our schedules didn’t align properly. And when they did, our moods didn’t. I needed loud when she needed quiet. She needed wine when I need espresso.
“I am happy you have good people,” I said. “Sometimes I feel like I don’t have that. Like if something bad happened to my parents or siblings, I wouldn’t have anyone or anything to fall on but my career”
“I think people will surprise you with how much they actually care. I think people will surprise you in general.”
“You’re right,” I said thinking about how, even after only knowing him for a day and a half, I’d drop everything for Harrison if he needed me.
“How about after this we go over to this bar I know.” He said and gulped down the rest of his margarita. I followed suit. “I have a few friends I want you to meet.”
We drove back across town with the windows down. When he was focused on the roads I’d look his way and imagined what this could possibly end up being. Was I really the one to attract such a beautifully charismatic man into my life. And now he wanted me to meet his friends. I don't even remember the last time a boy I was talking to introduced me to his friends.
I spent the past three years of my life single and holding myself up and together and doing everything I could to avoid stomach butterflies and get love quick schemes. And eventually, I felt nothing about anyone ever. There wasn’t a single guy that I met that made me stutter and trip on my feelings, until this guy right here, who was unbelievably gorgeous and was actually smart and kind.
We got to the bar and he pulled me by my left hand through a crowd of people lit up with different colored stage lights. The music was live but not too loud that you couldn’t have a conversation.
He pulled me through to a back corner where a group of his friends were sitting at a table. He let go of my hand to hug his friends, one by one.
The last guy he hugged was tall and thin, with long hair pulled back into a messy bun. He pulled him over to where I was to introduce us.
“I’d like you to meet my boyfriend, Jonothan,” he said and the boy reached his hand out to shake mine.
“Hey, it’s great to meet ya!” He said. “Harrison was telling me about your drunken night together...so funny!"
“I…wait, what?"
Whatever All Of This Is
“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