Jamison studied me for a long moment, then sat down, wrapped an arm around my shoulders, and helped me sit the rest of the way up. When I was upright, he leaned forward to pickup the plate and set it on my lap without releasing me with his other arm, which actually tightened a bit. “Eat,” he said gently, nudging the plate at me.
Might as well. I picked up the sandwich, which appeared to be chicken and tomato, and took a bite. The flavors hit my tongue like ambrosia, and I realized just how hungry I was. Within a minute, I’d demolished three-quarters of the sandwich. I took a break to down the glass of water he picked up off the coffee table and handed me, then went back to eating the rest of the sandwich. When it was gone, I heaved out a breath and let my head fall against him.
“That was…impressive,” he said, a smile in his voice. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you scarf down food like that before.” He kissed my temple. “No more skipping meals, ok? No matter how upset you are.”
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” I protested. “I was just…it didn’t occur to me. My brain was busy with…you know, the other stuff.”Other stuff. What a euphemism.
“Well,” he said, tightening his arm around me, “now you have me to talk the other stuff over with rather than just having it go in circles in your brain. So…you want to talk about it now?”
Not really. I’d much prefer to just go back in time and not know again. Not that not knowing would fix anything. I sighed. “I’m sorry.”
I felt his head move, and I guessed by his tone that he’d cocked it questioningly. “For what?”
I shrugged. Everything? Nothing? “Freaking out and scaring you. Making you take care of me.” I swallowed. “Maybe giving you AIDS.”
“Ok, first of all.” He set me away from him a little, just enough so that we could see each other’s faces while he could still keep his arm around me. “It’s a boyfriend’s job to be there when you’re freaking out and need support. I’m glad you called for me.And I’m happy to take care of you, though of course I wish it wasn’t necessary at all. As for the last one…bullshit.”
“What?”
“You don’t know you gave me anything, even if you were the one who came into that night carrying. My test results aren’t back yet, and I was on PrEP. Odds are very, very good that I’m perfectly fine. And second of all, even if you did bring it in and transmit it to me, you know very well that you didn’t give me ‘AIDS’. At worst, you gave me HIV, which is a treatable chronic illness that can be managed for a long lifetime.”
I knew that, logically. It didn’t really help the emotional storm, though. There was a whole lot of societal fear conditioning lurking inside my brain that screamed the worst. “But…” I began.
“Nope.” He gave me a gentle shake. “We’re not going to go in circles on this just because your lizard brain is running around screaming.”
That was quite the mental image. Now I was picturing one of those frilled lizards running around on two legs, shrieking bloody murder. Like a panicked little dinosaur. I snorted a reluctant laugh.
He grinned at me. “There, got you laughing. Now, I say this knowing that saying it is pretty much useless, but I’m gonna say it anyway: you need to let it go. Stop worrying about blaming yourself - or me, for that matter,” he added, smile turning self-deprecating. “Stop worrying about the worst-case scenario, or how we’re all gonna die. Hell, stop worrying about feeding the cats, because I’ve got that for now. Whatever’s got you freaking out, let it go for a while. There’s nothing you can do until you talk to your doctor tomorrow, and even then there’s not going to be a lot you can do other than take her advice.”
“But -” I began.
He shook his head. “Seriously, Hen. What is more freaking out going to accomplish, right here and right now?”
Logic. More logic. Didn’t hegetit? “You don’t understand,” I sighed. “I can know that logically, but that doesn’t stop my brain. Nothing stops my brain except knocking it out with a benzo. And then I just go to sleep and am useless, and the problem’s still there when the benzo wears off and I wake up.”
“Hmm.” He took the empty plate from my hands, which, as it turned out, had been clutching it a little too hard, and set it on the coffee table. “I do know that, intellectually, about anxiety, from Charlie, but I guess it’s hard for me to conceptualize myself into that headspace because that’s not my brain’s style of malfunctioning.” He sighed and ran a hand through my hair, and I wasn’t sure anymore whether he did it to soothe me, or himself. “Do you want to take a benzo and sleep this off, then?”
I shook my head immediately. “No. I try to save those for when I’m having physical panic symptoms, and I think I’m through those now. Benzos are too addictive to fuck around with otherwise, and honestly, I’d just have to deal with the same thoughts in the morning instead. At least right now I have you here.”
“Ok first of all -” His hand tightened a little in my hair, holding me to him. “- I am happy to stay for as long as you need me and I’m welcome. Don’t worry that I’m going to sneak out if you fall asleep. I have plenty of sick time stored up, plus I brought my laptop, so I can do some work from here.”
He went quiet, and after a second, I blinked up at him. “And second of all?”
“What?”
“You said ‘first of all’. So I was waiting for the ‘second of all’, but you didn’t say anything.”
“Oh.” He paused, looking introspective. “I don’t think I actually had a ‘second of all’. It just sounded emphatic and I wanted emphasis.”
I couldn’t suppress the chuckle that found its way out of my depths at that. Even while I was making the noise, I was amazed that it had been in there, a laugh in the face of this horror and sadness and fear. Surely that was a good sign? “Well, consider your point duly emphasized. You won’t leave me. And I appreciate that. But you really don’t have to -”
“Mm-mm.” He laid a finger over my lips, stopping me. “I didn’t say I ‘had’ to anything. I said I was ‘happy’ to. Big difference.”
“But -” I mumbled around his finger.
“Do you want me to come with you to the doctor tomorrow?” he interrupted my protest. “I can wait in the waiting room or come into the examination room with you, whichever you prefer. But I just thought that maybe you’d like to not do it alone, in some fashion.”
I pictured myself alone in the doctor’s waiting room and felt my anxiety - and my blood pressure - spike. Then I pictured myself there with Jamison’s soothing presence alongside me, perhaps with his warm hand wrapped around mine, and I could breathe again. “Yeah,” I managed. “Yeah, I think I would.” It would be better. And if he was willing…why not?
