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