Positively Negative (Part II)

So, they call my number. "Red Folder ending in 03." But I'm playing Scrabble on my phone - it's my most recent guilty pleasure. I've played 1000 games or so since i got my damn phone. It's like cocaine-laced blunts for wordsmiths, I swear.

Anyway - I hear an, "excuse me, sir" and since I'm the only one in this waiting room that is assuredly, undoubtedly male .. I look up. He points to me and says, "number 03, is that you?"

"Oh, yeah."

Two other counselors behind him call numbers and by the time I get my bags together and over to the door, there are three of us patients and three of them counselors looking at each other like "who's whose?"

My counselor starts point and pairs up the other two patients with the other two counselors and then points to me and says, "you're coming with me." I'm prone to considering omens and I'm already convinced they're going to mix up our test results like this too. I'm nervous - what can I say.

So, we go back into this little ass room - I swear to God, the room is like a closet. And I'm thinking to myself that if I was the type to lose a grip (and I am) that I would totally hit all four fours simultaneously somehow if the results are bad.

We sit and talk and he wants to rehash all the same shit I just went over with the nurse - you know all the shit you don't want to admit and write down. Yuh, that stuff. So, I explain to him my indiscretion and give him every little bit of specifics.

He asks me if I condsider what I did HIGH risk or LOW risk.

Uhhh, ok, numb nuts, I'm here ... obviously I consider it HIGH risk. I consider it the highest of high risk behaviors and I'm about to lose my mother fucking mind over what I just done did and ...

"I'd say it was high risk."

He shakes his head. "Actually, everything you jsut described to me is extremely LOW risk. I think you'll be fine."

huh. Ok - so, we go back to 9 months ago when THAT mother fucker cheated on me. We discussed how I was at a loss at the time because I was in a monogamous relationship for over a year and I was doing all the right things ... settling down and all that shit. And WHAM! THAT mother fucker goes outside the relationship and has the gall to come back and touch me without telling me. THAT shit irked me.

And, let me say that while I acknowledge that our relationship was on the rocks for a while and that it was really stressful and likely to end ... *I* still respected him enough not to cheat. And I promise you that if I had done it, I would've told him before we got intimiate again. I got none of that in return.

At any rate - he wants to know what it means to me if I turn up negative. I say that it means that my partner nine months ago didn't infect me. He asks what it would mean to me if I turn up positive. I said it would mean a complete change in lifestyle.

"That's true."

Jack nods.

"Anything else?"

Jack raises an eyebrow and shrugs: "no."

"Would you consider hurting yourself?"

"Oh my God! NO! I REALLY like me."

He smiles and seems assured that I'm being honest. WTF! I mean, my babies need me, right? And I had already decided that morning as I looked at their portraits on my wall that even if I'm positive I can still be a good daddy to my babies. It helped the anxiety ebb away as if it were an instantaneous shift of the sea to low tide. I knew that entire day that it would TOTALLY suck, but that I would STILL be the best daddy in the world.

I considered all of the hand sanitizer I would buy and have with me everywhere - I also wondered about those clorox wipes that come in a little pack ... neurotic, I know - but no matter what I experience as an ADULT ... my babies will be (ALWAYS!) sheltered from it ... no matter what that means.

Anyway, he asks me if I'm ready for him to go get my results.

Does the Queen sit on her money?

"sure"

And he disppears from the closet of a room for what seemed like three and a half days. When he gets back, he has trouble closing the door because my backpack was sitting on the floor between my feet and was preventing the door from swinging shut (didn't I tell you think was a closet of a room?) and I'm convinced it's an omen.

My anxiety flows, the tide coming high as instantaneously as it had ebbs that morning while I stared at my babies' portraits. He sits down.

"Well, you're negative."

I sigh audibly, laying my head down on the desk. "Thank you."

"Well, *I* didn't do anything."

"Yeah, well ... you know. I'm just relieved."

"Yuh, I know."

... and the cold rain pelting my face as I walked back to the 'el didn't bother me one bit.