Page 28 of Jealous Guy

“Look, bud,” he says reasonably. “I’ve tried it your way, but you’re getting worse. You’re going to the doctor, and I don’t care if I have to carry you in there myself. It’s happening, so you may as well make peace with it.”

“I don’t want to,” I warble pathetically.

“Can you tell me why you don’t want to go?”

I don’t want to do that either, but the fever is fucking with my filter. “’Cause, ’cause I’m scared.”

His hands tighten on the wheel, and he tilts his head sharply in my direction. “Scared of what, O?”

“Of, of…needles.”

It’s mortifying to admit, but it’s true. I know it’s irrational, and I know they don’t really hurt all that much. I know they save lives, or whatever, but when I think about someone coming near me with one, my brain shorts out and I forget all that. The fear I feel might not be rational, but it’s fucking real. My hands go numb and fight-or-flight mode is instantly engaged. It’s humiliating as hell, but when I see a needle coming at me, I react exactly the same way I would if someone were coming at me with a knife.

Jordan indicates and pulls over on the side of the road. He puts the car in Park and turns to me. To my surprise, he isn’t laughing, or even smiling. He’s dead serious, and he’s taking my ridiculous admission dead seriously too. “I hear you, bud, but I’m pretty sure you have a bad strain of the flu, and they don’t treat the flu with needles. My mom says you need antivirals.” He digs his phone out of his pocket, taps on the screen, and then shows it to me. He’s pulled up an article about how antivirals are administered. “See? They come in liquids, pills, or inhalers.”

I scroll down, pointing at the bottom of the page he has opened, stabbing my finger hard against the last bullet point on his screen. “Says sometimes they give them intravenously right there.” The thought of a needle anywhere near a vein makes my blood pressure surge. It drops a second later, leaving me extremely lightheaded. “No. Nope. I can’t do this. We need to turn around, we need to go home now, and I need to get back in bed.”

“How ’bout this,” says Jordan, still taking me seriously despite how idiotic I’m being. “I’ll come in with you to see the doctor. I’ll let them look at you, listen to your breathing, check your throat and all that, but I swear to God, I swear on my life, if anyone comes anywhere near you with a needle, I’ll forcibly stop them. I mean it. I’ll take them out if I have to. You know you can trust me with shit like this.”

Seeing as though I’ve already devolved into the most pitiful version of myself imaginable, I make him tell me in graphic detail how he’ll stop a medical professional from killing me with a needle as we drive the rest of the way to urgent care. For good measure, I double-check that he means it when he gets me out of the car, and again as he frog-marches me into the building.

Thankfully, the line in the waiting room isn’t bad, and it’s not long before my name is called. I hear it, and an absolutely rampant urge to run in any direction comes over me. Before I have time to act on it, Jordan grabs hold of my arm tightly. When he’s sure I’m no longer an imminent flight risk, he lets go of my arm and slides his hand downward, taking my hand in his. He threads his fingers between mine, letting the heat from his palm seep into mine. I look at him in surprise. He meets my eye with a steady blue-and-gold gaze without a flicker of humor.

He looks so goddamn gorgeous today. He has shadowy semicircles under his eyes and he’s still wearing the T-shirt he slept in, but it doesn’t matter. He’s still the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. His hair is messier than usual, but the invisible barrier that usually stops me from getting too close to him has dissolved, so I lean into him with the full weight of my body and squeeze his hand hard.

He smiles at me and squeezes back.

“I’ve got you,” he whispers as we walk to the examination room.

Jordan tells the doctor about my phobia of needles as soon as she walks in, and between them, they do their best to set me at ease. Jordan does most of the talking for me, but now and again, I nod or shake my head. Jordan doesn’t let go of my hand once.

He doesn’t let go when I settle the bill, and he keeps holding it as we walk to the car.

The entire time he holds my hand, my eyes sting and I blink back tears.

I know it’s ridiculous that I’m reacting like this, and I’m deeply embarrassed by my reaction, but I’ve never done this. I’m twenty years old, a sophomore in college, and I’ve never held hands with a guy I like.

It’s something most people experience when they’re kids. When they have their first crushes as teens. When they walk together to their lockers at school, or when they sit next to each other at the movies. I’ve hooked up with men since starting college, but it’s always been casual. Quick and impersonal. Base exchanges where both parties got what they wanted and left without knowing the other’s last name.

It’s never been like this. It’s never been anything like this at all. It’s never been so sweet that I can’t stop smiling despite actively trying to. So caring and gentle that butterflies dance in my belly. Delicate, papery wings beat, waking me to a new world, making me feel alive in a way that’s completely different from how I usually feel. Everything around me is brighter than normal, the colors of the sky and the trees more saturated than they were before. My legs feel strangely elastic, and everything I see is pretty despite the fact that I’m in an ugly parking lot.

I know I’m unwell, and I’m pretty sure this is a sign I’m delusional as well, but I swear, as Jordan and I walk, I hear music that isn’t playing.

When I get into the car, Jordan buckles me in, and I rest my hand in my lap and stare at it like a prize-winning idiot. It looks the same as it always has, but it feels different. Warmer and more animated.

As we drive to the pharmacy to pick up my meds, Jordan tells me how proud he is of me for going to the doctor. “I know you were really scared, but you did so well, bud.”

He sounds so sincere that I start laughing. Once I start, I can’t stop. Laughter bubbles out of me uncontrollably. It hisses and fizzes, leaving my shoulders shaking so violently I can’t make it stop.

Shit.

I think I might be delirious as well as delusional.

Jordan keeps heaping praise on me, undeterred. “I’m so proud of you. You showed up for yourself, O. I’m glad you told me you were afraid. I don’t ever want you to be scared of something and not tell me. You never have to go to the doctor without me again, okay? I’ll come with you and take care of you. I don’t mind. That’s what I’m here for.”

I give a strange, high-pitched sigh that sounds like a tuneless hum.

This is why I’m cooked when it comes to Jordan. It’s things like this. It’s because this is who he is at his core. He’s completely amazing in ways he doesn’t even realize. Ways he doesn’t know mean the world to me.