Tasting Never (12 page)

“
That's
okay,” Ty says as he steps up real close to me and lights a
cigarette next to my ear. When he exhales, I inhale and try to find
some modicum of peace when the smoke fills my lungs. “You
don't have to go right away. The meeting isn't until later. Right
now, you and I have something else to do.”

“
And
what's that?” I ask because I can't handle the suspense.

“
You
and I are going to get tested.”

17

I'm
sitting in a plastic chair next to Ty, and I'm shaking so bad that my
teeth are chattering. It's not that I'm cold, not with Ty's jacket
wrapped around me like a second skin. I'm shaking because sitting
here in this office with these posters all around me, I feel sick.

Do
you feel alone? Do you use sex as a way to connect with strangers?
Have your desires motivated you to seek sex with people you wouldn't
normally choose? How about in places or situations you wouldn't
normally choose? Do your sexual encounters leave you at risk for
STIs, unwanted pregnancies, rape or violence? Have you ever had a
sexual encounter that has left you feeling hopeless or alienated?
Suicidal?

Everywhere
I fucking look there's another poster with a girl or a boy who's
either crying or holding their head like they're in pain. And my
answer to every single fucking question that's printed above their
melancholy faces is YES. Y. E. S. It's almost enough to make me
walk out. The only thing keeping me seated is Ty's hand in my lap.
He's been letting me examine his tattoos as a way to keep my mind
occupied.

“
So
I only got things with wings,” Ty says as I trace an orange and
black butterfly on the back of his hand. “Because I wanted to
be free. Every time I got a new tattoo, I promised myself that this
was the day I changed everything. This was the day I grew my own
wings and flew away.”

“
What
happened?” I whisper, afraid that if I speak too loudly, the
receptionist might look up and see me for what I really am. A person
with a broken soul. I swallow hard and glance at the door fearfully
when the bell above the entrance rings. There are no other patients
in here now, but if there were, I don't think I could do this. I
couldn't sit here with anyone who knows what I really am, what's
wrong with me, why I'm here. Except for Ty. Just Ty. Fortunately,
it's just a delivery man. He drops a small package at the front desk
and leaves while I keep my head tilted down and away for fear that
he'll memorize my face, call me out on the street or something, see
me in class.

“
I
never really tried, Never. I didn't know what to try for.”

“
But
you do now?” I ask, but before Ty can answer, the door to the
back opens.

“
Mr.
McCabe?” the woman with the clipboard says. She's smiley and
nice and all, but I bet underneath all of that sweet, she's thinking,
What the hell is wrong with these kids? Why are they here?
What happened to make them this way?
I
stare into her brown eyes and am paralyzed with fear. This is my
worst nightmare come true. Inside these walls, I cannot lie. I
cannot pretend, not anymore.

“
Are
you going to be okay?” Ty asks me as he shakes my knee gently
to grab my attention. I look over at him and don't know what to say.
No? Is that an option.

“
I
have to tell you a secret,” I say to him. Maybe now isn't the
best time, but after. I'll tell him after. “When we get out
of here. I want to tell you what I didn't say that day you picked me
up in Art History.” Ty nods his head and presses a chaste kiss
to my cheek.

“
I
would like that, Never,” he says to me. “I really
would.” As he rises to his feet, I have to close my eyes to
keep myself from following after him. I count up to a hundred and
back down to one again. When I open my eyes, there are tears in
them.

Here
in this office, in this room with the too true posters, my own
mortality sits in a plastic chair of her own, stares me straight in
the face and smirks. I feel her eyes on me, calculating, judging,
disapproving.

“
I
already know what you think of me,” I say aloud and notice that
the receptionist's eyes lift from her computer for just a second and
gaze out at me. I give her a tight-lipped smile and resist the urge
to flip her off. My anger is just a reaction to the fear I have
inside of myself, a fear that somehow, one of the dozens of stupid
mistakes I've made, the desperate attempts at filling that deep,
aching, loneliness, will kill me. That I'll go out of this world
alone and without dignity. That I'll never really understand what it
means to live.

I
get up three times and go to the door, and three times, I turn around
and go back, sit in that plastic chair and wait with my inner Never
staring at me, waiting for judgment day. I don't read any of the
magazines that sit on the table to my right nor do I watch the silent
TV screen that's hanging near the ceiling, flashing bright colors at
me in a blurry slide show. I just sit and wait and think. And when
I've had enough of that, I get out my phone and dial a number that I
haven't dialed in a long, long time.

Three
rings later, and I hear: “Hello?”

I
swallow hard, try not to cry again and say one word, “Beth?”

18

“
Never?
Oh my god, Mom, it's Never. Never?” I open my mouth to
speak, but the words won't come out. They're stuck deep down inside,
buried by hurt and pain. I start to cry again and dash the tears
away angrily while I listen to my sister's frantic voice. “Never,
are you still there? Please answer me, Never.” Beth is
hysterical. She's sobbing, and I can just imagine her face in my
head, the way her nose turns red when she cries and the way her
pretty eyes go all bloodshot like she's been smoking pot or
something. I always thought she was prettiest like that though, raw
and not so perfect as she pretends to be. I miss her, and I hate
her.

“
Why?”
I ask that one single word, and Beth goes silent. People are
shouting in the background. I don't know which people, my sisters or
maybe even my mom, but I'm definitely not ready to talk to her yet.
I don't even know why I called. After five years, I just up and do
it in the middle of a fucking clinic? Is it Ty? Is it me? What is
it? Maybe it's because I know that I'm here for a reason, Ty brought
me here for a reason, and if it's to find out that I've got
something, that I'm going to die, I need to get this off of my chest
or my spirit really will just disintegrate and become nothing. I
swallow my anger at Beth for just a moment. “Why didn't you
stand up for me when you knew I was right?” Beth stays silent,
and I watch the clock across the room from me, hanging over the other
Never's head like a halo.

Ticktock,
she says.

“
Oh,
Never, where are you? Are you safe?” she blurts out.

The
door across the room opens and Ty emerges with a small bandage on his
elbow. When he first steps out, he's smiling, but as soon as he sees
my face, he practically runs ac
ross
the office and kneels down beside me. I look at him looking up at
me.

“
Are
you okay?” he asks again, and I can see he's worried that
bringing me here was a mistake. What he doesn't know is that this
day, this blip in the reel of life events that will inevitably define
who and why and how and what Never Ross and Ty McCabe are, is the
most important day of all, the turning point for both of us. That's
why it's hard; it has to be hard or it wouldn't count. That's the
rule of the universe, I suppose. As Andrew Carnegie once said,
Anyt
hing
in life worth having is worth working for!

I
don't respond to Ty's question because I'm not sure of the answer.

“
Never?
Never? Answer me, please, god,” Beth sobs as Ty pulls the
phone from my stiff fingers, looks at the screen and then puts it to
his ear.

“
She's
having a crisis of character at the moment,” Ty says as he
gives me the world's smallest, cutest
smile. “I'll have
her call you back.” He hangs up, and then slips the phone into
the front packet of the coat. “This is your secret?” he
asks, and he sounds awfully broken up about it. Ty moves from the
floor and sits on the chair next to me, taking my hand in his and
weaving his ringed fingers through mine.

“
Part
of it,” I admit as the door in the back opens once again and
reveals the smiley lady with the ponytail and the perfect teeth.

“
Never
Ross?”

I
close my eyes and gather courage around myself, all of it that I can
muster. I have that in spades, you know. It takes a lot of courage
to go through life in the dark. Most people have a nightlight,
something to chase away the monsters and beautify the storm, but I've
never had that, so I've learned to be brave. I might fuck strange
people and I might cry and maybe I smoke too much, but I know how to
deal, so that's what I'm
going
to do.

“
Never,”
Ty whispers so close to my ear that I can feel his hot breath against
my skin. In spite of the situation, it makes me shiver. “It's
your turn.”

I
open up my eyes and rise to my feet. All the while my hands are
shaking, and the mortal me still sits beneath a plastic clock in a
plastic chair and smiles.

19

I
cry through my entire examination.

I
cry when they ask me routine questions.

When
was your last sexual encounter? Who was your last sexual partner?
How many sexual partners have you had in your lifetime? Do you use
protection?

I
cry when they take my weight and my height and my blood pressure.

Five
foot seven, one hundred and forty-one pounds, the perfect 120/80.

I
cry when they ask me to remove my jacket.

It
smells like cigarettes and dangerous boys with broken hearts, like a
shield against painful reality.

When
I first start to cry, the woman who's asking the questions feels
really bad and even gives me a hug and a cup of black coffee. I sip
it down slowly, but it doesn't help. I just have to let the emotions
wash over me and feel them, all of them. Hiding away from them
doesn't work. Hiding away from them is what got me here.

They
poke my arm and draw blood, lots of it. When they first put the
needle into my flesh, the pain is almost unbearable, like a laughable
analogy of all the pricks I've used in myself to try and cover up my
feelings. I bite my tongue and force myself to watch the nurse weave
the metal into my flesh. She wiggles it around for a moment, and
then tugs on the plunger at the end of the tube.

“
Okay,
Never, try to sit still and we'll get this over with as quick as we
can.” Crimson fills the tube, glistening bright under the
fluorescent lights as it's pulled from my body, bit by painful bit.
“We have to get a few samples since there are multiple tests.
You did say you wanted a full workup, didn't you?”

“
Test
me for all of it,” I tell her without any sort of inflection.
The tears have finally dried on my face, salty and sticky. Now I
feel a bit emotionless like I'm in shock or something. “I'm
probably disease ridden.” The nurse laughs, but I can tell
she's only doing it out of nervousness. Once the tube is full, she
pulls it off the needle and slips it into a tray of rounded slots.
There's at least a dozen of them, so I know I'm in for the long haul.
I lean my head back against the chair and watch as she repeats the
process.

“
I
know it doesn't seem like much, but your boyfriend must care a lot
about you,” she says, and I don't correct her assumption that
Ty is my boyfriend. She knows that he was the last person I slept
with and I'm guessing by his actions that I'm the same for him, so it
makes sense. I wish it was that simple.
Plunge, blood,
twist, slot, repeat.

“
Because
it's romantic to find out if your lover is as diseased as you are?”
I ask, and am sorry that I even said it.

“
A
lot of men refuse to come in here. We get more girls than we do
boys, most of them saying that their lovers want
them
to get tested, but won't get tested themselves. It makes me sick.”
The nurse smiles at me and searches my face for a moment before she
looks back down at the bloody tube in her hand. “I understand
that it's only been a week since your last sexual encounter, but did
you want us to run a pregnancy test as well?”