Page 115 of Pot Shot
“I’ll allow it.” Julian folds his arms. “And then, when you came back, and I saw you smoking pot with Eve. All those things I said…” He swallows, the sound rough in his throat. “I’m so sorry. It wasn’t really about you.”
“I know that now,” I reply softly.
“Youmaynot have noticed this, but historically I’ve had some major emotional hang-ups with cannabis.”
“Oh, really?” I smile, then wince as a spasm hits my lower belly. It’s an empty threat, being that I’ve eaten nothing to fuel a true attack, but it doesn’t stop the pain from radiating through me periodically. Julian’s big, blue eyes see it, seeme, but I don’t see pity in him, or disgust, or dismay, or any of the reactions I’ve always hated so much. I see acknowledgment and understanding. I see love.
This intense, gorgeous, brilliant manlovesme, all of me. And though I’m not ready to say it, I think I love him, too.
I tell him about going to the Rutgers regional campus instead of Yale and the rough college years when I was so sick and starting biologics therapy. The allergic reactions, the doctors who refused to try anything else. Julian bites his bottom lip in, clearly angry on my behalf, but also, chastised somehow, as though he’s partly taking responsibility for his profession. I tell him how cannabis pulled me out of the worst of my illness, but how difficult it was to find the kinds I needed for Crohn’s prior to legalization, and then, what a miracle getting my first medical card was and how I knew that’s what I wanted to do. I’d quit pharmacy school because of an epic stress-induced flare and the worst allergic reaction to a biologic yet landed me in Philly Gen. I was back home, not knowing how I was supposed to pick up the pieces of my life or what my disease would allow me to do. But if I could help other people find relief through cannabis, the way I had, that was a calling I could answer.
I tell him about the years that followed, working for Damon, the ebb and flow of my disease. The disappointments I experienced with the medical industry, one doctor after another, until finally, I gave up seeing doctors and specialists altogether.
“Except for Dr. Appa,” I amend. “He’s always been good to me.”
Julian’s brows pinch together, though he doesn’t say anything.
“What are you thinking? You want to say something.”
“Nomi, I want to respect the boundaries you set around your illness and how we talk about it. But it may be hard for me to know where those boundaries are intuitively. If I ask or say things that go too far, especially in the beginning, will you give me some, I don’t know. Amnesty? Without getting too angry right away? I’m really trying, and I want to do this right.”
I run my hand down his arm, squeezing lightly, appreciating him so much in this moment it hurts. “Okay. That sounds fair. What do you want to say?”
Julian takes a deep breath in. “If you haven’t seen a specialist in—”
“Five years,” I fill in.
His eyebrows lift. “That means you haven’t had a colonoscopy to monitor your disease progression recently. Is that right?”
I swallow. “That’s right.”
Julian bites both lips in. “I understand how frustrated you are with the medical industry, but you’ve been very sick, and your normal interventions haven’t been helping lately. Maybe it’s time you had some testing done to see what’s going on in here.” Julian places his hand directly over where it hurts the most, and the touch feels so comforting, a tear rolls down my cheek. “I’m suggesting this not as your doctor, Nomi, but if you’ll have me, as your partner.”
He watches me closely. “Was… that okay for me to say?”
I breathe deeply in, eyes closing on reflex. This is part of why I don’t talk about my disease, too. I don’t like hearing what I don’t want to do. I don’t like facing what I’ve been running from. And I don’t like feeling accountable for ignoring my own needs to someone who cares about me.
But maybe this boundary isn’t fair to ask the people in my life to respect. If I’m sick and getting sicker, is it right to pretend I’m not and then get angry when someone refuses to buy my heavily edited version of reality? Or is that just me choosing to be alone with my fear,again, instead of together with someone who loves me, where I have to be brave and vulnerable and honest?
Defiance surges through me, because I don’twantto be alone anymore. Not when Julian’s here beside me, the jagged, difficult angles of who he is fitting so neatly against my own. And if that means hearing the uncomfortable truth, if that means I have to be fucking brave and bravely allow some doctor to plumb my ass looking for answers, so be it.
“Yeah. It was.” My mouth quirks in a half-smile. “The bidet doesn’t hurt, either.”
Julian’s brows lift earnestly as he pulls me into his arms. “It’ll change yourlife.”
He holds me, the new fan keeping me cool in his embrace, and I sigh against his chest. “Now you know all my secrets.”
“I do? There isn’t anything else about, say, Lil Dom?”
I snort. “Nothing you can handle.”
Julian groans, and I use the opportunity to nuzzle in closer. “Now you have to tell me your secrets, too.”
“Anything.” Julian’s lips brush against my forehead.
“What happened at Philly Gen?”
He freezes in my arms. “I signed an NDA!”
