Micah Johnson Goes West (Get Out, #2)(47)

“Yes. And hopefully my last.”

Dr. Nguyen raised an eyebrow.

Micah told him the whole story, sparing no details. He had read online that all the medical staff were LGBTQ, so he didn’t have to worry about offending any heterosexual sensibilities. It also gave him a great deal of comfort in knowing they would understand him and hopefully empathise a little more.

Dr. Nguyen listened without judgement, and his first question came as a surprise. “Do you think you were impaired in any way, by other means, besides alcohol?”

“Uh, I felt a bit woozy but that could have just been because of the amount I had drunk.” Was he suggesting his drink had been spiked? Micah didn’t think so. He hadn’t felt any different to any other time he’d been bladdered.

Nguyen nodded. “Okay. Look, I’m going to prescribe you PEP. Have you heard of it?”

Micah scratched at his elbow. “It’s kind of like a morning after pill for unsafe sex, right?”

Nguyen gave a slight smile. “That’s how it’s thought of. But it’s a lot more serious than that. For one, thing, the side effects. You could feel quite sick after taking it. That’s why it’s not recommended as a ‘morning after’ pill.”

“Believe me, I don’t think of it as something to take regularly. Last night….” Micah trailed off.

“Yes?”

“Well, it wasn’t normal. Not for me. I always practice safe sex.”

“So what was different about last night?”

“Different?” Micah asked, to stall answering the question.

“Something made you throw caution out the window. Something other than being drunk.”

Micah knew he was right, but he still couldn’t formulate an answer.

“I’m going to be straight with you, Micah.”

Little bit too late for that, Micah thought giddily.

“I know who you are. Living in this football-mad city I could hardly escape it. And being gay myself, and in a gay workplace, well, let’s say that a gay AFL player is big news round the watercooler.”

Micah wanted the chair to swallow him up. “Uh-huh.”

“That being said, anything you tell me in this room is confidential and will never go outside here. I guess what I’m really asking is, are you okay?”

“Okay?” Micah’s response was little more than a whisper.

“I can guess you’re probably under a lot of pressure. Playing for the AFL, being away from your family. I can’t even imagine how much stress that could cause.”

Micah nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

“I’m not a psychiatrist. But what you’ve told me about last night sounds like it could have been an element of self-destructive behaviour. Or a feeling of invincibility. But just listening to you today, I would say it’s the former.”

Was he that transparent?

“I don’t want to put you on the spot. You don’t have to tell me anything. You’re here for medicine, and I’m supplying that. But I can give you numbers of other people to talk to.”

Ben Nguyen was a stranger to him, yet was displaying such considerable kindness that Micah felt even more adrift. He knew if he’d asked any of his friends for help, they would give it. But he had closed them off. He rebuffed Sam at almost every opportunity. They all knew something wasn’t quite right with Micah, but it had taken Ben Nguyen to cut straight to the chase.

And after everything that had happened to him recently, Micah finally felt ready to take the hand proffered to him.

But being unable to speak, he cried instead.




BEN, FOR they were on a first-name basis now, kept Micah in his office for over an hour as Micah began to speak and found he couldn’t stop. By the end of it, Ben probably wished someone else had gotten to Micah’s file and called him in before he did. But Micah knew that wasn’t true. Ben had seen a patient in trouble, and taken the time to help, and Micah was grateful for it.

He filled in his prescription at the chemist next door. He had made a series of appointments with Ben to return for further tests four weeks, and three and six months from now. If they clashed with any games back in WA, he could arrange a test there. It was going to be a long wait for him to be finally cleared and feel assured of true negative diagnosis.

“The odds are low for you to have been exposed to HIV after only one unsafe experience,” Ben told him. “But like pregnancy, it only takes one time.”

He hoped he wouldn’t get carpal tunnel from all the wanking that was in his future, but he remembered that he had survived being thirteen and discovering what his dick could do without getting RSI, so maybe he would be okay.

Thirty days of pills. This was a very expensive lesson to learn, although thankfully the drugs were covered by the pharmaceutical benefit scheme, and Micah once again thanked his lucky stars he didn’t live in America where his prescription and tests could have bankrupted him.

While waiting for the tram he bought a cheap messenger bag to stick the pills in without drawing attention to himself, especially as he had decided to go straight to the hospital. He texted his parents to let them know he was okay and that he’d crashed in another player’s hotel room. He didn’t say the obvious choice of Sam just in case he had called Micah’s parents trying to find out why he hadn’t turned up to Sherlock’s. Their casual reply didn’t send his spider-senses tingling, so he hoped he was safe.