Page 38 of Lift Me Up

I know if I don’t tell him, it will only eat away at me. It’s been so long since I told someone about my chronic illness, and tried to explain what happens, why I am the way I am. It’s terrifying, but it needs to be done. So, in the dark of the night, I shift a little to sit up and look at Noah in the dim light coming from the bathroom out in the hallway. Noah looks sleepy, pliant, relaxed, but awake. He sits up, resting back on his elbows when he realizes that I am unsettled by something.

“Georgie?” he says, watching me pick at my fingers.

I press my lips together, meeting his gaze, the disgruntled, adorably cute, furrowed brows.

“I want to tell you… what’s going on. All of it. I don’t normally do that with people. But I want to. I want to get it all out there, and then you can decide what you want to do. I don’t want you to hold back. I don’t want you to lie and say you understand if you don’t. It’s a lot, I’m a lot, and I won’t judge you or be upset if you decide you don’t want to continue things with me, but I’d rather know now than get my heart broken later. So, if I talk, you listen, ask questions if you have them, and tell me what you’re thinking, regardless of if you think it will hurt my feelings. Got it?”

His face looks puzzled, like he’s trying to figure out a jigsaw. But then he smiles, and he pulls me close. He doesn’t let go. “Yes. Yes, to all of that. But I’m not going anywhere. And I don’t need to know right now. All I care about is that you’re taken care of. So let me do that, okay?”

When I don’t move, don’t breathe, trying to comprehend that he’s just said all these things, he pulls me down to him and presses a kiss to my forehead. My nose. My lips. “Georgie, let me take care of you. Please.”

Face to face like this, it’s impossible not to feel every emotion at once looking into his eyes. And damn it, I kiss him, and I feel him melt into me and I am so damn gone I couldn’t stop it even if I wanted to.

He wants to take care of me, he wants to stay, and I am just crazy enough to let him.

CHAPTER TWENTY

GEORGIE

In the morning, I feel a great deal of relief. No fever, no chills, no more burning hot, searing and stinging pain. This tells me that after two days of debilitation, maybe just maybe, the worst of it is over. But there can only be two reasons for that great relief, and if it’s the second reason, I need to move fast. White hot panic washes over me, a feeling I can’t settle until I know for sure. I shift under the deadweight of a sleeping Noah’s arms; I press gentle fingers to the tip of my tailbone, and they pull away wet and a deep red colour just as I suspected it would. It is reason two.

I throw myself out of bed in an instant, trying not to be disruptive for Noah. But the moment I move, he’s blinking awake and patting the bed to find me. His hand nears the still fresh stain on my sheets. I gasp, shaking my head and waving my hands, “Stop, don’t-”

Noah blinks blearily at me, confused. But he stops patting, and looks down to see why he can’t in the first place. All he sees is dark red staining, and it’s not as large a spot as I’ve had in the past, but it sure is enough to notice. I can only imagine what he’s thinking.

His cheeks go pink, but he looks back up at me to reassure me, “It’s okay,”

“It’s not,” I say, making sure to keep my back facing the window so he won’t see where the drainage has come from.

The other flares haven’t broken yet, and I’m actually grateful to only have to deal with one at a time, but this means that while this one is draining and being a pain in my ass—quite literally—the others are festering and getting ready to blow. Noah climbs out of my bed and begins pulling off the sheets. I gawk, making a strangled noise as he does it, but he ignores my protests and continues to undress my bed.

“It happens, Georgie. Sienna used to have it happen all the time. I’m not afraid of stuff like this if you think that’s a reason I would leave.”

Oh god, he thinks it’s my period.

“Noah, it’s not-” I don’t know what to say.

How do I tell him that this is not my period or anything other than HS? My heart breaks at his innocence, breaks at the thought that I will have to shatter the illusion that I am perfect, as if that was ever what he thought of me.

“Can I run these through the laundry for you? Or is this an apartment without an in-home laundry unit?” He says thoughtfully, and God he’s too nice and not at all disgusted, and it makes me feel so much worse.

“Just leave it. I’ve got it. Sorry I—” I mumble.

I can’t meet his gaze; I have to scurry away before I break my composure. I race into the bathroom before he can stop me, resting my back against the door and calming the heavy beating of my heart in my chest. I know I only have a few moments before Noah is going to check in on me, and when I see myself in the mirror, I can see that I look as frantic as I feel.

“Georgie,” His voice is on the other side of the door, I can see the shadow his figure makes.

“Go away,” I whisper to myself, then clear my throat and say out loud so he can hear, “I’m just… getting cleaned up; I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

“Okay.” He says back.

I stay under the spray of the water for as long as I can. I let it rain down my body and wash away the grossness, the fear, the embarrassment I feel. I tend to the wounds I can with antibacterial soap to put my mind at ease, even though it doesn’t help all that much with getting rid of the wounds, just keeping them clean.

I wash every inch I can, just to avoid getting out of here. I should’ve told him last night when I felt confident to get it over with, it would’ve made it much easier now to explain this. But he calmed my nerves last night and told me it didn’t matter. But it did matter, it does matter, and though he says he doesn’t care, he might.

Everything we have right now is too good, too fragile, too new, too… everything. Noah has never given me an indication that he’ll walk away from this, in fact he’s done quite the opposite. But I’ve had people in the past tell me the same thing, and the only one to stick around was Franny, so look where that got me. The thing is, I don’t want to lose him yet.

“Georgie?” His voice startles me out of my thoughts.