Page 27 of My So-Called Perfect Life

His mom gives me a sympathetic look and then redirects her son’s attention. “I’m sure she knows, and if she needs to use it, she’ll be fine. We should let her get on her way, so we can go get the ice cream and get it home before it melts.”

“Okay. Bye, Miss Jacobs.” He trots off, oblivious to the embarrassment coloring my face.

I grab one of the boxes off the shelf and head back to the pharmacy, hoping my meds are almost ready.

Worst two weeks of my life!

Chapter Eight

Danielle

“Danielle, you don’t have aurinary tract infection. Your cultures came back positive for chlamydia. I called in a different antibiotic to your pharmacy. The one you started yesterday isn’t strong enough to get rid of the infection. You’ll need to abstain from sex for the next seven days and inform all partners of your results, as they’ll need to be tested as well.”

And I thought yesterday was bad!

I exit my bedroom after getting off the phone with my doctor’s office, and I feel dirty and … soiled.

There’s no other way to explain it.

I don’t have a UTI.

I have chlamydia.

Freaking chlamydia.

Oh my God.

My feet feel like bricks of cement as I trudge down the hall toward the living room stuck in a daze as words I never thought I’d hear in reference to myself spin around my mind taunting me.

“You are white as a ghost,” Mercy says as she stands at the counter shoving cucumbers into her water bottle. “Are you feeling all right? Maybe we should skip yoga in the park today.”

Ignoring her, I walk through the kitchen to the living room, plop on the couch and stare at the blank television screen. How did this happen? Well, I know how it happened, but still . . . how the hell did this happen? I’ve had a total of four sexual partners in twenty-seven years and somehow, I have an STD. Not my sister, who sleeps with someone new every other weekend. Not Mercy, who practically slept with an entire frat house in college.

Me!

“Hey.” Mercy walks toward me and takes a seat, placing her hand on my leg. “You okay, Dani? What did the doctor say? What’s going on?”

Feeling cold and hollow, I grab the blanket off the back of the couch and wrap it around myself. “I have chlamydia.”

Her voice sounds like it could shatter glass, and she yells right in my ear. “What?”

“I have chlamydia.”

“You?”

I nod, still too stunned for more than the phrase, “I have chlamydia.”

“Holy shit,” Mercy gasps. “Scott’s cheating is the gift that keeps on giving, huh? I’m calling Amelia. Who cares that it isn’t even noon? This calls for some stiff alcohol.”

“I have to go pick up my new meds from the pharmacy.”

“Okay, we’ll have Ams do it on her way here.”

I hear Mercy talking to my sister, but all I can focus on are the doctor’s words.

“You need to get here, stat. Stop at the pharmacy and pick up your sister’s meds. Then, hit up the liquor store and get the good stuff.” Mercy’s words filter in. “I’ll fill you in when you get here.”

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