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You’re in the waiting room of the doctor’s office, you are called in by a tight-lipped nurse. You sit in the examining room, look around. It’s the usual suspects: the boxes of latex gloves, the canister of cotton swabs, the paper-covered vinyl-cushioned examining table. The doctor’s assistant comes in, updates your information. She’s warm and sharp as a tack: she remembers that you live in the neighborhood, that you moved from California a few years back. She notices you haven’t had a refill for the Xanax you take to fly lately, asks if you need  more. “No,” you exhale, “I’m not flying as much anymore. That relationship ended.” Suddenly without warning David’s ghost is there in the room with the two of you, standing behind her. He never says anything, this ghost that appears sometimes, his blue eyes just stare at you.

Her eyes don’t leave the screen as she taps a few notes into your file. “Sorry to hear. Long distance relationships are hard.” “No, actually, they’re not,” you reply. She stops and looks at you now, alerted by your raised voice that something’s wrong. “That’s not why it ended. After 10 great months he just suddenly fell out of love with me, and didn’t care enough about me to break up with me in a compassionate way.” Her eyes widen, she shakes her head and stammers “No, that’s not what I meant, I…” You can’t stop, you cut her off: “And now I feel like I didn’t even know what else he was capable of, what else he gave himself permission to do in the final days of the relationship. SO HERE I AM.” You shout this last part as she leaves the room, slams the door. David’s ghost just stands there, stares, shows no emotion.

“Do you need a refill for the Xanax?” the doctor’s assistant repeats, her hands paused above the computer’s keyboard. “No” you mutter quietly, shaking your head of this fantasy, coming back to reality, “I still have some left.” You are both still in the examination room, you did not yell at her. David was never unfaithful to you, you know this in your soul. You’re here for another reason. She leaves, and your doctor comes in shortly after that, asks the reason for your visit.

“I’d like you to prescribe me Truvada,” you say, clearly and directly.

You start chatting with Brian a couple weeks before, on the unlikeliest of dating apps: Instagram. You followed each other at some point prior, probably when you were still in the relationship. At that point you were blind to other men, but now that you’re single, his handsome face gets your attention and the two of you message each other, then graduate to text. You go on a couple of FaceTime dates, he’s in Vancouver Canada because OF COURSE HE IS. This happens more and more often, the long distance romances. They’re not for everyone, but just because long distance dating isn’t for everyone, doesn’t mean it’s not for anyone.

He plans a visit, and in the meantime you go to Seattle for a weekend, since your friend Colt is going there to see his Aunt and Uncle. Surprise! Your friends Hannah and Devin (he of the shameless flirting, and later of the making-out-with in a photo booth LONG STORY GUYS) decide to go up too. You round the corner on the I-5 freeway into the city, and see the Sound and the silver city spread out before you. You say a small, silent prayer: the last time you were here was with your ex. To your relief, the ghost doesn’t make an appearance that entire trip and you have a blast with your friends.

You stop by the passport office and apply for a passport for the first time in your entire life. Yes, in the past you’ve brushed off the question of whether you had a passport with the white lie that you had to renew it, but the embarrassing truth is you simply never had one. When you lived in Mexico for a few months, that was pre-9/11 border restrictions, and more recently, you had a years-long debilitating fear of flying that kept you from the desire to travel.

Back in Portland, you get a text from Brian: “Hey, FYI, I’m HIV positive. Undetectable.” You send back the verbal equivalent of a shrug, but this is a first for you…or is it? Surely you’ve been with guys who are positive that haven’t disclosed, or who don’t yet know their poz status. Why is this different? Have I been unconsciously serosorting, or even worse, discriminating? Have I lived in fear of dating HIV positive men?

For the uninitiated, “serosorting” is dating or having sex only with people of the same HIV status as yourself. It’s an understandable impulse if executed with good intentions, but it’s all too easy to read as lingering prejudice and fear of sex with people with HIV. Although you’re been around HIV and AIDS education your entire life, you take the opportunity to research Truvada, you meet with your dear friend Jason (who’s poz), all of which has led you to the doctor’s office today.

“What do you know about the drug?” your doctor now asks you. You list what your research has told you: it’s becoming better-known recently, it’s been proven to prevent HIV infection in people taking it, it makes some people have uncontrollable poops when they first take it. He nods, “Yes, there’s also a chance of kidney failure in a small percentage of people who take it. And also…” He pauses, seeking the right words. “There’s the human factor, that because you’re taking this, you’ll engage in more risky behavior, and this doesn’t prevent other STDs.” He hands you the prescription without making eye contact, you get blood drawn for STDs and HIV testing, and you walk out wondering if maybe you should find a gay doctor.

You start taking the blue pills, they’re the size of a baby’s fist, or perhaps a small pony. To your relief, you don’t get the poop squirts! The visit is coming up, and you clean your place, do your laundry. You see a clean discarded white sock in the laundry room but don’t have any hot neighbors so you leave it there. The day Brian flies in, you show a coworker his picture, show off how handsome he is. She’s holding your phone and looks up at you, eyes wide. For a moment you think Oh shit what picture did she swipe on? but then she says quietly, gently: “Mike, that’s a picture of David.” Except it’s not. You take your phone back, look at his picture with new eyes. Holy shit. Brian, the man traveling to visit you from another country is the spitting image of your ex. You shake your head in reluctant admiration: some ghosts are more clever than you give them credit for.

He visits, and the resemblance diminishes with every passing minute, the differences are pleasant surprises. The two of you spend the weekend exploring the city and exploring each other, and part with his invitation to visit his city. You speak later and resolve to be good friends instead of romantic potentials. The entire time, you monitor yourself for side effects from the Truvada, and literally experience none.

You get an envelope in the mail later that week; you open it and suddenly with this small blue book you finally have access to the world. With the small, gentle discoveries in your heart in the last month you can explore so many places, make new friends, travel to far-off places and explore frontiers inside your heart that are undiscovered, but only unknown for a short time longer.

Oh, the places you’ll go!

If you liked this, then really? What’s wrong with you? Follow my adventures as I almost get my ass kicked in New York, or come to terms with a family tragedy in New Orleans. Let’s be horrible people together!