The Playgirl's Lover (ON HOLD)

Chapter Eleven - Not That Drunk

He breathed out deeply. "I'm sorry"

"It's fine..."

They both stayed silent for a while, their phone glued to their ears. The present commotion suddenly felt so far away as he focused on the sounds of her breathing.

"Mr. Ace Clarke?"

This finally broke the comfortable silence between them. "Yes," he talked to the nurse and then turned back to Ella. "I'll call you later, okay, love you"

She smiled. "I love you too"

Ace followed the nurse to the doctor's office, once he entered, he was asked to change into a hospital gown and lay down in bed to wait for the doctor. He looked around and when the doctor entered the room, he finally let his head fall onto the pillow.

"It is mentioned here that you are only fifteen years old and you've been noticing sudden irritable changes in your body after you took sildenafil citrate, is that right?"

Ace nodded. "Yes,"

"Do you know that you are not allowed to even buy sildenafil citrate until you're over the age of eighteen?"

"Yes... A friend of mine gave it to me"

"And why did you take it?"

Ace looked around, he couldn't look into the doctor's chiding eyes. "He said I won't be good in bed without it"

"And was it worth it, young man?"

"No..."

"Now tell me what's the problem"

"I feel dizzy and light-headed all the time. My whole body itches. I vomit every time I try to eat anything, and it hurts down there" he gestured toward his crotch.

The doctor examined him, ran a few tests, it took more than five hours, he stayed in the hospital the whole morning.

"You've had a severe allergic reaction to sildenafil citrate. You should be glad that it was just a mild reaction, in severe cases, you could have developed something called priapism, and it is an erection that does not go away and if it last beyond four hours there could be actual decreased blood flow and causes permanent damage. It's typically fixed surgically. It can involve a needle and other instrumentation" the doctor explained, trying to scare the fifteen-year-old boy to not take this drug ever again and it worked.

"I won't, I won't take it again"

They discharged him afterward. Ace came out of the hospital and sat down on the sidewalk with his head in his hands. Tears fell from his eyes, he wanted to tell his dad about what had happened to him but he was scared. Scared that his father might get angry or worse, he could stop him from meeting his grandpa Mason ever again. He had spent the last two days in complete agony and pain and he couldn't even talk to anyone about it. He was ashamed to tell Mason because he would say he wasn't a man enough, he didn't want to disappoint him.

He didn't even see Ella because he knew he had hurt her too, he couldn't face her. She was trying to hide it but he knew he fucked it all up with her.

Men don't talk about their feelings or show their pain— these words were drilled into his head. No matter how badly he wanted to go home and cry in his mother's arm, he knew he couldn't. It would make him weak and Ace Clarke Harding was not weak.

┈┈┈┈․° ☣︎ °․┈┈┈┈

I slammed my fist into the punching bag, relishing the intense explosion of pain that shook my arm at the impact. Sweat dripped from my forehead, burning in my eyes.