Page 79 of His Atonement
Only Zan.
"I'm going to have to edit that out later."
He nods firmly. "Then you should stop recording so we can get down to business. The plans I have for you, my darling mate, are far more explicit than that."
Then, quicker than I have time to react, Zan whips the sheet back, sends my phone sailing across the room and as soon as my legs are exposed, they contract again, contract so hard that my toes curl and my entire lower half jerks from the action.
“Explain," Zan grunts, amethyst eyes locked on my legs, and tracking the way the muscles quiver from how rigid they are. "Explain right fucking now and do not lie. I will know it if you do."
Fucking tears immediately well in my eyes, my nose burns and I look away. I can't do this. I can't tell him what's going on with me, can't risk changing our relationship and the way he views me. I didn't think I had enough time left to fall in love with someone, and now that I have, now that Zan has very literally completed who I am, I don't want one thing about us to change.
“Frankie." Zan sighs as he slides his fingers along my jaw, cups my cheek and gently turns me to face him. "My darling, please. Please tell me what it is you struggle with. I have sensed it from the moment we met, sensed something is off and I just want to understand it, to know so that I may help you if I can."
"It's not something that can be helped, baby. Not by you or anyone else. It is what it is and I've accepted that, but I don't want anything to change because of it either." A tear rolls down my cheek so I look over his shoulder, look past his gorgeous eyes full of so much love and concern. "And I'm worried that once you know, once anyone knows, I won't be looked at the same way anymore."
"Oh, my darling girl, there is nothing on the planet that could change how I view you. You are my mate, the love of my life I never thought I'd have and most definitely do not deserve.” He smooths his thumb under my eye and catches another tear. "I believe you hung the moon, scattered the stars in the sky, and tell the sun when to rise each morning. Nothing could make me think anything less."
And now I'm fucking crying.
"Please, Frankie. Please share this burden with me, allow me to carry it for you so that you are able to feel lighter each day." Then Zan leans in and presses another sweet kiss to my lips and rests his forehead against mine. "Please."
So I sigh and get ready to unload all the bullshit I've been dealing with alone for almost twenty years.
"When I was sixteen I started slipping in school. Nothing crazy, but my grades started to drop and I began acting out, I guess. Emotional outbursts, random blow ups over meaningless things. I got into trouble—just skipping class or talking back to teachers, but it was enough for me to get suspended for a week. Everyone thought it was because of my parents, that I was still coping with their loss, so they weren't too hard on me about my behavior, but things got bad for a while. So much so that I almost didn't graduate." Zan sits up, kisses my forehead then repositions so he's facing me while he begins rubbing my feet. "Then, just before I turned eighteen, I had a seizure. I'd never had one before and it seemingly came out of nowhere, so Granny freaked out and rushed me to the ER. They did tons of tests but couldn't find any reason for it, thought maybe it was just a fluke or something and encouraged me to do a follow up with my primary."
"And did you?" he asks while trying to loosen the muscles that are still constricted and twitching.
I nod. "I made the appointment, but I made it for after I turned eighteen so Granny wouldn't need to sign off on anything. So I could make sure she didn't find out what was wrong, if there was something."
"Which there was."
"Yeah…" I sigh, and wrap my arms around my waist. "I had another seizure at the appointment, it was probably the fourth one since the first time and the fact that I had it in front of my doctor helped her narrow down possibilities. I told her about my mood swings, school, told her that I felt like I was getting clumsy all of the sudden and after several more tests she confirmed what she thought."
Zan stops rubbing my feet for a minute, meets my eyes and waits.
"I was officially diagnosed with JHD. Juvenile Huntington's Disease. My doctor said it may or may not have had anything to do with what was going on when I was sixteen, so the official diagnosis started when I was seventeen."
"Forgive my ignorance, darling, but I am not familiar with this disease."
I smile a little and nod. "Not everyone is unless you know someone who has it. Huntington's is inherited, a genetic disease passed on typically from parent to child that affects the nerves in the basal ganglia region of the brain. It's degenerative and affects movement, cognitive and psychological abilities. It doesn't generally manifest in most people until their thirties or forties even, but some are diagnosed younger and because I was before I turned twenty, it was considered Juvenile Huntington's."
Zan resumes rubbing my feet but I can feel another shift in him, feel the concern grow, the fear and the hurt hearing this caused. Which means I'm going to have to accept the way this is going to change everything about our relationship, completely alter the dynamic and possibly even make Zan consider rejecting our bond altogether.
A few tears slide down my cheeks but I quickly swipe them away. "My symptoms were minimal for a long time, easy to control. I was able to get my degree in photojournalism, make a career of it, travel, live relatively normal, I guess, but over the past few years they've become more prominent."
He nods to my legs, and starts rubbing my calves. "This is a symptom, yes?"
"Yeah. Dystonia, or extreme muscle rigidity and contracting."
"And the jerking?"
“Chorea." I take a deep breath and fight the way I want to sob. "My symptoms are mostly physical—movement based—and psychological. The tremors, jerking, the rigidity. I have issues with my balance and coordination sometimes. Involuntary movements in my limbs or eyes. I have a pretty severe case of OCD, but I've gotten good at hiding it. Mood swings, panic attacks, depression. Occasionally I have auditory hallucinations, but that's only when things get really bad."
Zan's eyes flick to mine briefly before he goes back to rubbing my legs, up to my thighs and back down to my ankles. "Is that what happened after the incident with the goats? Why you disappeared for nearly a week?"
"Yes. My coordination slipped when I was photographing the horses, I broke my lens and flipped out. It was really bad and when that happens I can't be around other people, otherwise I say or do things that make no sense." I push my hair back out of my eyes, and scrub my hands over my face. "Thankfully, my cognitive ability hasn't really been compromised. Sometimes I struggle with finding the right words to use, remembering them or using them correctly, but that's about it. Occasionally it affects my impulse control but that's pretty rare. I'm pretty lucky actually, that it only manifests physically or psychologically, because I can usually get things under control with the weed."
"So, smoking is a form of treatment?"
