by Marie Sexton
I was angry, not so much at Nick as at the universe in general. At fate. At my own terrible luck. I’d finally found a man whom I adored, who liked me, who was attracted to me, who made me feel better than I’d ever felt, only to have the rug ripped out from under me.
HIV.
My head filled with horrible images—the famous photo of David Kirby in the last moments of his life. Only in my mind, it was Nick, his strong, muscular body destroyed by the virus.
How long? I realized I had no idea. The sensationalism of AIDS had long since died. It wasn’t that I thought it was gone, or cured, or irrelevant, but somehow I’d never thought much about the fact that it was still out there like some kind of relentless hunter, killing people, ruining lives.
Had he lied about putting me at risk?
I didn’t think so. No matter what had happened, I trusted Nick. He could have fucked me. He could have let me fuck him. But he hadn’t. He hadn’t even taken off his pants. I remembered how he’d seemed relieved when he found out I didn’t have condoms. If I had, he might have been tempted to do something riskier, but he’d refrained. There are plenty of other ways for me to get you off.
I couldn’t decide if the memory was erotic or nauseating. I curled up in my bed, relieved that it was only Saturday. I wouldn’t have to face him again until Monday. I spent the day downing Sprite, Advil, and saltine crackers and cursing Jason to the heavens for whatever had been in the shots.
At five o’clock, Nick knocked on my door. I wasn’t ready to face him. I wished I could hide, but it was ridiculous. He knew I was home. I pulled on a T-shirt and sweats, ran a hand through my matted hair, and answered the door.
He looked terrible. Probably worse than me. Grief made his face long and haggard. Sorrow clouded his eyes.
“Hey,” he said quietly.
I leaned against the doorjamb, unwilling to let him in. Unwilling to admit yet how much he’d hurt me. Or how much I’d hurt him. “Hi.”
He slumped a bit, and I almost broke. I almost reached out for him. But my hand was stilled by thoughts of the virus. Before, I’d thought he was perfect. Now, right or wrong, he seemed tainted.
“Owen, I want to tell you how sorry I am. I—”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” A lump began to form in my throat. I wanted to end this conversation before I started crying again.
He nodded. “Okay. Well, I want you to know….” His voice cracked and he stopped. He pinched the bridge of his nose. He was as close to tears as I was. “I don’t expect anything big. I just hope we can be friends again. That’s all.”
I nodded, unable to speak. Unable to hold my tears at bay. I closed the door, put my head against the wood, and cried.
Partly, I cried for myself.
Mostly, I cried for Nick.
I SPENT the next couple of weeks avoiding him as much as I could. I still went to his house for piano lessons, but he seemed to sense my mood, and he gave me a wide berth. I used the key he’d given me to practice while he was at work, although I felt guilty for doing it.
After the second week, as I followed June out the door after our lesson, she turned to face me on the stairs. “What happened between you and Nick?”
I shrugged, trying to act casual. “Nothing. Why?”
She chewed her lip, watching me with obvious skepticism, weighing her words, trying to decide how much to say. “Did he tell you about being sick?” she finally asked.
I ducked my head. It was getting dark outside, and the light wasn’t good on the stairway, but I couldn’t hide my discomfort.
“And then what?” She practically spat the words at me. “You suddenly decided you couldn’t be friends with him because he has HIV? You think you’re too good for him now?”
“No, but I think he should have told me sooner.”
“Do you have any idea what his privacy means to him? Have you even considered what it’s like for him, being ‘that guy with HIV’?”
“Maybe a bit like being ‘that guy with one arm.’”
“Yeah, except nobody treats you like you’re contagious.”
I hung my head again, even more ashamed than before. June sighed, and the anger seemed to drain out of her. “He misses you. I don’t know if he’ll tell you on his own, so I’m telling you instead. He’s miserable. I don’t think I’ve seen him so depressed since he was diagnosed.”
I was miserable too. I couldn’t help wondering if it would be better to be miserable together.
I LAY in bed that night, thinking about Nick.
Learning about his disease, suddenly realizing that heroes could fall too, had been heartbreaking, but I began to see how selfish my reaction had been. June was right. I shouldn’t have abandoned him. We were friends, and that wasn’t how friends behaved.
But what about the rest?
I was attracted to Nick. Who wouldn’t be? He was fun and confident and sexy. He made me comfortable in a way nobody else could. He flirted with me and made me feel desirable for the first time in my life. But if we were to remain friends, I had to put all that aside.
It was normal for me to desire him. After all, I was twenty-eight, and until Halloween, I’d still been a virgin. I figured anybody in my position would have felt the same. But I realized now what a horrible position I’d put him in. Yes, he was attracted to me, and he cared about me, but he’d tried to keep a few simple boundaries in place, and all the while, I’d pushed him forward, blindly banking on his desire to overcome his will.
It had worked too, but at what cost?
So how would we stay friends, but without the sexual tension? That was the question. And almost as quickly as I thought it, a potential answer came. What if I focused my desire on somebody else? It wasn’t that I wanted to hurt Nick or to make him jealous, but maybe if I turned my attentions elsewhere, it would make things easier. It would take the pressure off us both. I couldn’t have Nick, but that didn’t mean I had to stay single for the rest of my life.
After all, Nick wasn’t the only guy who’d flirted with me recently.
It wasn’t hard to find Michael’s clinic online and get their number. The hard part was picking up the phone and dialing, then staying on the line, waiting for an answer.
“Tucker Springs Acupuncture. This is Nathan. How can I assist you today?”
I’d been counting on him to answer the phone, but for a moment, I wasn’t sure what to say. I sat there, frozen and mute.
“Hello-o?” he said. “Does somebody need to be pricked and poked, because you have to speak up if you want me to put you on the schedule.”
“Nathan, it’s Owen. We met on Halloween. Do you remember me?”
“Owen! How could I forget the man who turned me down cold?”
“Oh. Uh. Yeah. I’m sorry about that.”
“No need to apologize. I wasn’t exactly interested in having my ass kicked by a studly veterinarian anyway. So, what’s up? Do you need an appointment?”
“No. I w-wanted to talk t-to you.” I stopped and took a breath, getting my tongue under control. “I wondered if you’d like to meet me for a cup of c-coffee. Or a beer, I guess. Something.”
He was silent for a moment, and I started to feel foolish. Why had I called? Why had I assumed one drunken night of flirting meant anything? Then he said, “I get off at five thirty, which means I can be at Mocha Springs Eternal at five thirty-five exactly.”
I tried to muffle my sigh of relief. “I’ll see you then.”
It wasn’t until I walked into the coffee shop that I began to regret my decision. First of all, the place was busy. The highly caffeinated after-work crowd swarmed and buzzed around me, and I stepped back outside to wait.
What did I hope to accomplish here? I’d been so nervous, I’d barely managed to eat lunch, and now here I was, my empty stomach rumbling with nerves. What if drinking a double latte made me sick to my stomach? What if it made my stutter worse? What if—
“Owen?”
I turned to find Nathan sta
nding behind me, smiling like a kid. He’d added black tips to his blond and pink spikes. “Hi,” I said stupidly.
He gestured into the coffee shop. “Did you want to go in?”
I looked inside, hoping to find a reason to change our plans. “I don’t think there are any empty tables.”
“Let’s get it to go. It’s a nice night. We can sit by the fountain.”
By the fountain, I realized, meant outside. “Sounds great.”
We stood awkwardly next to each other in line, not talking. I managed to order without stuttering too much. It wasn’t until we were waiting for our drinks that he said, “I was surprised to hear from you.”
“I know it was out of the blue. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Why would I mind? I could use more calls from cute men.”
I laughed, but I was glad when the barista called my name. I followed Nathan outside and into the heart of the plaza. The Light District was beginning to flare to life, although it wasn’t dark out yet. “Here,” Nathan said, stopping at a bench.
We sat and sipped our coffee, watching the people bustle past us. Parents with their children, friends laughing as they headed for home or an after-work drink, uptight men and women with their cell phones clutched like lifelines to their ears, moving frantically through the crowd. It was Nathan who finally broke the silence.
“Where do you work?”
After that, it got easier. He was good at asking questions and making small talk. He was funny too. He told me about his job and how he was saving his money to buy a horse. But finally he asked the million-dollar question.
“So did you and Nick break up?”
“We weren’t really ever together.”
“So what was Halloween, then? A one-night stand?”
That was a good question. That certainly wasn’t what I’d had in mind. I was pretty sure it wasn’t what Nick had wanted either. And yet, what else would it be called?
It made my heart feel heavy in my chest. Was that really what it came down to? I’d lost my virginity, and it was nothing more than a bad cliché? “It’s complicated.”
Nathan laughed. “Honey, that’s the story of my life. You meet somebody. You like them, they like you. Then you get naked together and it all goes to hell.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Wow. I guess it isn’t as complicated as I thought.”
He put his arm along the back of the bench and rested his hand on my shoulder. He moved closer and leaned toward me, making the public park bench feel intimate. “Is that why you called me? Are you really interested in more complications?”
My stomach fluttered. I was hyperaware of the heat of his hand where it rested on my upper arm. “Maybe.” It came out wrong, though. It came out like a question.
He smiled at me and caressed the side of my neck with his fingers. It felt good—soft and sweet—but it made my heart ache. Why had I ever believed I could substitute Nathan for the man I actually cared about?
“Don’t get me wrong,” Nathan said as if reading my mind. “I’m game if you are. I can be your rebound booty call, if that’s really what you want. I don’t think it is, though. I think what you really want is him, and when it’s all over I don’t want you feeling like I took advantage of you.”
I ducked my head to hide my blush. “You’re way too perceptive.”
“One of my better faults.” He sat back an inch. He didn’t take his hand away from my shoulder, but his touch became less of a caress. It became the solid grip of a friend. “What happened with Nick?”
I shook my head, because I couldn’t tell him. I didn’t want to betray Nick’s secret. But I desperately wanted to talk to somebody. “It’s hard to explain. He kept a secret from me, and because I didn’t know the truth, I pushed him into something—”
“Sex?”
I nodded. “And then he told me, and everything changed.”
“Are you intentionally being vague?”
“Yes.”
“You’re protecting him?”
Yes, I realized. That was exactly what I was doing. “It’s a really personal issue. I understand why he kept it to himself.”
“If you were angry, you’d want to get back at him. You’d want to tell me his dirty secret.”
“It’s not a dirty secret. It’s—”
“You just made my point, honey. You’re sympathetic, and yet you feel betrayed.”
“Exactly.”
“And how do you think he feels?”
Alone. And betrayed. Exactly like me.
I was the one who’d pushed for more. I was the one who’d practically begged him to sleep with me. Yes, I could blame him for giving in, but what good would it do me?
“I miss him,” I said.
“Then stop missing him. Go throw yourself in his arms. Apologize, or demand an apology, or both. But whatever you do, hang on to him, Owen. Don’t let him get away.”
Chapter Nine
THE NEXT day I sat down and did the thing I’d been avoiding for over two weeks: I started looking up details on HIV. Now that I’d decided to pull my head out of my ass, I figured I should be thorough.
The first thing I wanted to know was the scariest: How much time did he have? I quickly learned HIV wasn’t the death sentence it had once been, especially for healthy individuals undergoing treatment. My research also shed a new light on the way he lived—a healthy lifestyle and a good drug regimen went a long way toward ensuring that a person with HIV could live as long as anybody else. It was entirely possible Nick would survive to be an old man.
I sat back and breathed a sigh of relief for Nick. That was my biggest worry out of the way.
After that I began looking at the data regarding transmission. He hadn’t lied to me about putting me at risk. I’d instinctively assumed oral sex involved some risk, but it wasn’t that simple. If I’d been the one sucking him off, the risk would have been slightly higher. But as long as there were no open wounds, being on the receiving end of oral sex was absolutely safe. In fact, a lot of sexual activities could still be enjoyed with very little risk. Add condoms and a pre-exposure prophylactic drug, and it was entirely possible somebody who was HIV-negative could stay negative, even if involved in a sexual relationship with somebody who was positive.
I wasn’t ready to think about that. Not yet.
But I was ready to do what was right.
The next night I had another piano lesson with June. We were making progress on “Ode to Joy.” The thought of the recital still made me nervous, but I began to realize that we really might pull this off. June and I both stayed for a while after Amelia had left, practicing. I was biding my time, waiting for her to leave, and she seemed to sense my impatience.
“You’re not going to be an ass, are you?” she asked quietly.
“I think I’ve already been an ass. My plan now is to stop being an ass.”
She smiled and kissed me on the cheek. “Good luck.”
Nick had been hiding in the kitchen during our lesson. Ostensibly, he’d been cooking, but it wasn’t until June was leaving that I began to hear the telltale sounds of pots and pans clanging together. It took every ounce of nerve I had to walk into his kitchen. He looked up at me, wary but hopeful, and I froze in my tracks.
“Hi,” I blurted out. A stupid, inadequate greeting, but it was all I had.
“Hi.” He glanced down at my chest and smiled. “Nice shirt.”
I’d intentionally worn the Superman shirt he’d given me on Halloween, hoping it would help ease the tension between us. It seemed to be working for him, but not so well for me. I hugged my ruined arm against my stomach, took a deep breath, and made myself ask, “Can we talk?”
“Of course.” He motioned to a chair. “Have a seat.”
I did, and then I sat there watching him, unsure of how to begin. How did you go about asking somebody the details of their HIV status? I thought about how often I’d seen people uncomfortable with me, unable to ask about my arm. I decided Nick’s
approach was best—direct.
“When we first met, you told me you’d been a shut-in for a while.”
“For about a year.”
“Because of the HIV?”
He paused briefly in his chopping, then nodded and went on, slowly slicing a carrot into bits. “It was right after I was diagnosed.”
“Will you tell me about it?”
He was quiet for a moment, seemingly contemplating where to begin. “I was on vacation with my family, believe it or not. My parents and June and me. We went to Cancun. It was like being a teenager again, you know, going to the beach with my parents and playing in the ocean with my sister. But one night everybody else went to bed early, and I was bored, so I went online and I found a club nearby.” He swallowed and set his knife down. His hands were shaking. “And I hooked up with somebody. I took him back to my room. And I spent the next three days with my family, like before, but every night when I got back to my room, he’d be there waiting for me, and we….” He laughed bitterly. “God, we fucked like rabbits, is what we did.” He shook his head, looking sightlessly down at the pile of chopped vegetables on the counter. “And the first couple of times, we used condoms, but then we ran out and we just kept going. It was stupid. That’s the worst part. I have no excuse whatsoever except I was young and stupid. I was having fun, and I guess I thought it couldn’t happen to me, as ridiculous as it sounds.” He began scooping the vegetables up and dropping them into a bowl. “I was diagnosed six months later.”
“Did he know he was sick?”
“I’ve wondered, but I have no idea. I never even knew his last name.” He leaned forward, closing his eyes, his fingers white-knuckled on the countertop. “Four nights with him, and I’ve been paying for it ever since.” He shook his head. “I can’t be that person, Owen. I won’t be the one who passes this disease on to somebody else. The only way it ends is if we stop spreading it. What happened between us the other night… God, I can’t even tell you how sorry I am for what I did.”
“Because you didn’t tell me about it first?”