Hot Mess

by Anne Conley

  Let's go fishing tomorrow. I'll pick you up at 10 am.

  When he got home, he found a note from Brenda taped to his door.

  I would have stayed, but I have a dinner with friends tonight. Amanda is across the street.

  Sam was livid. He hadn't specifically told Brenda why Amanda wasn't going over there anymore, so he wasn't really mad at her, but he did tell Amanda that she wasn't to play over there until he got stuff straightened out with Rachel, if ever. He crumpled the note in his fist.

  Nerves abuzz with raw frenetic adrenaline and pure exhaustion, he stalked across the street and pounded on Rachel's door. She answered, wearing a purple cast on the bottom of her leg and bags under her eyes.

  His heart immediately started thumping, but he reminded himself how furious he was with her, and demanded, "Where's 'Manda?"

  A weary sigh escaped Rachel, "She's here."

  "I know she's here, Brenda left a note saying that. I need her home."

  "I figured you wouldn't let her come back over. I’m not surprised, but Brenda was insistent."

  "I don't care how insistent she was. Amanda isn't coming over here any more." Sam was furious at Derrick, at himself for losing it at work. He was using Rachel as a way to relieve the stress of the day, and some part of him felt bad about it, but not bad enough to lighten up any.

  "I get it, Sam. Don't worry." She turned, bracing herself against the door. "Amanda! Your dad's here to get you." She fumbled for her crutches that she'd leaned in the corner behind the door and hobbled away.

  Amanda came to the door shortly afterward, a pout on her face. "Dad, I don't want to go home. My homework's done, and I still have two hours before bedtime."

  "You're not staying here, honey. I told you that, already." Grasping his daughter's hand, he pulled her back home.

  She went straight to her room and slammed the door. Sam groaned and threw himself on the sofa in front of the TV, his mind unable to stop spinning.

  Seeing Rachel again had brought her betrayal forefront in his mind. The disciplinary action at the fire station was pushed into the background when he remembered her face as she told him the words, "I'm HIV positive." His gut churned, and he stared blankly at the TV for hours before finally falling asleep.

  After closing the door on Sam's livid expression, Rachel hobbled back to her couch. Sophia was already there, sitting on the end of the couch, her legs pulled up under her.

  "So, you told him? About you?"

  Rachel swallowed back her tears, as she looked at her daughter. She looked so grown up, despite her long braids. Her round eyes were full of compassion, and Rachel felt an undeniable surge of affection for Sophia. She held out her arms, and the little girl crawled over to her and rested her head on Rachel's lap.

  "Yeah. He didn't take it well."

  "So, Amanda can't come over anymore? Doesn't he know that she can't catch it that way?" Her daughter's face was serious, her typical need to help humanity evident in her features.

  Rachel's breath caught, as she continued to fight the tears and stay strong for her daughter. "Amanda probably won't be coming over here for awhile, Sweetie. He's her daddy, and he's just protecting her. I'm sure he knows she can't catch it that way, but it's hard to explain a parent's protective instincts, Honey. You'll understand it someday, I hope." She drew her fingers through Sophie's hair, trying to calm herself.

  "Do you feel okay, Mom?"

  "Yeah, I'm just tired. Those crutches are hurting my armpits."

  A knock at the door jerked Sophia's head up. "I'll get it."

  She scampered away to answer the door, and returned with a big grin on her face, Shelly and Cindy in tow. Cindy had a casserole dish in her hand.

  "I know it's probably not as healthy as what you cook, but I can't make anything that's not covered in cheese, so here you go: King Ranch chicken casserole." She walked through the living room to put the dish in the kitchen. When she returned, she was wiping her hands on her pants. "Girls, go into the bedroom for a little while, will you?"

  She sat on the couch next to Rachel and looked at her sympathetically, which irked Rachel. "Thanks for cooking us dinner, again. I'm fine, Cin."

  Cindy reached over and patted Rachel's knee before sitting back on the couch. "I know you are, but it won't hurt you any to let me cook for you guys for a few days. It's no big deal. Besides, it makes me feel better, because I'm fixing to pump you for information."

  Rachel rolled her eyes at her friend, knowing she meant well, but not in the mood to talk about Sam. At all.

  "Did you sleep with him?"

  "No. It never got to that point."

  "So, he's not coming around anymore because he knows you're sick, not because you slept with him before you told him?"

  "Probably. We haven't talked about it."

  "Are you going to?"

  Rachel shrugged, unable to answer. The lump in her throat got worse, and she didn't want to even think about Sam, much less talk about him.

  "You want me to kick his ass? I will if you want me to. I need to brush up on my Judo moves, but I think I can do it."

  "Can we talk about something else? Please?" The tears were so close, and Rachel didn't have the energy to let them fall. "I'm going to need help with Sophie until I can get a car."

  "Sure!" Thankfully, her friend followed along with her train of thought. "What kind are you going to get?"

  "Something cheap and new. No more used cars with alternator issues."

  "What about Friday after school? Can you drive at all with that thing? If it's an automatic, you shouldn't have trouble."

  "We'll see, won't we?"

  After making plans for Cindy to pick up and drop off Sophia from school, and to meet her Friday to go car shopping, she left. Rachel heaved an exhausted sigh and looked out the window across her living room to see Sam's house across the street. The lights were off, but she could see the shadows of the TV in his living room.

  Her taste of romance had been glorious. She had felt so…normal. When she'd been around Sam, she'd been a regular single woman. He had desired her. Sam had made her feel cherished, and she would just hang on to that memory, lock it away with her other memories of normalcy.

  While filing it away in her memory bank, Rachel pulled out a memory of Kyle. He was her boyfriend from high school, before she'd gotten sick. He was her escape from her fundamentalist parents, her first wild fling that served to thumb her nose at her parents' need to pound The Word into her psyche. Like now, Kyle had come back to bite her in the ass, though.

  When her Dad had caught them having sex, he'd made her stand barefoot in a box of oyster shells that they used to line their driveway and copy the entire book of Leviticus from the Bible. She had done it, her bare feet getting cut and bleeding into the box, while her mother prayed for her eternal soul. Her father had shouted curses at her, calling her a whore, a Jezebel, a temptress sent by Satan, stalking back and forth in the kitchen, occasionally reaching to slap her across the back, or yank on a piece of her hair.

  It hadn't stopped her from having sex with Kyle, though. They had been in love, she'd thought, so they just got more creative with their sneaking around. Then Kyle had changed, and they'd drifted apart, and Rachel's heart had been broken.

  Her parents had wanted her to attend a local private religious college, but Rachel had swung a scholarship to the University of Houston and gotten out of town. She'd gotten a taste of being bad with Kyle and thought she was ready for city-living, but she'd been so wrong.

  Rachel struggled with her crutches and hobbled into the kitchen. Seeing the futility of her plan, she called to her daughter.

  "Sophie? Can you please make me a cup of tea?"

  Her sweet girl came bouncing down the hallway from her room. "Sure, Mom. You want to go lay down? I'll bring it to you, if you want."

  "No, I'll just sit here in the kitchen and drink it. Thank you, Sugar." She watched as Sophia dutifully heated the water, dropped in a tea bag, and set the cup in front
of her.

  "I'm really glad you're okay, Mom. I was really scared."

  Rachel's face blanched, as she once again re-lived the accident. Heart pounding, she wondered when the shock and fear would fade. Remembering Sophia's panicked face, when she couldn't get the seatbelt to unfasten made Rachel's stomach tighten. If Sam hadn't been there, they both would have been hurt, or Sophia might have been killed. If the train had been coming faster, they both would have been killed.

  "I'm glad too, Honey. I can't imagine what could have happened if things had been different…" The tears that had been lurking just under the surface sprang to her eyes, and Rachel blinked furiously to make them retreat. She breathed deep and tried to bury them back under the surface where they belonged, so she could focus on what was important. She was alive, and her daughter needed her.

  "Do you think Cindy could take me to Walmart sometime this week? I need a new notebook for school. I'm almost out of paper."

  "Do you have enough to last a couple of days? I need some stuff too, and I can order it all online. I hate to impose on Cindy for anything else. She's already doing so much for us."

  "Sure Mom." Sophia dropped a kiss on Rachel's cheek. "I'm going to be in my room. Do you need anything else?"

  Rachel smiled, weakly. "No, honey. Go ahead."

  After Sophia had bounced back to her room, Rachel sighed and pulled a chair around to prop her leg up on. Once again, she felt thankful for her life, having seen first hand how slender the thread connecting her to death really was. She'd managed to keep the thread intact this time, but there really was no telling what the future would bring.

  Chapter 12

  Ventilation can be defined as the planned, methodical, and systematic removal of pressure, heat, smoke, gases, and, in some cases, even flame from an enclosed area through predetermined paths.--From Firefighter's Handbook, Essentials of Firefighting and Emergency Response.

  After taking Amanda to school the next morning, Sam steeled himself and went across the street.

  He rapped his knuckles on the door and waited for Rachel to answer it. When she finally did, he felt a little guilty for his impatience, having forgotten the crutches that she was navigating with.

  "Can we talk?"

  She looked surprised. "Of course, Sam. Come in."

  He followed her, resisting the unreasonable urge to just pick her up and carry her to wherever it was she was leading him. It turned out, she was leading him to the living room, and Sam squelched the discomfort at being in the room where they had shared their first kiss. The desire that had overcome him that day came back, and he stifled the urge to wrap her in his arms again.

  Clearing his throat and his memory bank, he quelled his libido and reminded himself why he was there. "Look, I get why you didn't tell me, but I have to know the risks. Could Amanda have caught it? Here? Has anything happened that might have put her at risk?"

  "No. My viral loads are undetectable at the moment, and have been that way for years. Sophia doesn't have it. We're extremely careful." Her tone was clinical, as if they didn't have a history, as if she had no feelings for him whatsoever. It hurt, and he wondered if he had been imagining the chemistry between them. Not that it mattered, he told himself that he couldn't have a relationship with someone who would die a horrible death and leave his daughter heartbroken again.

  "Viral loads?"

  "The amount of HIV in a drop of blood. I see a doctor regularly to have all of it checked out. Look in that drawer next to you. There's the literature I was going to give you when we had our discussion. It explains everything in there, if you're interested."

  He reached in the drawer, pulling out the bright, glossy brochures entitled, "Living with HIV," and "AIDS and You."

  "There are basic explanations of everything in there. If you have any questions, you can come back and ask me. Or not." At her tone, Sam studied her for the first time since she'd opened the door. She was wearing the same clothes as last night, and the bags under her eyes were still there. Her face was puffy, and pale, and her vibrant brown eyes held a lackluster quality that he didn't like, at all. Unbidden, his mind filled with the image of her face, filled with fear, when the train impacted her car before sweeping it down the tracks, out of his line of sight.

  Shaking the image away, he asked, "Are you okay, Rachel?"

  "With what?"

  Good question. He gestured widely with his hands. "With everything."

  "No, I'm not, Sam. I almost died last Friday. I have managed to live all of my adult life with a disease that the general population attaches a stigma to, and the first time I open up to somebody that I like, I screw it up. I either didn't tell you soon enough, or I should have just stayed away from you. Either way, I've taken your choice out of your hands." She stood, awkwardly, with the crutches in her hand. "If you'll excuse me, I've got work to get back to. Call with questions. Or you can email me." She handed him a business card from a pocket of her sweater.

  Ask Rachel questions about living with HIV

  remainingrachel2010@gmail.com

  http://www.remainingrachel.com

  Sam looked back up at her. "This is what you do?"

  "Yes, ironically, I have a rather large online presence in the HIV community."

  Sam was at a loss for words. He was still pissed. He knew it was unreasonable for him to feel that way, she had tried to tell him earlier, but she didn't. And because she didn't, he'd almost infected himself. And almost put Amanda at risk. He was still lost in his own thoughts, when she continued.

  "The truth is, I probably could have gotten away without ever telling you, as long as my treatments kept working. And we didn't…have sex. But I'm not like that. I wanted you to like me for who I am. All of me. The good and the bad. And the ugly." She turned and hobbled towards the door, a wistful smile on her face.

  Guilt wrenched his gut, and he felt pity for her, knowing she would hate it. So he kept those thoughts to himself.

  "I'm sorry."

  She turned to him, standing on her crutches. "For what?"

  "For pushing you. You tried to tell me. I didn't want stop my libido and listen. I'm sorry for that. I put you in an uncomfortable position."

  "It is what it is, Sam."

  He hated that expression. It implied that nothing could change, and he knew from experience that everything changed. It was inevitable.

  He looked at her brown eyes and saw nothing but pain there. Softly, he said, "So, I guess this is it."

  She nodded, and Sam left her house without looking back. Before he stepped of the porch, she had shut the door softly behind him. He paused, then kept walking.

  Sam felt like there was so much left unsaid, but he couldn't think of what to say. It seemed like the relationship started with Rachel wanting to talk, and now it was ending, and he wanted to talk. He wanted to explain himself somehow, make her understand his feelings. But he wasn't sure of them himself. He did know though, that he couldn't have a relationship with Rachel. And it was killing him.

  Back at home, he tried to busy himself to keep his mind from wandering, but it didn't matter what he did to occupy his hands, his mind managed to occupy itself.

  Comparisons between Rachel and Marisol were inevitable. He couldn't do it again, not to himself, and certainly not to Amanda. He really liked Rachel and could see himself getting serious with her. She was an amazing woman and would make a great mother to Amanda, but he knew in his heart what it would do to his daughter if she lost another mother. He would do whatever he could to keep her from going through that again.

  Amanda and Sophie had become close, though, and the guilt came back when he thought about Amanda's likely reaction to hearing that she couldn't go back to Sophia's house. It was an over-reaction, he knew that. But he had to protect her every way he could. That was a Dad's responsibility.

  Sam decided to go online and do some research for himself. He was educated in the risks of blood born diseases. He knew the risks of catching it that way, and he knew tha
t Rachel was extremely careful. The memory of her cutting her finger and bandaging it excessively, then covering it with a latex glove came flooding back to him. Now he understood her refusal to let him help with that.

  Sam had always assumed that HIV/AIDS wasn't something that women typically contracted, but the number of female advocates online shocked him. He found a link to Rachel's site almost immediately, but he didn't look at it. Somehow, knowing her as he did made him hesitant to read what she wrote about. What if she wrote about him? He just didn't want to know.

  However, HIV wasn't the death sentence that he'd thought it was. People everywhere lived long and healthy lives after diagnosis. He was surprised by the words of encouragement that he read on the forums and the difficulties that people went through just dealing with social stigmas. He read post after post written by people that were judged solely based on their diagnosis.

  Ouch.

  The fact remained the same. Rachel had a disease that would eventually kill her, and he wasn't about to set his daughter up for that kind of let-down, again. Or put her in danger of contracting it. His head told him he was being stupid, but he couldn't stop the protective impulses that wracked his body.

  Shutting down his computer, he told himself he'd take up a new hobby. He'd always wanted to learn how to knap flint. Make arrowheads. Maybe now was the time to go rent a video about it or something.

  Anything to fill his time, and keep his mind off the choice he was making.

  Mercifully, a knock came at the door, and he opened it to see Juan's wide smile. He rubbed his face, and expelled a deep sigh.

  "Hey man! Fishing?" Juan's tone was hopeful, but at the same time, Sam knew he needed to get out of the house, away from things.

  "Yeah, let me go get some shoes."