by Joshua Lyon
Pills. I swallowed handfuls, mixing the hydrocodone with online Valium but sleep never came. They did nothing to curb my anxiety, my worry for Everett and for myself. I watched my pulse beat under the skin of my wrist. Was it inside me?
I don’t remember falling asleep but my cell rang at 8:00 A.M. It was Everett.
“Where have you been?” I asked, still trying to open my eyes.
“I’m positive,” he said.
I started to cry.
“The testing center is expecting you today, get there as soon as you can and ask for Laura. She’ll get you in ahead of everyone else and do the test.” He was calm, his voice maddeningly even.
“Why didn’t you call last night?” I choked.
“I couldn’t, I’m sorry,” he said. “I know it must have been awful for you, but you know, sorry, I had my own shit to deal with.”
“No, I understand,” I said. I was still crying. “I’m so sorry. How are you holding up?”
“I don’t care about myself,” he said, totally monotone. “But if I gave it to you…”
His voice trailed off.
“I’ll go now,” I said. “Will you come with me?”
“I have to get to the showroom. It’s a huge day for us.”
“I’ll call you as soon as I’m out,” I said. “I love you.”
I got out of bed and made it to the bathroom before I sank in the doorway.
Emily met me at the center. She clutched my arm and said, “Everything is going to be fine.”
“We never used condoms,” I said. “I don’t think ever.”
“Everything is going to be fine,” she repeated. “Are you ready to go in?”
“I need a cigarette first,” I said. “If I’m positive, this will probably have to be my last.”
“Stop it,” she said. We smoked in silence on a bench outside the center.
“It’s funny,” she said, exhaling and waving her hand toward the center. “Getting tested, it’s like our generation’s version of the draft. We’re all just waiting for our number to get called.”
“Grim, Em,” I said.
We ditched our cigarettes and walked inside. It was cold and medicinal, with dirty floors. A security guard directed us to an elevator. When we exited upstairs we were met by a receptionist in front of a room packed with people nervously avoiding eye contact with each other, except for the occasional couples, both gay and straight.
“Shit,” Emily muttered. “Thank god you’ve got VIP access.”
I asked the receptionist for Laura, and a few minutes later a woman came and collected me and ushered me to a back room. “You’re Everett’s friend, right?” she asked. I just nodded. I couldn’t even speak.
She had me wait outside a door where someone else was getting blood drawn. “Do this one next,” she told him and handed him some paperwork.
She waited while he drew the blood and took it from him. “Just wait out there,” she said. “Give me twenty minutes.”
I went back out to the waiting room. Emily looked ridiculously glamorous. She was wearing a Chloé dress, with a vintage shawl thrown around her shoulders. I was hiding underneath the same gray hoodie I’d been wearing for the past few days. I sat down in the seat she’d been saving for me, resting my head in her lap. She stroked my shoulders while we both stared at the clock in silence.
Laura finally came out and beckoned me. Emily squeezed my hand as I stood up and I followed Laura to her office. All I could think in my mind was My life is about to change. I tried to read her body language but she had a great poker face until we were finally behind closed doors. I sat down in the chair and she finally turned around and beamed at me.
“Oh, thank god,” I said. I started shaking.
“Completely negative,” she said. “Do you want to see for yourself?”
“Yes, please,” I said.
“Don’t tell anyone I’m doing this, we’re not allowed to do it legally. Give me your finger,” she instructed as she slapped on some plastic gloves.
She pricked my finger and added the blood to a small vial with some other liquid, then stuck a rectangular piece of paper in it with tiny measured marks on it.
“See, watch,” she said excitedly, as capillary action drew the liquid mixture up the piece of paper. “If it rises above this line, you are positive. But as long as it stays below here, there are no antibodies present.”
It felt like a game show, watching my blood creep slowly up the marker and praying it wouldn’t go farther. I wanted to shout “No whammies!”
“See?” she said. “Not a trace. But we’re not out of the woods yet. When was the last time you and Everett had unprotected sex?”
“I think a month ago,” I said. “Maybe six weeks?” Jesus, no wonder he was cheating on me, I thought. “I mean we were doing other stuff, but not, you know, the really unsafe stuff.”
“You need to come back once a month for the next six months and get retested,” she said. “Honestly, it usually would have presented itself by now, but six months is still our safety mark.”
I stood up and hugged her.
When I got back out to the waiting room I could see terror on Emily’s face. I realized I’d been gone much longer than a usual negative response would have taken, so I flashed her a discreet thumbs-up sign. She jumped up and we got out of the building as fast as we could.
“Can we please never do that again?” she asked.
“I have to go back once a month for the next six months,” I said.
“Holy fuck,” she said.
“I can do those on my own,” I said. “She seemed pretty sure that I was safe. It’s just in case. But this basically means I have to be celibate for the next six months.”
“Big fucking deal,” she said. “I have to get to the office.”
We embraced and I thanked her again. But I knew I didn’t need to.
I called Everett and told him the news. “Oh, thank god,” he whispered. “I can’t talk now but can I come over tonight to talk?” he asked.
Yes.
When he arrived we spooned in silence in my bed for what felt like hours. I think I even fell asleep for a while. He was so fucking young. I couldn’t be angry with him. It wasn’t his fault that this disease exists. But I know it was also so easy for me to think this, knowing I was the one who was negative after both of us fully participated in unsafe sex.
“Do you think you know when you got it?” I finally asked.
“I have an idea,” he said.
“Was it before or after I met you?” I asked.
“I never cheated on you,” he said.
“You sort of knew, though, didn’t you?” I asked. “That’s why you never went and got tested earlier when I asked you to.”
He didn’t say anything and I knew I was right. I didn’t have it in my heart to be angry at him for putting me at risk. It was just as much my fault for being so high that I hadn’t trusted my instincts and thrown out all caution. I’d wanted so badly to believe that I’d found love, I had been so happy to exist in my bedroom pill cloud—lights out, TV flickering, two naked bodies, and no cares.
I tried to figure out why I had tested negative. Maybe it was the pills that had saved me. My sex drive had begun to dwindle so low that at times I’d force myself to give him head to hold up what I felt was my end of the relationship. Always high, always with one eye on the TV.
I looked into his eyes. I wanted so badly to believe that he had never cheated, that his “exhibitionist” story was true. In a way I did believe him. But I knew that the relationship was over, regardless. Even if he wasn’t lying, the image of him online had cast too large a shadow on us.
“I can’t be your boyfriend,” I told him. “But I won’t leave your side.”
“Do you have any pills?” he asked.
I got up and picked Clover up off my dresser, handed him two hydrocodones, took three for myself.
“We need to find you a doctor,” I said. I knew he didn’t h
ave health insurance, since he was technically a freelancer at his company.
“Laura told me Callen-Lorde has free services I can use,” he said, referring to a GLBT community health center in Chelsea.
“Are you going to have to start on medications already?” I asked.
“No, no. My T-cell count is still high enough that I don’t have to start on any cocktails yet. I just need to stay healthy.”
I immediately regretted giving him the pills. “My old doctor from when I had insurance is an HIV expert,” I said. “You should go see him. He’ll take care of you. We’ll figure out the money.”
We drifted off to sleep, holding each other tight.
The next few days were a continuous cycle of sleep, pills, television, and tears. Everett didn’t take any time off work. We didn’t talk about HIV or health care or therapy or any of the things one should in that situation. I didn’t spend any time on the computer, researching what new drugs were available for him. I avoided all the normal caretaking duties that should come with a situation like this. All I wanted was to stay inside my pill bubble, where nothing could get to me.
Then, Brandon Holley called to tell me I’d gotten a senior editor job at Jane. I was ecstatic. I’d get my old life back, and I’d be working with all the same people I loved. Even better, I’d now have health insurance, so I wouldn’t have to continue my HIV tests at the public health office. I’d be in the hands of my old doctor, an expert who I knew would take care of me in case the virus showed up at a later test.
I took Everett out to celebrate that night. He was happy for me but seemed sad too. “Everything is working out for you,” he said. “Things like that don’t happen to me. I’ve always had bad luck.”
I didn’t know what to say. Of course I was happy I’d tested negative so far. But that happiness was completely overshadowed by my sadness for him. Things had basically returned to normal for us. He was sleeping over every night; we talked or texted multiple times throughout the day. The only difference was, we weren’t having any kind of sex.
I threw myself into work. I was so grateful to have my old job back, but with a better title and a much higher salary. As soon as my health benefits kicked in I made an appointment with my old doctor, whom I loved. He is one of those rare New York City doctors who actually genuinely cares about his patients and remembers their history on sight.
We caught up on everything in his office, and I explained the Everett situation. He was sympathetic yet stern about always using condoms. “It’s sad,” he told me, “but you really can’t ever be too safe.” I knew it was true, but it depressed the hell out of me. Was there really no one I could trust?
He did an RNA viral load test on me, explaining that it was a more intensive kind of HIV test than the kind the community health centers used. “If there is any trace of HIV in you right now, it should show up on this test,” he said.
“We’ll have the results back in a week.” He also tested for every other STD known to exist. I wondered if he would find opiates in my system, too. I kept my mouth shut about that part of my life.
It was a torturous week, waiting for the results, but luckily we were closing an issue, so I was swamped at work. It felt so good to be back in the game. I stayed until at least eleven o’clock every night, grateful for the distraction. And I was having fun. It was definitely a cleaner version of the magazine I used to work for now that there was a new editor in chief; I could no longer use the word fuck in my text, but it was a minuscule price to pay for the job security.
The ultimate perk was reconnecting with my old friends from the magazine, in particular Stephanie. We’d been best friends when I’d worked at the magazine before, but during the time I’d been gone her career had been on the fast track and we didn’t have as much time to talk. She was now executive editor at Jane and had her own office, which became my safe haven whenever I started to freak about my potential HIV status. There is no better job in the world than one where you can go into your boss’s office, have a good cry in front of her, and then hand in an edited story about how female porn stars were finally starting to grow their pubic hair back in.
The following week I went back to my doctor’s office, preparing for the worst. Everything came back negative. “At this point I think you’re in the clear,” he said. “Enough time has passed that something would have shown up on these tests. You should still come in every few months for another test, but I don’t think you need to get tested once a month for the next five months. It might be a bit too much for you to handle, psychologically. Just always use a condom.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m never having sex again.”
I kept my pill use down to evenings now that I was working full-time again. I’d take enough at night that I wouldn’t feel any strong withdrawal symptoms until late afternoon. I’d usually take some as I was leaving work, so they’d be kicking in just as I hit the subway station in Grand Central. It made the rush-hour commute a gentle hub of dreamy yet determined activity. There was no stress among the masses. I’d bump from person to person like a slow-motion pinball. I’d study people’s faces with no anxiety about staring boldly at them. Humans at the end of the workday are so beaten down, but I wasn’t one of them.
Everett had started spending more nights at his own house. I knew he still hadn’t told his family. “It would break my brother’s heart and my mom would just think, ‘I told you so’ or something,” he said.
“But you have to tell them eventually,” I said. “You’re going to need financial help when you do have to go on medications. They’re expensive.”
He just got irritated with me and told me he didn’t want to talk about it. Our relationship was in limbo, I think he felt I no longer had the right to say things like that to him. One night, over sushi, he finally told me that he needed to move on.
“I’m not going to sit around waiting for you, hoping you will take me back,” he said. By the time dinner was over he’d given me the day he wanted to come get the rest of his stuff out of my house.
Emily and I used my HIV-negative status as an excuse to embrace our new celibacy. Weekend nights, we’d curl up in her bed, take celebratory pills, drink champagne, and cement the dark times. I’d go to the movies with Stephanie after work or spend time with friends from college I hadn’t seen in years, but I’d never let on that I was high. The short-term memory loss that had taken over my brain because of the pills was a positive side effect as I waited out the months, with regular tests to make absolutely sure I was negative. The relief one would expect never came though. I felt a certain amount of freedom now that Everett was no longer in my life, but I didn’t quite believe that the virus wasn’t still hiding somewhere deep inside me, waiting to reveal itself at some unexpected moment. I recognized this as paranoia and decided that it was time for me to enter into therapy. I didn’t want to see a psychiatrist, because I wanted to avoid being put on antidepressants: What if they interacted badly with my painkillers? I just needed someone with experience to talk to, someone who would help me get the inside of my brain to match the enthusiasm I threw into my work at the magazine. Emily had been in therapy for years. Her doctor referred me to a man who practiced in the same office. He was ridiculously attractive, with a boyish face and a soft southern accent. We clicked immediately, but his soothing tone was the same balm that my pills provided me. He never challenged me; instead, once a week I would fall into his couch, open my mouth, and just spill out words. He’d nod, agree, and laugh softly. I could say anything I wanted with no consequences, and meeting with him became as addictive as my opiates. But I didn’t tell him about those, instead choosing to just process what had happened with Everett. There were never any breakthroughs, but I depended on this therapist and his nonjudg-mental way with me.
CHAPTER 9
Heather Hits Rehab
HEATHER WAS FAR FROM realizing she needed any sort of therapy. She was still ordering her combo of hydrocodone and Xanax online, even after s
he’d lost her job at Nars. “The painkillers prevented me from eating, which I loved,” she says. She never strayed from her perfect combo.
Like me, Heather also never got into snorting her pills. “It’s not like I’d never snorted anything in my life,” she says. “I’d definitely done my share of cocaine and K, but it just never occurred to me to crush them up and snort them. I’d just put them under my tongue and let them dissolve. That was my ritual. It tasted awful, very metallic and bitter, and I’d get this sensation very similar to coke drip.”
Heather was oblivious to the fact that her marriage was falling apart. Her husband’s father had been a heroin addict when he was growing up, so watching Heather spiral out of control brought up all of Derek’s childhood issues. “He was upset all the time,” Heather remembers. “He was crying constantly, having to leave work early to come take care of me because I was such a mess, physically. He had to become such a caretaker that he didn’t even have time to get pissed off at me.”
But Heather’s own rage was starting to spiral out of control. “I’ve never been an angry person,” she says. “I was the oldest child, and our house was always so chaotic. My needs were pushed to the side. I never felt like my emotions were that important, so I always stuffed them inside. And now, for the first time in my life, all that anger was finally coming out. All my anxiety in life stemmed from the fact that I was molested when I was five and never told anyone about it.”