There was a moment of confused silence on the other end. “You never call me when you could text, Hen,” he said carefully. “So either something’s wrong, or you can’t type for some reason like you’re driving without voice-to-text access.”
“Oh.” My voice squeaked a little and I bit my lip again, tasting the blood my last bite had brought to the surface. Blood. I had to be scared of my own blood now. Conscious of where it was, what and who touched it. My blood carried the plague now. “Um.” My breath caught in my chest.
There was a clattering noise, and then a heaved-out breath from Jamison. “Breathe, Hen. What’s wrong? Are you ok? Do you need me?”
Something about his gentle concern pierced the cloud of false calm I’d gathered around myself, and I sobbed.
“Hen?” Jamison said again, concern heavy in his voice at this point. “Baby, tell me what’s wrong. Are you hurt?”
Hurt. Was I hurt? Well, sort of, but that wasn’t really the point, was it. The point was I needed to tell him I - we? - had HIV. I tried to breathe through my panic, but my breath caught again and I choked.
“Ok, I’m coming over,” Jamison said firmly, apparently realizing that whatever was going on was serious. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Try to breathe, Hen. Talk to me.” I heard the sound of him picking up his keys, then the slamming of the door. “Talk to me,” he said again, more gently this time.
“I…” I gasped out through another sob. “It…” I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t get the words out. They burned in my throat.
A car door slammed and an engine started. “It’ll be ok,” Jamison’s voice said, going hollow as his phone switched to bluetooth mode and connected to his car. “Whatever it is. Oh my god,” he gasped, “is it the cats? Are they ok? Hen?”
The cats. Could they get HIV? If I bled somewhere and they licked it up or something? I knew cats could have FIV, but did the disease translate from human to feline? Oh god, I’d have to find them a new home, I couldn’t put them at risk too. A broken moan burst out of my throat.
“Shit,” Jamison spat. “Fucking get out of my lane, you asswipe!” His hard voice turned soft again. “Hen, I need you to breathe for me. Slow and easy. In and out.” He took exaggerated, audible breaths, clearly trying to encourage me to follow along. And I tried, I did, but the air kept getting caught in my throat.
My hand clenched in Curie’s fur and I forced it to relax before I could hurt her, though to be fair she didn’t even seem to notice the changes. She snuggled deeper into the crease of my leg and started up a rumbling purr I could feel under my hand and through my leg. I closed my eyes, trying to sink into the vibrating sensation. Things couldn’t be that bad if Curie was still purring. My gasps slowed a little as the seconds ticked by, and I managed to pull in a full breath without choking on it. “I need you,” I managed to whisper hoarsely to Jamison after a minute or two.
“I know, baby. I’m on my way, I promise. I’ll be there in a few minutes. Is your door locked?”
Door? Locked? I blinked, trying to process the words that came out of left field. “Uh…” Another sob caught in my throat, but I managed to look across the room at the front door and spot the deadbolt, which was flipped to the open position. “Not locked,” I rasped.
“Ok. Okay, good.” He did another one of those exaggerated, slow breaths. “You’re sounding a little better. Can you tell me what’s wrong now, Hen? Are you hurt? Are the cats?”
“The…the…test,” I managed to get out before the rest of the words disappeared into a sob. “Not hurt,” I choked out belatedly.
Tires crunched in the gravel of my driveway, and I heard an engine. It couldn’t have been twenty minutes already, could it?How fast had Jamison driven over here? What if he’d gotten into an accident? My breath caught again and I pressed my fist to my mouth, trying to stop the panicked sob that I knew made no sense. He was here, safely. Why was I having a meltdown - on top of a meltdown - about something that patently hadn’t happened?
And then my front door swung open and Jamison strode in at a near-run, throwing the door shut behind him absently and coming directly to where I sat, frozen, on the couch. He punched a button on his phone, ending our call, and dropped it into his pocket. “Hey,” he said softly, touching his fingertips to my hair. “I’m here, baby.” He sank onto the couch next to me and took me in his arms. It probably made a ridiculous picture, the big bear of a man hiding in the shoulder of the twink, but as I shuddered and held onto him, I started to feel safe for the first time since I’d seen the test results pop up.
But I wasn’t safe, was I? And neither was he, and he didn’t even know that. I sucked in a shuddering breath and flexed my hand in Curie’s fur. “Need to tell you,” I managed to get out.
He continued to stroke my hair, loosening my ponytail so he could really get his fingers against my scalp. Goosebumps rose on my flesh. “Tell me what, honey?”
“I…I…” And there went my throat again, closing up when I needed to use it. Desperate to communicatesomehow, I lifted my phone from my lap and unlocked it, navigated to the test results, and held the phone up while burying my face in Jamison’s warm neck. I couldn’t look. Couldn’t watch his face as he reacted.
His hand gripped the phone around mine, directing it toward his face, and then there was silence, broken only by the sound of my harsh breathing. I couldn’t move, and he didn’t move, for the longest time.
Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I pulled back from him, trying to focus my blurry, swollen eyes on his face. What would I see? Hate? Fear? Anger?
Instead, I saw serenity. His face was smooth, though his eyes continued to dart around the phone screen. “Ok,” he said softly. “Ok.” His hand came up and rubbed absently at my back.
What? It wasn’t ok. It wasn’t in any way ok, and it never would be. “Not ok…!” I gasped as another sob bubbled up. Why couldn’t I stop crying?
The hand that had been rubbing at my back rose until it cupped the back of my head, and he forcibly directed my face up toward his until our noses almost met. I stared at him, wide-eyed, waiting for the explosion of blame.
“Okay,” he said firmly, holding my head in place and meeting my eyes. “We knew this was a possibility. HIV isn’t a death sentence. It’sokay, Hen.”
I shook my head brokenly. “What if I gave it to you?” Wow, a full sentence. Sure, it sounded like it had come out through broken glass, but I’d gotten it out nevertheless.
He pursed his lips. “What ifIgave it toyou?” he shot back. “My latest test hasn’t come back yet. I don’t know whether I had it, or have it now. But I can already tell you that either way, it’s not your fault. Either you got it from your dirtbag ex who cheated on you - and it isnotyour fault for trusting him - or you got it from me when I didn’t know I had it - in which case it’sstillnot your fault, because you had no way to know. I mean, hell.” His free hand came up and rubbed tiredly at his cheek. “Really, what ifIgave it toyou? That would mean this is all my fault.”
“No.” I nuzzled my nose into his comfortingly, somehow feeling anchored by the first sign of his distress. “Both of us.”
