“Hell, I tried stopping you before things got out of control, but you wouldn’t listen. You’re a glutton for punishment. You not gon’ stop until somebody winds up seriously hurt. I wasn’t about to jump in and be out in the streets fighting while looking a hot ass mess.”
“It’s nice to know you don’t have my back!”
“That’s not true!” Tate argued.
“Yeah, okay. So, you recommend that I just let her go?” I asked in frustration. “After all that she and I went through? After all I sacrificed?”
“Yeah, I do!” Tate responded. “Move on with your life and let Ava’s ass be. Like, why are you so concerned about how she is now anyway? That’s some shit you should have been worried about before you ran off and laid up with her friend. I can’t believe you tryna make yourself the victim.”
“That’s how I feel! I’m very much so a victim!”
“That’s fucked up! Something is off in your head, bro!” Tate snickered. “I’m not trying to side with Ava, but dude, what did you expect her to do? HIV, bro? I’m still pissed about the shit and probably will never be able to forgive you because of it. I can only imagine how she must be feeling when she was married to your ass. What you did was foul, bruh!” Tate emphasized, but I was too in my feelings to have a rebuttal. “Until you can accept your part in that shit, you can’t expect her to be over it and ready to talk to you. Just leave her the hell be!”
“Just take me home, bruh!” I spat.
I wasn’t about to go back and forth with Tate. He felt how he felt, and I felt how I felt about it. I wasn’t about to listen to shit he had to say when he didn’t even attempt to help me when I was on the ground. He was starting to work my nerves with all of the team Ava shit he kept coming at me with. I couldn’t help but feel like I was wasting my time trying to be back cool with him if he felt like he’d never be able to forgive me. Fuck that! That meant every opportunity he got he was going to throw me under the bus, and I wasn’t with that.
Tate kept trying to get me to talk to him, but I didn’t have anything else to say. All I wanted to do was go home and be by myself. When he pulled up to my house, he was still parking, and the truck was moving as I exited out the passenger door. I didn’t even say shit. I was pissed beyond my max.
Walking past my mailbox, I saw an envelope sticking out. Grabbing it then opening it, I saw that it was an obituary for Shane. I was so shocked that I tripped over my own foot and fell, landing right on my knee. The pain that shot through my hip down my leg almost took me out. It literary knocked a pause in me. I couldn’t even yell out in pain it hurt so bad.
“You straight?” Tate yelled from his truck, and I could have died.
The fact that he was still sitting there and hadn’t pulled off yet had me hot. That meant his ass saw me fall, and that was fucked up. I was beginning to feel even less of a man by the second. Getting back to my feet, I flipped Tate the bird, then limped the rest of the way inside the house. He had me feeling like he cared more about Ava’s feelings than mine, and I had a serious problem with that. He could stay mad at me for however long he wanted behind the shit that happened.
I could deal with that but sticking up for Ava and not me was just too much. I get that he was angry because I was, too. Hell, I had it worse than him. I’d actually tested positive for the virus so imagine the anger I had running through me. But for him to consistently side with Ava, sticking up for her and shit, like my feelings didn’t matter was not cool. Fuck him if he was going to be like that.
Making it inside the house, I leaned against the front door after I closed and locked it. I had to take another look at the obituary to make sure it wasn’t a prank. Once I saw that it was legit, I felt horrible and not because Shane died. As far as I was concerned, he deserved what he got. He was foul as fuck for passing that shit around to people without letting them know what the deal was from the jump. What made his death fucked up was that it brought to light the fact that I was battling the same virus he was battling and had lost, too. No matter how hard I tried to not think about having the virus there was always someform of a reminder of it damn near daily, and it was causing me to become depressed by the minute.
Today was hands down the worst day of my life. I was glad I had a doctor’s appointment in the morning because I had a list of questions to ask him. Making it up to the master bedroom, I went into the bathroom and took a long, hot shower. I was mentally and emotionally drained. Once I was done, I put on a fresh pair of boxers then climbed into bed. As I laid there waiting for sleep to find me, all I could think about was how I missed lying next to Ava at night. I hated that her side of the bed was empty, but I guess it was something that I needed to learn to live with.
JUSTIN
Six months later
“If you want, you can just crash here tonight,” I suggested.
Tate and I were chilling in my backyard, sitting at my picnic table that I had set up. It faced what used to be Ava’s vegetable garden. Tate and I had been spending a lot more time together. After that horrible argument, we had a long talk, and I explained to him how it made me feel when he’d side with Ava and he apologized. Ever since, he had been more supportive of what I was going through. If I had a doctor’s appointment and he was off of work, he’d come along with me. We were learning about my virus together, and I appreciated him for that. He was getting firsthand knowledge of what I was going through right alongside of me.
I was in the first phase of the virus, and after having the sex talk with my doctor, I felt more comfortable knowing that as long as I wore protection, I didn’t have to worry about spreading it. Shortly after that, Tate and I started our sexual relationship again. Something that I never expected would happen. He was either at my house or I was at his. I believed we were soulmates because there was no denying the bond and connection thatwe had to one another. We had gone through some very tough moments over the years together and always found our way back to each other.
Our families had no idea that Tate and I were in a sexual relationship. Whenever they would come around, they never questioned us being together all the time because they knew we were best friends. They had no reason to think that we were engaging in sex. I never thought that Tate would be open to taking our relationship to the next level again, but once he heard my doctor explain how to practice safe sex with someone that had HIV, something in him changed and we’d been inseparable ever since.
Today, we were hanging out at my house, and one thing led to another, and we started kissing. Kissing was something that we never used to do. But now that we had reconnected, this time around our relationship was very passionate and sexual, and kissing was something that we did quite often. As the foreplay increased, we went from the backyard to my bedroom. It was crazy how we were able to play it cool whenever we were around people and always thought that no one noticed… until today.
“I know you got damn lyin’ TAH ME!” my father’s voice boomed throughout my room.
Nearly giving me a heart attack, I jumped out of bed when I realized my dad was standing in my bedroom doorway. Feeling a drift of wind, I panicked and snatched the sheets off the bed to cover my naked body. Forgetting that Tate was in my bed lying next to me just as naked as I was, my father clutched his chest as his eyes bucked.
“What the FUCK is going on in here?” my dad’s voice bellowed as Tate jumped out of the bed with a look of fear on his face, his flaccid dick was just bouncing up and down.
My dad and his father were friends, and no one in our family knew about our secret except for my mom. I thought back to theday when Tate and I were teenagers and he had spent the night at my house, and my mom caught him going down on me. Our relationship changed from that point on. We weren’t as close as we used to be, but at the end of the day, I still loved and respected her because she was my mom.
Even though we didn’t talk or see each other often, whenever I was going through a hard time, I’d call and talk to her. Even though she didn’t care for my lifestyle choices, she never shut me out of her life. Because of that, no matter how distant she would be sometimes, I still respected and needed her opinion.
My mom was the only person that came and helped me out when I first got home from the hospital following hip surgery. My mom also came and spent time with me when I hit my lowest point after my divorce a few months ago. When I hit rock bottom, I called her, and she came running right to me. I remember when she first got to my house and I had to explain to her why Ava divorced me. I told her about everything, including my HIV status. I knew her heart broke because as soon as the words left my mouth, she put her head in her hands and wept.
I made her promise me that she wouldn’t tell my dad, and before she left, she told me that I was placing too much of a burden on her heart, and she couldn’t promise if she could keep it a secret. I begged and pleaded and told her to let me be the one to tell him, and she said she would; clearly, she didn’t.
