My Life After Now - By Jessica Verdi Page 0,18

ask you what you will do if you test positive for HIV today,” she said, pen poised.

I blinked. “What do you mean?”

“If you test positive, how do you think you will react?” she rephrased.

What kind of a question was that? How would anyone know how they would react until actually put in that situation? That was like asking what you would do if you woke up to find your house was on fire. Would you run out immediately? Stop to call 911? Look for your cat? Put on your shoes? Dash around collecting valuables? Until you’re actually in that burning building, flames scorching your skin, there’s no way to know for sure.

“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully.

“I need something to put down here. Just take your best guess,” Marie said with a flippant hand gesture, as if she were fully aware of the ridiculousness of the question.

“I, uh, guess I would try to work through it as best I could,” I said.

“Okay, that’s fine,” she said, scribbling on her form. “We just have to ask that because some people say they will try to hurt themselves or someone else, and we’d have to report that. All right, next question. How many sexual partners have you had in the last year?”

“Two.”

“Have you had sex for money, drugs, or clothing?”

What the…? “No.”

“Have you had sex with a man who also has sex with men?”

Whoa. I had no idea the questions were going to be so personal. I wasn’t feeling anything close to comfortable, in this strange room in this strange building answering this strange woman’s strange questions, but still I answered. “Not that I know of.”

“Have you ever been sexually assaulted?”

And so the questions continued. I felt my cheeks burning deeper red with each mention of words like “oral,” “vaginal,” “anal,” and “group sex.”

The interview went on for over twenty minutes. Most of the questions, about things like drug use and pregnancy, I could answer no to immediately. But some of the questions hit closer to home.

“Have you had unprotected sex in the last year?”

“Have you had sex under the influence of alcohol?”

“Have you had sex with someone who wasn’t your regular partner?”

“Have you had sex with an anonymous partner?”

“Have you had sex with an IV drug user?”

The more times I responded yes, the more unnerved I became. They don’t ask these questions for fun. They ask them because they are relevant to the contraction of STIs. I began to realize that every time I answered yes, my chance of actually having contracted something increased. By the end of the interview, I was freaking out.

Marie had me sit in a different chair, where I rested my arm on a padded table-like attachment. Without much of a warning, she stuck me with a needle and drew three vials of blood: “One for your syphilis test and one for hepatitis C. And one for your HIV confirmatory test, if necessary,” she explained. “And now for the chlamydia and gonorrhea sample.” She handed me a little cup and directed me to the bathrooms across the office. “Fill this, seal it up, and bring it back here when you’re finished.”

If there’s anything more embarrassing than peeing in a cup, it’s having to walk all the way back across the clinic office, past workers’ cubicles, holding said cup of pee. Several clinic employees looked up from their computer screens as I passed. Some gave me a patronizing smile. Most looked hurriedly away the moment they saw what I was carrying. I told myself that they see this all the time, that they aren’t bothered by the sight of a little urine. But that didn’t make me any less humiliated.

After handing off the cup to Marie, she handed me a little plastic stick with a swab-like tip. It looked like a pregnancy test. I looked at her, confused.

“This is for the HIV rapid test,” she told me. “Smile like you’re brushing your teeth, and swab your outer gums, once across the top and once across the bottom.”

I did as she said and handed the stick back to her. She placed it in a little machine, and told me the HIV results would be ready in thirty minutes. I’d have to call the office in ten days for the other test results.

It was officially the longest half-hour of my life. Stuck in this smaller, blander waiting room specially designated for people waiting on their HIV test results, shifting restlessly in my orange plastic chair, unable to concentrate on anything