My Life After Now - By Jessica Verdi Page 0,24

would finally take me out in the end. AIDS makes your immune system basically useless, so that you’re susceptible to all kinds of illnesses and unable to fight them off. So it could be cancer or liver disease or even pneumonia…but whatever it was, it was guaranteed to be undignified.

But as hard as these facts were hitting home, they were still just words. I needed to see it, in living color. So, in a morbid fit of self-sabotaging curiosity, I did an image search. In less than a second, my computer screen was filled with dozens of the most awful photographs I had ever seen. Horrifyingly thin, failing bodies hooked up to oxygen machines. Skin covered in lesions so bad it looked like it was rotting. The helpless, pleading faces of African children staring straight into my soul.

A shiver rolled over me, and I grabbed my trash can just in time for it to catch a surge of vomit. It was as if my body was trying to rid itself of what it had just seen. As if it was trying to evict the sickness that was taking up residence inside.

But I couldn’t unsee what I’d seen—even when I closed my eyes the images were still there.

And I couldn’t get rid of the virus. If there was anything my little Internet excursion had reinforced in my brain, it was that.

As quickly as I could manage, I erased my browsing history. Then I turned off my lights and dove under my covers and vowed never to allow myself to be tempted into researching this disease ever again.

14

What I Did For Love

Like always, my mind wouldn’t shut up. When I heard that the flu was going around, I panicked, worrying about what would happen if I caught it. When I brushed my teeth a little too hard and spit out blood-tinted toothpaste, I questioned if I should douse the sink with bleach to kill any left-behind bacteria. During class, I tuned out the teacher and studied my classmates, wondering if anyone else was carrying around a secret like this.

The worst part was that I felt totally fine. Exactly the same as always. But I wasn’t fine. My body was lying to me. It was deceiving me, and everyone I knew, into believing that it was healthy. And that made me hate it even more.

The thing they don’t tell you in sex education classes is what to do after. It’s all, “Don’t do this, don’t do that. And if you do do this or that, make sure you do it safely.” But what about when you screw up? Then what? Where do you go? Who do you tell? How do you act? Sex “education” prepares you for nothing.

So, for lack of any better ideas, I went on autopilot: school, rehearsal, homework, chores. Keep up appearances on the outside, and no one would know what going on inside. But it was arduous work; the HIV that crept and crawled through my veins was all I could think about.

When my phone buzzed on the weekends or after school with calls from Max or Courtney, I sent them to voicemail. It was hard enough trying to act normal during the day. I could only pretend so much.

I was completely lost, but it actually looked like my act was working. At least, no one said anything that made me think otherwise.

No one except Evan, that is. He knew something was up. And I knew why. I may have managed to put up a passable façade everywhere else in my life, but there was no way I could fake intimacy. Every time he tried to hold my hand or move in for a kiss, I recoiled. I no longer knew how to be in a physical relationship. How could I share my body with someone when it felt alien to me?

“All right, Lucy,” he said with a sigh as he drove me home after rehearsal. “Just say it.”

I looked at him. “Just say what?”

“Whatever it is that’s going on in that head of yours.” His brown eyes were clear and his face was smooth. He wasn’t angry. He should have been; I wouldn’t have blamed him. But he seemed like all he was after was an explanation.

Of course, that was the other thing I couldn’t give him.

Instead, the words I had been thinking all week but trying not to say flowed out of me before I could stop them. “I think we should break up,” I whispered. I