My Life After Now - By Jessica Verdi Page 0,30

that it’s difficult being a teenager, and we can only imagine what it’s like being a teenage girl, but we want you to know that you can always talk to us. About anything,” Dad said.

There was a silence. I stared at the abstract pattern on Dad’s designer rug.

“Well? Is there anything you’d like to share with us?” Papa said.

“No, thanks,” I mumbled. The more I stared, the more the lines on the rug blurred together.

They looked at each other.

“Lucy,” Dad said, with more of an edge to his voice now, “we received a phone call from your director. He told us you haven’t been focused in rehearsals, and that you’ve had some sort of falling out with Max and Courtney. What is going on with you? This isn’t normal.”

The carpet design disappeared entirely and became just another distorted mess in my head.

“We’re worried about you, Lu. So now we’re going to have to take some measures,” Papa continued.

That word caught my attention. “Measures?”

“We’d like you to talk to a psychiatrist. Medication in conjunction with regular therapy has been proven to help with depression. It’s also probably a good idea to have some tests run to check for any medical abnormalities that might be altering your mood.”

I shook my head. “No way.”

“We have no choice, Lucy,” Dad said. “Things have to change.”

I couldn’t do what they wanted me to do. If I had those medical tests done, it would be no time at all before they learned the truth. I glanced, panicked, at the pile of books. “What are those?” I asked.

“I got them out of the library for you,” said Papa. “I thought maybe it would help to know that whatever you’re going through, you’re not alone.”

I read through the titles. The subjects spanned every possible teenage problem except the one I was actually dealing with. Body image issues, sexual confusion, drug and alcohol abuse, unwanted pregnancy…

Nothing about contracting HIV at sixteen from a drunken one-night stand. That’s because Papa was wrong—I was alone in this.

But I had to do something. I stood up and lifted the hefty stack of books. “Thanks,” I said. “I’m going to go look through these. I’m sure you’re right—they probably will help.” I went up to my room before they could stop me again.

• • •

I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, haunting memories filled the darkness. And not just any memories—blood-themed ones. I’d never realized it before, but blood narrated my life.

The thin trickle, so dark it was almost black, that ran down my shin after I fell off my bike when I was five.

The first time I cut myself shaving my legs.

The blood-stained tissue that I pulled away from my face after being accidentally kicked in the nose by Regina Arnold during dance class at theater camp three summers ago.

The tiny bead of red that sat on my fingertip after I pricked myself with the needle I was using to sew together a stuffed elephant for Courtney’s sixteenth birthday gift.

The three vials of thick crimson that Marie filled for my STI tests.

I jolted upright in my bed.

One for your syphilis test and one for hepatitis C. And one for your HIV confirmatory test if necessary, Marie had said.

Oh my god. I may have still had an out.

I leapt out of bed and dug around in my purse until I found what I was looking for. The sheet of paper that Marie had given me that held my anonymous patient code and the phone number to call for my results. The paper I’d forgotten all about the moment Diane had said the word positive.

I dialed the number. As it rang, my heart swelled with hope. Maybe everything I’d been through in the last few weeks was for nothing. Maybe it was all a big mistake. That would be okay, I wouldn’t hold Marie or Diane or the clinic responsible. A few weeks of misery seemed a small price to pay to be given my life back.

The clinic’s voicemail clicked on. Of course there wouldn’t be someone there at three a.m. I carefully smoothed out the paper and crawled back into bed. But I still didn’t sleep. I couldn’t think about anything but the possibility that I wasn’t actually positive. Mistakes must happen all the time—otherwise they wouldn’t need to do the confirmatory test, right?

There was still a chance. Why hadn’t I seen that before?

• • •

I called the clinic again at nine, but they were closed for Veterans Day. I’d have