Where We Go From Here Read online

  He’s still looking down, unable to lift his gaze. I want to say he should hold his head up high and face the world, but I don’t know how I would have reacted if the news hadn’t been good for me. I’d probably be locked in the bathroom of that clinic, crying inside a stall and thinking the world was unfair as hell and that I didn’t deserve this.

  “I just … thought the results would be different,” he says, still looking down, his voice hoarse. He clears his throat, takes a deep breath, and bites his lip. “We never think everything will go wrong until it does, right?”

  And with that, he breaks down.

  He presses the palms of his hands against his face and lets the paper with his diagnosis fall to the ground. I get up and grab the sheet of paper before the wind carries it away. His back arches up and down as he sobs, completely out of control, and all I want is to give him a hug—this guy I don’t even know—and tell him that, yeah, it will be hard, but things can still work out.

  But who am I to say that? What gives me the authority? Me, who five minutes ago thought HIV was the worst thing that could ever happen to a person?

  So I don’t say anything. I just stay by his side and put a hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort him as best I can.

  He continues to sob, and on an impulse, I wrap him in a hug as he buries his face in my arm. I feel his hot tears soaking the sleeve of my shirt, but I don’t mind. All I want right now is for him to feel better, and I know that a hug is much more powerful than any word I can say in a moment like this.

  My eyes water when he finally calms down. I want to cry, too, even though I don’t have the slightest idea who this guy is or what happened to him to make him end up at this clinic, testing positive for HIV. But I take a deep breath and play the strong character I never am in any other situation.

  “I’m sorry, this is so … ridiculous,” he says, half laughing and half crying, pushing away from me and wiping his tears on the backs of his hands. “You don’t even know me, and … I’m sorry.”

  “No need to apologize.” I try a half smile but fail. “What are you going to do now?”

  He takes a deep breath before answering.

  “Probably lock myself in my room and listen to Lana Del Rey until morning.”

  I can’t help but laugh at his sarcastic remark.

  “If you want to really wallow in self-pity, I recommend Johnny Hooker.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “He’s really good. If you really want to wallow in self-pity, I mean. Here …” Another one of my impulsive actions: I don’t really know what makes me grab a pen from my pocket and the paper with his test results, but when I catch myself, I’m already nervously, shakily scribbling my name and phone number on the back of the sheet. I hand it to him. “If you need to talk to someone, you can text me. A friend of mine is also positive, and I can put the two of you in touch.”

  Henrique appears in my mind’s eye, and though I wouldn’t want to see him even if he were the last man on earth, I don’t think he’d be opposed to talking to someone who is about to go through all the same struggles he must have faced when he was first diagnosed.

  “Thank you”—he looks at the scrawl on the paper—“Victor. And I’m sorry for all this.”

  “No worries, um …” I answer with a smile.

  “Ian. My name is Ian.”

  “No need to apologize, Ian.” I look up and see my bus coming down the street. “Are you going to be okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  I stand up and hail the bus. I get on, swipe my card to release the turnstile, and, before we pull away, look back at the bus stop.

  Ian smiles and waves, and then he’s out of sight.

  Even though I don’t know him, and I’m pretty sure I’ll never see him again, I hope he will be all right.

  VICTOR STILL HASN’T REPLIED TO my last text. I wonder what he’s thinking.

  I look at the long message I sent him, with the little Read under the balloon confirming that he’s already seen it.

  Henrique:

  I’m not quite sure if it’s fair to tell you this over text, but I think you need to know, especially because I’m really into you, and the last thing I want is to start whatever this is with a lie or, as I see it, an omission of the truth. No need to worry—for real—but I’m HIV-positive. I take good care of myself and take all my meds, so I’m undetectable. And since we used a condom, there’s no problem. If you still want to talk to me, I’ll wait for your reply. I’m sorry for not telling you sooner. I usually don’t, and it’s always hard to talk about this with anybody, mostly because I haven’t had great experiences in the past. So, there it is. Get back to me when you have a chance.

  I lock my phone with a sigh, looking over the mess of the apartment I share with my roommate, Eric. There are sequined clothes and makeup scattered on every possible surface, and three wigs balance precariously on the backs of our dining room chairs.

  This has happened before, but it always hurts when the texts that seemed so intimate and full of excitement simply stop coming. Some people say HIV is the love virus, because it becomes this insurmountable barrier to the things that might happen if it weren’t there. And even though HIV has been my unwanted partner for three years, like an intrusive brother-in-law who takes over the guest room, it’s still hard to deal with all the impossibilities that it imposes on my life.

  “You’re not checking your messages again, are you, you whore?” Eric looks over my shoulder, eyeing my phone. His attention is split between his own cell phone and a YouTube video on his laptop, in which an Argentinian drag queen gives a tutorial on how to do Elizabeth Taylor’s makeup from Cleopatra. Eric is preparing for his next show, and the theme of the party is ancient Egypt. “If you would just quit all the apps and start looking for people in real life, I’m sure you wouldn’t get so frustrated.”

  “Says the saint who has a profile on every dating app known to man,” I respond, knowing that Eric is a fixture on all the hookup apps, whether they’re meant for gay, straight, bi, or trans people. He’s even on a few for lesbians. (Seriously, he claims it’s so he can make friends.) “I think I fucked it all up again.”

  I open my messages and show him the text I sent Victor. He pauses the YouTube video and grabs my phone to read it.

  Eric is, so far, the only person who knows I’m positive and still replies to my texts. We’ve known each other since we were fifteen, and in all that time, he hasn’t changed much: over six feet tall, dark brown skin, and thin arms. The only things that have changed are his teeth, now perfectly straight thanks to the braces and incredibly white after bleaching; his hair, which he used to shave but now wears full and always in a different stylish hairdo; and his complexion, now soft and blemish-free after a dermatological treatment that nearly left him bankrupt.

  As for me, I’m basically the same as when we were teenagers, too. Five foot eight (the famous puberty growth spurt passed me by, and I went from being the tallest among my friends to being the shortest in less than two years), with rust-colored hair and white skin, as if I were allergic to the sun. My teeth are crooked, my muscles are still under the regular promise that I’ll start working out before I give up on going to the gym for the twentieth time, and my wrists are always hurting from the hours of photoshopping at the advertising agency where I work.

  Eric was and continues to be a part of my life, through all the ups and downs—from the fits of laughter to the sleepless nights on the phone, hearing me cry and complain about how unfair life is and how useless everything can be, since in the end we’re all going to die anyway.

  And, as a result of our friendship and the trust I placed in him, I decided to share an apartment with him when things got complicated for him at home, even if he can be a chaotic hurricane of glitter and multicolored fabrics. I consider him my Jiminy Cricket, my Voice of Reason, or whatever it is that people call their conscience, especially because he’s the only one who doesn’t just smile and nod at whatever nonsen
se the antiretrovirals evoke when they insist on messing with my emotions.

  “Henrique, you know that you have to be patient, especially with the younger boys.” He opens Victor’s picture on my phone, staring at his pale, smiling face; his light hair—full in the middle and shaved on the sides, with a blue streak right up front; and his green eyes that are almost indistinguishable behind the reflection in his vintage glasses that are too big for his face. Then Eric gives me my phone and returns to his own. “How old is this boy?”

  “Eighteen.”

  “And you’re twenty-one. It may not seem like it, but that’s a big difference. He’s probably scared, and you know very well that it’s a rational reaction. At least he didn’t make up a story about his grandmother in New Zealand needing surgery to remove a tumor or some shit like that other guy did.”

  He’s talking about Carlos, the first and only asshole who managed to break my heart, not to mention leave me forever hesitant to open up to anyone who crosses my path. And as a bonus, he also made me hate New Zealand.

  “I hate New Zealand,” I whisper.

  “Just because your ex went there to pretend like you don’t exist?”

  “He went there because he is a coward who’s afraid to be the person he really is. I hate New Zealand, The Lord of the Rings, and that Vegemite crap they eat.”

  “Sweetie, you’ve never even tried it.”

  “It smells like boiled beer and looks like tar. There’s no way it’s good.”

  “Okay, and you hate New Zealand because one of the biggest series in film history was shot there. And that’s important because …?”

  “It’s not important! Jesus, Eric, six years of friendship and you still haven’t realized that I dislike things for totally irrational reasons? You should be used to it by now.”

  “All right, let’s not talk about the hobbits of New Zealand. Or horrible ex-boyfriends. Have you tried calling this guy?” Eric asks, referring to the message I sent Victor.

  “He saw the message but never replied. That’s the twenty-first-century version of not picking up the phone.”

  “You can try to call and have a conversation. Like, you had sex after you learned his name and went on, like, five bad dates in two weeks. You’re practically married in this day and age.”

  “And I’m the app queen,” I say, giving him a dirty look. He’s still looking at his phone, and in the reflection on his glasses, I can see the yellow glow of Grindr.

  “What?” He looks at me and closes the app. “Don’t even; I’m not the one who’s in love here.”

  “I’m not in love.”

  “Okay, so you just ‘care too much,’ ” he says, making air quotes as he balances his phone in his right hand.

  “Don’t do that.”

  “What?”

  “ ‘This,’ ” I answer, imitating his hand gesture. “It’s ridiculous.”

  “ ‘Ridiculous’?” He does it again.

  I roll my eyes and ignore him, looking down at my phone.

  The ellipsis bubble pops up on my screen, indicating that Victor is typing a response.

  My heart starts racing.

  “I think he’s about to send something.”

  Eric locks his phone and peeks over my shoulder.

  “It’s not a dick pic, is it?”

  “Shut up, Eric.”

  We wait for the message, and it comes in short sentences. As I read, I’m both relieved and confused by it.

  Victor:

  Hi

  I got tested

  It came back negative

  And I met a guy there

  His came back positive

  I don’t know why, but I thought of you

  I said if he needed to talk to someone

  He could talk to you

  Still a little confused by all of this

  But idk

  The guy didn’t seem too good

  If he messages me, can I give him your number?

  His name is Ian

  I stare at the screen, processing the information.

  “Aw, how cute, he thought of you! At least this one didn’t run away to New Zealand for years and pretend you never existed.” Eric smiles. “What are you going to say?”

  “That I don’t want my status to be on the evening news,” I answer, but before I can say more, Eric rips the phone out of my hand and starts typing.

  Henrique:

  Sure.

  If you want to talk about us, I’m here.

  I’m glad the test came back negative.

  At this stage of the game, Eric’s meddling in my personal life isn’t a nuisance anymore. And honestly, I even like it when he plays Cupid and replies to messages on my behalf, because most of the time I say it’s not worth pursuing something that won’t work out in the end. He says that’s just my negativity speaking and that if I at least put in some effort, things could be different.

  “He knows about the window period, right?” Eric asks. He has learned so much about HIV from me, either from my endless conversations on the subject or from his research during the first months of my diagnosis, when he tried to show me through graphs, charts, and stats that I was not going to die anytime soon.

  “Probably not, but he could have researched it. And I already said I took all necessary precautions, as I always do. And that I’m undetectable, which means—”

  “The chance of transmitting the virus is effectively zero,” Eric says automatically, a bored tone in his voice. He’s heard me talk about it at least two hundred times. “Now you want to preach to the choir?”

  “I think there’s nothing else I can teach you that you don’t already know, young Padawan,” I say. Eric ignores my comment and presses play on his makeup tutorial.

  I stare at Victor’s message, wondering if he’s worth the trouble or if I should let him go.

  He did respond, even if he didn’t talk directly about the two of us, and that’s already more than most guys do. Most of them believe that silence is the best medicine, but in reality, it messes with my emotions more than any antiretroviral ever could.

  WHEN I GET HOME, I’M met with pure silence. There are papers strewn about the dining room table—engineering blueprints my mom brings home from work—and a coffee-stained mug that for some reason she didn’t put in the sink. A photo of the whole family (me, my mom and dad, and my younger sister) sits atop a small table near the TV; it’s the only picture we posed for during our trip to João Pessoa. There’s a note from Mom underneath the frame that says she and Dad will be home late and asks me to make dinner for myself and my sister, who’s still at school.

  Crying in front of that stranger was embarrassing, but at least it seems to have removed something bad from my system. I let out an exhausted breath, throw my backpack on a chair, open the fridge, and swig a drink of water straight from the bottle. I open the vegetable drawer and take out some broccoli, an eggplant, and an onion. From the shelf above it, I grab a package of unseasoned chicken cutlets. I open the pantry, pull out a bag of brown rice, and start boiling some water. I do it all automatically and wonder if that old saying—that food made with love tastes better—is true. If so, this dinner won’t be a very good one.

  I don’t want to think about HIV, but the three letters dance relentlessly in front of me, reminding me there’s something inside my body that shouldn’t be there and that, little by little, is destroying me. It’s hard not to think about death when it’s running through your veins.

  I cut the eggplant into thin slices and the broccoli into small florets, and when I start dicing the onion, the knife slips in my hand and digs into my fingertip, letting a small trickle of blood stain the vegetable red.

  One look at the wound, and my stomach churns. Ignoring the burning sensation running up my hand, I drop the knife and grab a paper towel, pressing it against my finger as I watch my blood dissolve into the white layers of the half-chopped onion.

  I pull a chair behind me and sit down, and my eyes start stinging�
��not because of the onion but from sadness.

  Is this what my life is going to be like from now on? Taking care not to shed even a single drop of blood so others will never come into contact with this virus that lives inside me, killing me bit by bit? Is this what I am now, a walking HIV container, about to infect anyone who comes near me?

  The tears running down my face are born of anger and frustration, because I know I can no longer ignore the fact that I’ve hurt myself. I can’t just go back in time to redo those nights when I didn’t use condoms and slept with guys I didn’t even know, whom I will never see again.

  I’m disgusted by myself. Disgusted by my memories and the things I’ve done to get to this point. They say that when you’re diagnosed with HIV, it’s not supposed to be about guilt or blame or fault, but that’s all I feel right now. Guilt for being stupid, for allowing myself to get caught up in the heat of the moment, for having to carry inside me this thing that no one can remove.

  I wait for my finger to stop bleeding, then throw the onion in the trash. I snatch the knife that cut me and toss it in the boiling water that was going to cook the rice, all the while knowing it’s irrational. I want to sterilize the knife, the onion, the cutting board—my own body. I want to drink this pot of boiling water so it can burn away the virus inside me, but I know that’s impossible.

  It’s pointless to cry, but I can’t stop.

  It’s useless to rehash these thoughts, but that’s all I can do.

  It’s hopeless to think that my life won’t be different, because that’s exactly what it will be.