January 8, 2011 by Mark Lidstone

Georgia

“We gave it up”, I said matter-of-factly. “One day we decided to call it quits. We went into detox, thanks to the funding from her parents. By then we had both used up all of our money – her money. We cut ourselves off completely. We signed up for self-help programs, took on sponsors. We grew so much closer. We used wedding planning as a distraction. I finally felt true love. I owed everything to her. After a long period of hell, we got through it.”

“You know nothing of hell”, he interrupted. I winced and stared at him. My throat was so dry. It hurt to swallow. I grabbed my glass with my hand and played with the condensation running down the side. He stared at me. I could feel his eyes, under the glasses, burning holes into my soul. “So you both lived happily ever after then. Well, except for the AIDS.”  I spent a few seconds trying to clear my throat.

“A few months after, Georgia started showing symptoms. She was losing weight, 15 pounds in two months I believe. She would periodically break into these hot spells where she would sweat profusely. She was easily confused and would sporadically forget things.” I drew patterns in the water that had dripped onto the table. “She went to the doctor. He told her she was HIV positive. He said it wouldn’t be long before she had full blown AIDS. He said something about a reduced number of C4 lymph nodes?”

“CD4-lymphocytes”, he corrected me.

“Yeah. He said she got it from the needles we used”.

“Well, why didn’t you get it too? No romps in the bedroom?” he smirked.

“After what happened”, I paused. I couldn’t get into that. “We weren’t ready for kids so we always used a condom. The pill caused problems, really messed with Georgia’s ‘cycles’. I got tested just in case. Nothing showed up, other than the damage the drugs had already done to my body.” I stared at my hands. “I don’t know how it happened. We were so careful with the needles. We never shared, they were always clean.” I wiped my fingers off in my jacket, drying them. “That was two years ago. The treatment hasn’t done anything. She won’t last much longer”.