It's only been forty-eight hours
It's only been forty-eight hours. Forty-eight long, drawn out hours in which every tick made by the second hand of the clock was like a knife being stabbed into my gut from the news I had been told. News that had changed my life forever…
Words can have an amazing affect on a person. Certain words can change your future. The simple phrase "Will you marry?" can determine how you spend the rest of your life. News of a pregnancy can be miraculous, or depending on the situation, disastrous. Then there are venomous words that tear your life apart, bit by bit. That is the category of the recent news given me. It is amazing how a few short words can send your life spiraling downward like a plane that's engine failed and is crashing to the ground.
There I was two days ago, thinking that my life was going to be all up from here. Then I got a phone call. I had to go back to that clinic I visited a few days ago. I never really liked doctor or clinic settings - the cold and uninviting metal tables, anxiousness of every person in the room choking you as you walk in, and the slight voice in the back of your head constantly saying "what if something is really wrong?" All of it made me a little too uncomfortable for my liking.
When I got to the clinic, I was handed a piece of paper. The person to hand it to me had a bitter look on their face. Instantaneously, my stomach did a flip inside me and my heart sank down. There on the paper was information from some medical tests I could not understand along with two words that stuck out painfully. They were the two words no person ever wants to see in their entire life.
HIV Positive.
I had been stupid this entire time. I always thought that something of this nature could never happen to me. Yeah, you hear about it on TV or it happens to a friend of a friend, but you think you would never have to encounter it. It is there and it is staring you straight in the face but you render it invisible.
Dirty needles? So what. As long as I got my fix, not even a virus that kills you could stand in my way. Smack had a way of forging your head up that way. And as for that unprotected sex part – there was only so much a birth control pill could cover but I never had a reason to fret. Because until forty-eight hours ago, I was indestructible, invincible, ready to leave the world in pieces with my name as graffiti on it. And now I am reduced to a body that has been invaded and ready to be conquered by a killer – a killer that I let in from being stupid and careless about everything all along.
I was no longer anything. I was not a person full of creativity ready to live life. I was not a daughter, a sister, a girlfriend, a best friend. I was not a junkie, I was not a slut. I was a host and if I live with this inside me, that is all I could ever be.
Many people would think it to be cowardly to do what I saw as sweet escape from the sheer torture that was laid before me. But in reality it was a counter attack. It was me fighting against the virus inside. This is what it came to, a strong young woman ending it all in defense without a second though.
So I took the razor into my hand. The light that reflected off the blade made it almost seem beautiful. It made it seem like it was an old friend coming for a visit. You know, one of those old friends that made you comfortable and all the doubt and worry disappear out of your pretty little head. I held the razor close to my body and tried to find the perfect place to let myself go.
I looked at the bedroom. That would be a mess everywhere. The kitchen was impractical as well. There was not much room in this dusty loft my boyfriend rented. And I did not have too much time until my boyfriend and his friends busted through the door wanting to party, throwing me into a dangerous situation. I needed to do this, and fast.
Grabbing a piece of paper and a pen, I made my way to the closet sized bathroom and locked the door. I gave myself a once over in the mirror. There was a trail of mascara and eyeliner running down my cheeks. When was I was crying? It is strange how when your brain is in frenzy, you do not notice the small things that are happening at the same time. All traces of logic and alertness go out the window when you are trying to decide how to kill yourself.
I stared at the paper that lay on the bathroom counter before me. What was I supposed to write? A tragic note of suicide from a frightened twenty-something girl infected by HIV? Love letter to my boyfriend in attempt to make him understand? Putting a pen to paper had never been that difficult in my entire life.
Last words are said to be immortal. When it was my turn to conjure them, my mind was a blank page. I was one of the lucky ones that could say goodbye before they were gone forever and the only phrase floating in my head was "baby, you better give in before that killer inside gets you first." I could not put that down. I was searching for something poetic that could be appreciated but there was nothing. Cobwebs. Would these words matter a year after I am gone?
I had to tell it like it was. I choked back the new tears forming behind my eyes and left a not so romantic and defiantly unsentimental note for my boyfriend. The note said all he needed to know. I kissed it and put it up on the mirror.
The note was written and there was only one thing left to do. I turned the water in the gritty bathtub on. There was no reason to clean it if it was only to be dirtied anyhow. The icy water flowed out and I stepped in with all of my clothes. I turned off the faucet and put the razor to one of my wrists, pressing it down firmly and running it down the visible vein in my pale arm. Crimson flowed out, letting the intruder out of my body. Then it was time for the other wrist. I gave it the same special attention. Slowly, I surrendered myself and sunk farther into the bathtub.
And all to be found would be the body of a stupid girl infected by a killer and a piece of paper with words acidic and life shattering, close to the ones I heard forty-eight hours ago.
We've got AIDS