Disclaimer: I don't own Degrassi.

"Human Immune Deficiency Virus, or HIV is a disease that is spreading very rapidly," explained Nurse Paula. It was that time of year again: sex education time. This time, she was explaining about AIDS. "Anyone can get it, but it's more likely to be found in those who are in same sex relationships. Yes, Jason?"

"So," said Jay, "if one gay guy sleeps with another gay guy, then he gets AIDS?"

"Not every time," she said, "but it could definitely happen."

That was embarrassing. Jay didn't say my name or anything, but he might as well have said, "So Marco could have AIDS?" Jay had never liked me; I didn't know if it was because I was gay, or what, but I knew he didn't like me.

It was my last class of the day and I was happy to get out of school. I could feel a few pairs of eyes on the back of my head. I was hoping that everyone would forget about Nurse Paula's talk (or at least those who knew I was gay) by the next day.

I went to sleep and by the morning I had forgotten about the embarrassing sex ed. class. I went to school perfectly fine. The day seemed to progress fairly normally, except for the fact that people seemed to deliberately walk around me at all times. I found this rather strange, but brushed it off.

During my first period, this guy in my class dropped a pencil. I bent down and picked it up for him. "Here you go," I said.

A look of disgust came over his face, "Keep it." Then I heard him mutter "fag" under his breath. No one had called me a fag all year and no one had ever been disgusted by me picking up their pencil before.

All through the first half of my classes no one looked at me, talked to me, or touched me. Some of them made a point not to.

During lunch, Ellie came up to me. I was relieved to see that she was still talking to me. "Do you really have AIDS?" she asked.

I was not ready for that. "What?"

"Do you really have AIDS?" she repeated.

"I heard what you said," I told her. "But, what?"

"Everyone's been saying that you have AIDS," she said.

"Everyone as in who?" I asked her.

"Everyone as in everyone, it's the latest news or something," Ellie told me.

This made sense; I suddenly remembered sex ed. the day before. "Everyone as in Jay?"

"I don't know where it started," she said. "But what I've heard is that yesterday when Nurse Paula came she said that gay people get AIDS and, well, you're gay."

"Ellie," I said, "I don't have AIDS. I've been tested."

"Oh," she said. "I figured you didn't, but you know."

"Yeah," I said. "I wish everyone else would check with me."

"Sorry," she said. "I know how it feels."

"At least people came near you," I told her. "People at Degrassi obviously don't know that you can't get AIDS by touching someone."

Ellie looked sympathetic. "I'll help you if you want."

"Claiming I don't have AIDS will make everything worse," I sighed. "I don't know, I'll just have to figure something out."

I had no idea what to do. People were treating me like a leper. It got worse as more people found out. One day I actually even faked sick to get out of school. I thought that I was doomed to live that way forever, but after a couple of months, some people realized that looking at someone doesn't give you AIDS.

A/N Please review.