As I was driving my boyfriend called me and asked me to come get home from school. Wanting to see him, and mostly needing some comfort and affection I rushed to his school. Giving him no time to get in the car I got out and tightly wrapped my arms around him. "Hold me tighter," I told him. He tried with all of his might.
"What's wrong," I looked him deeply into his eyes and told him what the doctor told me. In tears he walked to grab his belongings and got in my car. We want back to his house, and I told him that I was planning to leave. "Where are you going to go?" I had no idea, but I had to leave. He cried and begged me to stay. I sat there at his home for hours with him convincing me to go home and tell my family. He didn't know that I left a note for my mother and she would soon be reading it. We sat and held each other in tears, until my phone rang with my sister on the other end telling me to come home. Terrified, I got into my car and drove home.
My sister, the one that called, met me at the door. Kissed me on my cheek, and left. I walked into my front door, and heard my mother in the dining rooming crying out to God. I bypassed her and walked upstairs. I saw my niece, and she instantly jumped out of the bed and hugged me tight. I walked into my other sisters room, and my oldest niece was crying. I asked her why, She said she didn't want me to be sick. My sister sat there with the note in her hand. "Joshua..." My mother called my name. Reluctantly, I walked downstairs to the dining room, to her sitting at the dining room table. "Sit down, Joshua... Why didn't you ask me to go with you?" I sat there quietly, not knowing what to say. "You could've asked me, you could've told me..." She began to cook dinner as I sat there, quiet, and lost. My brother and His wife barged in.
"What happened? Why I am being picked up from work?" He asked.
"Tell him. Tell him what you did Joshua..." I looked at my mother in confusion, and told my brother about my positive test. he reacted as if i had already died, or the doctor told me that I was dying.
He began to pace back and forth, "I don't believe that you could do this." Stunned and in shock, couldn't respond, I was being blamed for it. I wasn't a victim of HIV, but a deviant who did something 'wrong' to get HIV. With impeccable timing my phone rang. My boyfriend was on the other end.
"Who is doing that yelling?" He began to cry, "Why are they yelling at you? Joshua, get in your car and come here. they shouldn't be yelling at you."
Before I could respond, my brother reacted, "'See... that's why you're in the situation you're in now." He grabs my phone and snaps it in half. As soon as the phone snapped, so did I.
"Man, FUCK THIS SHIT!" I slammed my fist down on the table, "I don't need this right now." I walked through the kitchen, passing the stove, grabbing a pot of beans and throwing them across the kitchen. Putting on my shoes, my brother came behind me and began to choke me. In response I began to punch him in the face vehemently. I drew blood before he let go. Now, everyone around us is crying, and I am trying to get away. When I finally got into my car, I reversed it, and drove it slam into a tree. I was hoping to die, but I guess I wasn't going fast enough.
Afraid to go back home, and with no where to go and with no one to trust, i went to the closest grocery store to call my sister to come pick me up. Since I had no phone, I had no numbers. the only number I could remember was my boyfriend. "Josh, hat happened? You just cut out? what happened?" Crying, I tried to tell him. The people in the store walked by me like I was crazy, and that was the moment I knew I lived in a cold dark world. He called my sister for me, and she picked me up, took me back home and told me I was safe.
I didn't feel safe. I barely felt anything. I didn't even know what to fell, especially since contracting HIV was my fault, and I felt I deserved punishment. I knew that death would be my punishment. "The wages of sin is death," that's what they told me. I had ultimately sinned, and the price was to die. At that thought, at the top of my lungs I wailed, and my LiFE was forever changed
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