Angels I Don't See PART XIII

Parts I-XII here

My mind didn’t know how to process any more shocking information. Though I entertained the possibility that I might be negative, actually hearing it created an entirely new dilemma I had not yet considered.

If I was negative, and I had strayed in the relationship many years ago, and Ric and I had not been sexually active in over eight months, and Ric was positive, and I was tested three times within the previous 18 months, and it takes a maximum of six months for the virus to show up on blood tests then it meant either…

he cheated and when he found out he was positive he withheld the information from me for several months or…

he had been positive for far longer, telling me he was negative and withheld the information from me for possibly many years.

In fact, using my handy dandy deductive reasoning skills I learned in college years ago, with all the scenarios as they were, there was no way I could have given Ric the virus at all, even if Dr. M said I was positive at that moment.

Dr. M then handed us seven prescriptions for Ric. Two for what Dr. M knew was HIV without having the results to prove it and five antibiotics to fight the thrush Dr. M found in Ric’s throat and mouth.

In the car on the way to the pharmacy I let loose.

“Did you hear Dr. M? He said I was negative. I just wanted to make sure you heard him tell me I was negative”

“Yeah, so?”

“Just making sure you heard. I never want to hear again that I gave it to you. There is no way I gave it to you. In fact, there would have been no way I could have given it to you even if Dr. M said I was positive today”

“I guess Charlie gave it to me”

“Charlie, your ex from eight years ago?”

“Yeah, Charlie. I guess he gave it to me”

“You think Charlie gave it to you and since then, and all subsequent HIV tests, you have shown up negative until last August when, voila, you turn up positive?”

“Guess so”

As we pulled up to the pharmacy, his detachment from everything going on around him became even more apparent.

“After we drop of the ‘scrips to be filled, let’s get lunch at Subway or something, ok? If I don't eat something I think I am going to go insane. I mean it. I think I am going to explode”

“No, drop them off and then take me home, then come back and get my prescriptions”

“Um, are you trying to tell me that you want me to drop you off at home then come back to the pharmacy to get YOUR medications for HIV that YOU hid from me for months, possibly YEARS? That’s rich! THAT'S FUCKIN’ RICH!”

“Yeah, just take me home. Thanks” he said, so void of any ownership or responsibility and so callously indifferent to what I might be going through that I began to honestly wonder if he was a textbook sociopath.

“Could you explain to me where the hell my husband went? ‘Cause I am about to lose my fuckin’ mind and it would be really nice to find him!”

After I dropped off the prescriptions to be filled I took Ric home. No matter what happened, no matter how much I wanted to hate him, I simply could not look at him and see anything except a very sick man that I loved more than anything.

Back at the pharmacy...

“Your total is five-hundred-and-sixty-seven dollars”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you had our insurance information on file. Here, let me give it to you again” I said to the cashier.

“Yes sir. The total is with your insurance. Without insurance it would be twenty-one-hundred dollars”

We didn’t have five hundred dollars. We didn’t have fifty dollars.

“What is so expensive?” I asked, as if knowing would somehow help.

“Um, let’s see. The Truvada and the Kaletra”

In other words, the HIV meds. In other words, the meds that he needed if he were to survive.

In other words, he was a dead man

Part XIV here