We drove to the cemetery with the black Tahoes shadowing us. Danny said there wasn’t going to be a regular church service because not many people were coming. None of the guys from the fight club came, and we’d assumed it was because they were mad that he’d brought down Tim and the club in the process. His only friends who came were from the bookstore: Mr. Healey, Danny, Dawn, Wes, and me.
Mr. Healey was also able to track down a living aunt and a drugged-out roommate, rounding out the small group gathered around the casket.
The weather was actually very nice and everyone held it together. No one was happy, by any means, but it wasn’t one of those funerals where everyone was bawling into tissues. It was a time of people just paying their respects.
Wes, dressed handsomely in a navy suit, hugged me from behind, reaffirming my gratitude for what Chase had done, and I was instantly glad we had come. Glad to have shown our support, but then I felt sad. What kind of support was this?
He killed himself. Where was the support then? Why wasn’t anyone there to talk him out of it? To tell him it wasn’t worth it?
Why would he do that?
I couldn’t understand what could be
so
bad as to cause him to end his life.
He had just survived a deadly car crash, and sure, he feared Tim and whomever Tim was working for. But if someone else ended up trying to take him out, so what? He was planning to do it anyway. The more I stood there listening to the cookie-cutter burial speech, the more angry and confused I became.
Wes sensed my tension and leaned down and kissed my cheek from behind. I was about to turn around and face him, when I noticed a girl about our age walk up to the opposite end of the tent wearing jeans, sneakers, and a black tank top.
She was facing me, so it made it difficult to stare, but from the brief glances I was able to steal, it became obvious she was on something. She was practically shivering, and it wasn’t cold. Her blonde hair was so dirty and oily that it looked brown. It was a shame, because I could tell by her features that she was quite pretty. A bath and an extra five pounds would have transformed her.
As awkward as her presence was, it was a bit comforting, because I assumed she was a friend of Chase’s and if nothing else, it was nice to see that someone else cared.
The preacher was pretty much finished at that point and asked that we all bow our heads for a final prayer. Those of us who knew each other said our hellos and goodbyes. I was on my last hug with Dawn when I heard a feeble, “Excuse me?”
I turned around and the small crowd consisting of Danny and Mr. Healey parted to give way to the voice. It was the girl in the black tank top with one hand across her stomach like she was in pain and the other plastered to the side of her thigh. She looked worse up close. Dark circles under her eyes and needle marks in her arm.
She looked so awful I wanted to step away from her, but was struck frozen. Wes put his arm around me as we watched her gaze travel frantically between Dawn and me. After about a dozen trips back and forth, her blue, bloodshot eyes settled on me. “Are you Sophie?” she asked. Her voice was so soft I instinctively leaned forward to hear her.
“Yes,” I said.
“I’m sorry to give this to you here, but I was told you had to have it.”
Confused, I asked, “It’s okay, what is it?” I was thinking maybe Chase had another message for me. I couldn’t exactly pinpoint what else he could possibly say from the grave, but it was the only thing I could think of.
She stepped in closer, with her head down, moved her left hand from her stomach and began digging in her pocket.
As we all watched curiously to see what she was going to pull out, what happened next unfolded bizarrely in slow motion.
While we were watching her left hand, she raised her other hand and shouted like a maniac, “It’s from Tim!” And then her right hand came at me and all I could do was flinch. Wes was quicker to react and put his arm out in front of me. That’s when I saw the syringe clasped in her fist. He pushed her arm down and moved me backward. Stunned, I lost my footing and my knee flew upward, right into the down swing of her arm.
I shouted out as I fell back. Wes grabbed the girl and pushed her to the ground facedown. She was screaming at him and calling me so many curse words, I couldn’t keep track. Once I regained my composure, I searched Wes’ face and then noticed him staring at my leg.
“Get this girl, someone, please!” he pleaded and Danny quickly took over holding her with her face pressed against the grass. Hurriedly, Wes turned to Dawn and told her to call the police.
Why do we need the cops? Since when does Wes even want the cops around?
“What?” I croaked, as my gaze followed Wes’.
Sticking out from my leg was the needle and syringe. It wasn’t the needle that made me freak, it was the fact that the syringe was filled with blood. “What is it?” I yelled scrambling backward.
Wes lunged at me and pulled it out, grabbing my face. “It’s okay,” he urged, but I didn’t believe him.
“Why would she do that? What is it? What’s in it?”
“I don’t know.” His voice was panicked and it made me confused. My leg wasn’t hurting beyond the tiny sting lingering from the needle, but something about the shocked look on everyone’s faces along with the fury in the girl’s eyes told me it wasn’t good.
I looked back to Wes, about to reel off some more questions when the girl started shouting at me again.
“That’s what you get! You lying bitch! You think you’re so much better than us?” She started laughing. “Welcome to our world. Suffer and die!”
“Be quiet!” Wes shouted.
My eyes searched his for answers. “What’s she talking about?”
“Can you stand?” he countered, ignoring my question.
“Of course. I’m fine.”
His jaws clenched at the reference to me being fine. “Okay, let’s get you to the car.”
I nodded and stood on my own. Wes searched the ground for the needle he had tossed aside and picked it up.
Dawn stepped forward. “What are you doing? Don’t touch it.”
He turned toward her, with a weakened voice, like he was out of energy, and told her he was taking it to the hospital. Before she could answer, Wes made Danny promise to tell the police what happened once they arrived, and that we would be at the hospital with the needle.
Next, he told his late, hovering security detail to keep the girl detained until the police came. At that point, I was still in a major state of shock and confusion. All I knew was that a complete stranger, clearly strung out on something, had just stabbed me with a needle full of blood.
I felt some sense of relief that she hadn’t tried to stab me with something else, but as I tried to settle my nerves with that thought, the sense that something was very wrong kept creeping in.
Both of us were in a zombie-like state as we walked to his truck, and I tried to pretend I didn’t see him set the syringe in his floorboard. His effort to keep it out of sight, out of mind wasn’t working.
Hepatitis, syphilis, HIV. These are the things that came to mind on the drive over. When someone stabs you with a needle, you have to believe it was to pass something onto you. Why else would they do that?
I felt like the inside of my leg was crawling with a million infections. Even though I really couldn’t feel anything, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
I wasn’t helping to settle Wes’ nerves either. He was sitting up, nearly hunched over the steering wheel in hard concentration. “It’ll be okay,” he kept saying, but I could tell he was thinking otherwise.
It was the story of our lives. Just when we were given a small amount of relief and hope, something else happened, as if to say, “No, Sophie, you really aren’t going to make it. No, Sophie, you really can’t defy fate.”
I could go on and on with all the
no, Sophie
s that kept whispering in my ear. But seeing Wes’ obvious concern, I just sat quietly.
By the time we reached the hospital, I was holding back tears with every ounce of optimism I could muster. They ran several tests and held me for observation to make sure I wasn’t poisoned.
The room felt eerily cold, and Wes bundled me in a blanket in an attempt to make me feel more comfortable. It didn’t seem to help, and the time slowly ticked by.
Two long hours later, the news came. The preliminary tests on my blood came back negative for everything, but that wasn’t a surprise. I was told it could take weeks for any infection to show up.
The bad news came next. The initial screening on the blood inside the syringe tested positive for HIV. I can’t say it wasn’t expected. I half felt it traveling through me already.
As soon as the doctor told us the news, Wes turned to me and grabbed my face and said for the fourth or fifth time, “You’ll be okay.” And then with lightning speed he reached in his pocket, pulled out his cell phone, and left the room.
In his absence, the doctor explained how he was going to give me a shot to reduce my chances of contracting the virus by eighty percent and also put me on anti-viral medication as a precaution. Then he said that the blood in the syringe was going to be sent out for more comprehensive tests and I’d need to be tested every couple of weeks for six months to be sure of the final results.
As he was speaking, I watched as the rectangular lights in the ceiling began to distort. They were turning and turning and in them, I saw the moments Wes and I had already shared, mixed in with tainted moments from the future. Moments where our faces showed each other how much we loved one another, along with the fear that a virus was waiting and lurking to take my life. And if not the virus, then something else—an accident, a brick falling out of the sky. I mean geez, what else was I supposed to watch out for?
Just as I was falling back, hoping to find the pillow, my mom burst through the pale green plaid curtain. You can imagine. I got all the, “Oh, my gosh, what? Why? Who? Oh, my gosh.” I couldn’t explain, so I just lay down and covered my eyes, fighting back the tears.
The doctor gave her the rundown and I knew that in addition to the stressing over my own future longevity, I’d have to suffer my mother’s freaking out.
After my discharge, she took me home. Wes came over after finishing up with the police statements. My mom went on and on about how she wished we’d moved when she suggested it a few weeks ago and that she blamed herself for not following through. I’d never seen her so angry and worked up. Then again, knowing her daughter could very well have a disease that would kill her was probably the worst news she’d actually had to live with.
We’d heard the doctor’s uplifting statements about how even
if
my blood did become infected, people can live long normal lives with medication. Not only did it not help her, it definitely didn’t help me. A “long” life wasn’t built into my future to begin with, and that made me fear that medicine wouldn’t be effective on me.
Maybe I’d catch a flu or something bigger to trigger and accelerate the disintegration of my immune system. My mom’s continued rant on our way into the house made things worse.
“Mom! Stop it, please!” I shouted. She stopped short, surprised. “Look, I’m sorry this is just something else for you to worry about, but did you ever think about how I’m feeling right now? It’s
me
who has to worry about what’s crawling through my blood. And it would be
really
nice if you helped calm me, but you’re making it worse.”
She stood, completely still and eyes wide. I don’t think it was
what
I said that stunned her. The concept wasn’t rocket science. It must have been
how
I said it. Like I was reprimanding a child. That’s what it felt like to me, which is why I wasn’t angry with her. I just wanted her to snap out of it.
She blinked once, slowly, then quickly several times. “You’re so right,” she said, her eyes tearing up, “I’m so sorry.”
She stepped toward me and pulled me in for an unfamiliar hug. She cradled me, and rocked me back and forth like a baby. “I just can’t help feeling like this is all my fault, but I know it isn’t. I know we can’t predict things like this. That’s what makes me frantic as your mother. But my goodness . . . my ranting won’t change anything. I’ve got to help you now, and I will. We will fix this.”
Her comforting words touched me, and I was glad for that, but deep down, I was calling for Wes. I’m not sure what my rationale was, but I felt and believed with certainty that Wes was the only person who could make everything all right.
And with that thought, I knew I was going to have to tell my mom the truth about everything. She needed to know exactly what I was up against.
M
y mom did her very best to appear normal, and I appreciated it more than she knew. It helped settle my nerves while I buried myself in end-of-year schoolwork. It also gave Wes and me some time to prepare our reveal to her.
After much discussion, we agreed that it would be a good idea to include Tom. Certainly, going from no one knowing about Wes to my mom
and
Tom knowing was risky, but we didn’t see any other way.
Wes had been around for years, but when it came down to it, we were both clueless, and Wes wasn’t afraid to say he felt like he’d let Amelia and Lenny down. It didn’t feel that way to me, but he was hard on himself about it. Add in the immense pressure he felt
now
and he was ready and willing to accept additional help. It wasn’t a decision we took lightly.
When the weekend came, I went over to his house to prepare. He took me into the library and I watched as he stood on a ladder and removed a handful of books, carried them down, and gently set them on the desk.
The bindings indicated they were standard encyclopedias. Quite old, they nevertheless looked boring. While he made his way up the ladder a second time, I paid more attention to the collection of other items on his desk.
There was a small lamp, a few neatly stacked pads of paper, an intricately designed paperweight, and a long, narrow box set precisely in an upper corner of the desk.