Never a Hero

“What happened with Nick?”
    I shook my head, because I couldn’t tell him. I didn’t want to betray Nick’s secret. But I desperately wanted to talk to somebody. “It’s hard to explain. He kept a secret from me, and because I didn’t know the truth, I pushed him into something—”
    “Sex?”
    I nodded. “And then he told me, and everything changed.”
    “Are you intentionally being vague?”
    “Yes.”
    “You’re protecting him?”
    Yes, I realized. That’s exactly what I was doing. “It’s a really personal issue. I understand why he kept it to himself.”
    “If you were angry, you’d want to get back at him. You’d want to tell me his dirty secret.”
    “It’s not a ‘dirty secret.’ It’s—”
    “You just made my point, honey. You’re sympathetic, and yet, you feel betrayed.”
    “Exactly.”
    “And how do you think he feels?”
    Alone. And betrayed. Exactly like me.
    I was the one who’d pushed for more. I was the one who’d practically begged him to sleep with me. Yes, I could blame him for giving in, but what good would it do me?
    “I miss him,” I said.
    “Then stop missing him. Go throw yourself in his arms. Apologize, or demand an apology, or both. But whatever you do, hang on to him, Owen. Don’t let him get away.”

The next day, I sat down and did the thing I’d been avoiding for over two weeks: I started looking up details on HIV. I knew I should have done it sooner, but I’d been afraid of what I would find. But now that I’d decided to pull my head out of my ass, I figured I should be thorough.
    The first thing I wanted to know was the scariest: how much time did he have? I quickly found that although it was impossible for doctors to give exact timeframes, being HIV-positive wasn’t the death sentence it had been in the past, especially for healthy individuals undergoing treatment. I didn’t know for sure that Nick was doing drug therapy, but I couldn’t imagine otherwise. My research also shed a new light on the way he lived—regular exercise, a hearty but well-balanced diet, no drugs, tobacco, or alcohol, and a nearly religious belief in the power of vitamins and supplements. It seemed that a healthy lifestyle and a good drug regimen went a long way toward ensuring that a person with HIV could live as long as anybody else. It was entirely possible Nick would survive to be an old man.
    I sat back and breathed a sigh of relief, not only for myself, but for Nick. That was my biggest worry out of the way.
    After that, I began looking at the data regarding transmission. He hadn’t lied to me about putting me at risk. Older beliefs held that HIV could be transmitted by oral sex, but newer, more thorough studies were dismissing that assumption. Exact verbiage varied, but the overall conclusions were the same. If I’d been the one sucking him off, chances of me contracting the virus would have been slightly higher, but with him on the giving end, it was generally believed to be almost zero risk. Especially, as he’d said, if the person receiving didn’t have any open wounds on their genitals.
    That surprised me. I’d always assumed any sexual contact was equally risky, but the truth was, a lot of sexual activities could still be enjoyed with very little risk. Add condoms, and it was entirely possible somebody who was HIV-negative could stay negative, even if involved in a sexual relationship with somebody who was positive.
    I wasn’t ready to think about that. Not yet.
    But I was ready to do what was right.
    The next night, I had another piano lesson with June. We were making progress on “Ode to Joy.” The thought of the recital still made me nervous as hell, but I began to realize that we really might pull this off. June and I both stayed for a while after Amelia had left, practicing. I was biding my time, waiting for her to leave, and she seemed to sense my impatience.
    “You’re not going to be an ass, are you?” she asked quietly.
    “I think I’ve already been an ass. My plan now is to stop being an ass.”
    She smiled and kissed me on the cheek. “Good luck.”
    Nick had been hiding in the kitchen during our lesson. Ostensibly, he’d been cooking, but it wasn’t until June was leaving that I began to hear the telltale sounds of pots and pans clanging together. It took every ounce of nerve I had to walk into his kitchen. He looked up at me, wary but hopeful, and I froze in my tracks.
    “Hi,” I blurted out. A stupid, inadequate greeting