I had to tell my partner

After the phone call was over, I set my cell phone on my glass desk and sat for a few minutes in utter bewilderment. I kept thinking that things like this don't happen to people like me. Sure I'd had my fair share of "fun," you know, flings, hookups, etc. But this type of thing only happens to "dirty" people who do drugs and participate in orgies or something like that.

But for something like this to strike my life, was unfathomable. I've got multiple college degrees, good parents, lots of friends, and happily committed to someone I'm madly in love with.

Oh yeah, my current partner. Once I'd come back to a certain degree of reality, I picked up my phone again and ran to my fortress of solitude -- my bed. I crawled under the covers, tucked my head between some pillows and made my own version of "the call." As the phone rang, my mind continued to whirl. Would he leave me? What the fuck is going to happen?

Then, he answered. He sounds happy. Genuinely happy in fact, as if my phone call had somehow brightened his day. The word vomit didn't take long to start spewing out of my mouth. I explained how my "friend" had been exposed to AIDS and how upset I was. I panicked. I wasn't sure how my current partner was going to react. My heart sunk even further than it had before. I think, for a moment, I actually stopped breathing. For a few moments, as I held my cell phone up to my ear, face buried between the pillows on my bed, time seemed to freeze. In retrospect I wished it had. At that moment I didn't know whether or not I too was infected, I could easily slip back into my pre-phone call life and pretend like nothing had happened. Unfortunately, time doesn't freeze and the second hand on my clock slowly ticked as each second progressed.

I lucked out. My current bf stayed calm and brought be back to life. Literally. He talked me through the worst possible scenarios and even offered to go with me to get tested, although I think that offer might be more for his own mental well being since we had also been having unprotected sex, although we did wait until we were both sure we were clean...well at least we thought we were.

I can't imagine what I'll do if I find out that I too am HIV positive. I can hardly imagine the impact the disease would have on my life, much less if I found out I had passed it on to my bf. He hasn't done anything to deserve such a horrible life sentence, so why should he suffer for my indiscretions?

That's when I started thinking about how unfair it all was, and my anger grew stronger. Granted I still didn't have the strength to call my ex back and scream at him. Why had this horrible thing suddenly interrupted my life? How could it? Why me? Why now?