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His face must have been reflecting the disaster he felt because her smile fell, and she set her knife on the counter, turning fully to look at him. “What’s wrong? This is more than ‘thinking.’”
“I didn’t think Brook would say something. But...”
Mina leaned against the counter, her face blank. “But she has.”
“She has,” he replied, bracing for her justifiable anger.
“How many people has she told?” The words left Mina’s mouth with a slow crackling burn that scorched the hair off the back of his neck.
“I don’t know. The worst of it is that they’ve told people.”
“And they’ve told people,” Mina said flatly. “So I don’t know how many people are out there who know I’m HIV positive and who they’re all telling. And what they know about me. Levi’s girlfriend? College professor? Author and artist?” Her voice rose with her list. “Even if none of the people currently spreading my health information around know who I am, they might tell someone who not only knows but cares. Who thinks their kid shouldn’t be in my class or who believes they are compassionate, but that they can be more compassionate if we’re not touching the same utensils at the coffee shop.”
Levi wanted to be able to argue with her, to tell her that the AIDS panic of the nineties was over, but Brook was a prime example that he would be lying. It was true that people weren’t as panicked as they used to be when AIDS first spread, but the people who accepted it as a disease, understood the risks of exposure and treated those with the virus like people were offset by those who let fear crowd their reasoning.
Like his sister. Even though Brook said that she understood how the virus was caught, she was still cold and unwelcoming to Mina. It had taken Levi a while to realize that Brook wasn’t so much reacting against the virus, but that she was reacting against her idea that Mina somehow deserved the disease.
He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to stand up in front of a classroom with even one student looking at you and thinking similar thoughts to his sister. But Mina would do it. She was the bravest person he knew.
“I’m sorry. I set this off, and I’m sorry—”
“You did set this off.” Mina’s once welcoming face was tight with anger. Her entire body seemed to have folded around her anger. The open, bubbly person he’d fallen for months ago when she’d been standing on his front steps rambling was gone.
“How long has everyone known? How long have I been walking around in ignorance of all this?”
“I don’t know. Dennis didn’t say. And I haven’t called Brook to ask her who all she told and when.”
“And why?” Confusion bolstered the anger in Mina’s voice.
“And why,” he echoed. He knew why, though there was no making sense of it. And why wouldn’t make Mina feel any better.
She put her hands up to her face, cupping her palms over her mouth. “What am I supposed to do?” she asked through her fingers.
“I don’t know. I left the bar early so that I could tell you, and maybe we could figure it out together.”
At that moment, he realized that he didn’t need her to say she had faith in their relationship, but he did need her to have faith. To let him be here for her.
“What are you going to do to help?”
Levi tried not to be hurt at the mocking tone in her voice. She had every right to be angry and scared. Being defensive about his role in this mess wasn’t going to help her.
“Stand by you, no matter what.”
“What if I don’t want you by me?” She spit out the question. “What if I think you and your sister should go leap off a bridge?”
“If there’s a way to stand by you while standing on that bridge looking down, I’ll figure out how to do it.”
Slowly, and with near audible sizzles, his words doused her anger. First, her shoulders fell away from her ears. Then her jaw loosened, and her lips parted a bare millimeter. Finally, the corners of her eyes softened, though that last may have been the tears as much as the dying anger.
“I’m scared, Levi.”
