“I couldn’t understand why he’d been so dishonest with me, but I took a deep breath and spent the next two days writing him a long email, saying that I’d been to his place and found out about New Zealand. The bastard replied with a photo about a week later. It seemed I was just one among his many friends. The message was impersonal, like one of those that you copy and paste to all of your contacts, saying that he missed me but it was time for a change, and that he was really happy with the decision. He added that he’d changed his phone number, so he was sorry if I’d tried to call him or sent texts he wasn’t able to answer.”
I take a sip of my coffee that’s already cold, my throat welcoming the liquid after all this talking. I notice that Ian hasn’t blinked since I stopped for a breath.
“What a huge asshole …” he mumbles, mouth agape.
“Yeah. Needless to say, I spent the rest of the year teary-eyed and feeling sorry for myself. It was the worst experience I’ve had in my life. Honestly, it was worse than the HIV bombshell. Because I trusted him and thought we’d have a lasting relationship, you know? We had plans to move to São Paulo or somewhere in the Northeast after college, and he just threw a smoke bomb and disappeared like the Wicked Witch of the West.
“After that happened, I became completely closed off to relationships. I went for more than a year without sex, and I’d barely ever go out to meet new people. Eric, my roommate, performs in some shows downtown and would always pester me to come with him. He’d bring people over to our place to get them to talk to me so I could make new friends, but I had hit rock bottom. I had crying fits out of nowhere at weird times. If I was at work and felt one of them coming, I’d hide in the bathroom and stay there, sobbing until I managed to calm down; if I was on the bus, I’d put on my sunglasses, even at night, and close my eyes, trying to take deep breaths and think good thoughts. It was a terrible time in my life, and once in a while the feeling of despair still comes back, you know, because we get used to the medicine, but sometimes it still gets the best of you.”
“And how did you get over all of that?”
“I burned my copies of the Lord of the Rings trilogy in a ritual with Eric dressed in a Galadriel costume. The Hobbit had to go, too, as did the DVDs of all the movies. It was the breakup moment, you know, and ended up being funny because Eric memorized the scene from The Fellowship of the Ring where Galadriel bellows, ‘ALL SHALL LOVE ME AND DESPAAAAIR,’ ” I say, shaking my arms in the middle of the coffee shop, my eyes wide, which makes Ian let out a good-humored laugh. “After that, I decided it made much more sense to appreciate the people who’d do that kind of thing for me, instead of a douchebag who disappeared without a trace.”
“I think that’s an excellent decision.”
“And you know the worst part? New Zealand has restrictions for HIV immigration. I don’t know if he knew about that or not when he went there, but it only made me more pissed about the whole thing. And this kind of stuff leaves a scar. Since Carlos, I haven’t been able to trust people the same way. I only trust who I already know, you know? I’m always hesitant when I’m about to start something new, whether it’s a friendship or with a love interest, and I think that’s the worst way to go about it. But I can’t help myself.”
“You’re talking to me, a complete stranger,” Ian points out, shrugging.
“That’s exactly why. I can just walk out of here and never reply to any other text from you, block you on every app there is, and go on with my life as if nothing ever happened.”
“Are you going to?”
“You’re a cool guy. And you probably have a lot ahead of you when you start taking the medicine. So I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and keep the communication channels open.”
“Hey, that’s progress, right?”
I take a last sip of my coffee. Colder than Winterfell.
“Maybe it is.”
Ian gives me a satisfied smile and says, “I know I’ve barely said anything about myself, but I wanted to tell you that this … this conversation … was so helpful to me. For real. And I know that I’m just a stranger hearing about all of this from the outside, but I still want to offer a piece of advice: Be persistent with Victor. You seem to like him, and he seems to like you. Maybe things aren’t that clear, but I’m sure that, at the very least, he’ll take the time to listen to you. Even if it doesn’t go anywhere, it doesn’t hurt to try, does it?”
I take in his advice.
“Maybe” is all I can muster.
Ian gets up, ready to leave. And then, on a whim, I ask: “Do you like nightclubs?”
“Like, with country music and people spilling cheap whiskey on the floor?”
“Dear Lord, what kind of nightclubs have you been going to?”
“My friends took me to one once. It was awful.”
“My darling, I’m talking drag queens and Beyoncé the whole night. And buy-one-get-one-free beer.”
“Is there such a place?”
“That’s where Eric performs.” Then I try to make it clear that I’m not hitting on him. “Look, I know this post-diagnosis time is super awful, so I think you should leave the house for a bit, even if it’s just to listen to some loud music and end up smelling like cigarette smoke. Getting out of your own head is good once in a while. And Eric is preparing a Cleopatra performance for the next show. It’s this weekend. Are you in?”
“Why not?” he answers with a smile. “Send me the address and the date, and I’ll stop by.”
We both get up, and our smiles are strong indicators that this conversation isn’t over yet. Somehow, I know we just planted a little seed of friendship.
He raises his hand to shake mine, but before I notice it, I’m already hugging him like we’re friends who ran into each other after a long time apart.
“I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me, Henrique. It did me good.”
I only nod in response.
Maybe I don’t want to admit it out loud, but the conversation was good for me, too.
I STILL DON’T KNOW HOW to feel about my conversation with Henrique. Somehow, listening to other people’s problems makes things seem less complicated, or at least helps me to rationalize them from another perspective. But in the end, they’re just words.
When I get home, it feels like family night: My mom has taken over the living room table with her blueprints, her endless supply of coffee, and a tuna salad sandwich that she must’ve made in a hurry. Dad is in the bedroom, hunched over a small desk, grading the exams of students who wouldn’t hesitate to beg for extra decimal points in order to avoid spending another two weeks studying to retake them. And Vanessa is lying on the floor of the bedroom that we share, four different textbooks and a notebook open in front of her while her earbuds blast some boring classical music (she says it’s the only way she can concentrate in this zoo that we call our home).
I go to the bedroom, put on some old, wrinkled clothes, and plunge into my bed, physically and mentally exhausted from this frantic marathon that I’m trying to be discreet about—of doctors, tears, and conversations with strangers. Vanessa notices I’m not making small talk or trying to disturb her, so she furrows her brow and takes out the earbuds.