Rush (Pandemic Sorrow #2) (20 page)

A loud sigh flew out of her mouth. “Yeah, I do. What, am I just supposed to leech off you?” She paused only long enough to pull in a breath. “You can’t be my safety, Rush. You like me right now—”

“Love you,” I corrected. I needed to make that abundantly clear.

“Okay, yeah, love me. But that won’t last forever in this business, and you
know
it. So, I have to have my job, a job.”

The fact that she had just completely blown off that I loved her, the way she so nonchalantly said we wouldn’t last like it didn’t really bother her pissed me off, causing a slow heat to burn through my veins. That word didn’t mean the same thing to me as it did her.

Her face crumpled and she whispered, “I’m sorry, but it’s true.”

That apology irritated me. I grabbed the shower door. “Then what the fuck are you waiting for? Just leave! Keep your job. I mean, why would you give up something permanent for something you obviously think is just temporary?”

“Rush…”

I slammed the door shut. “No, Jules. That’s fine. You’re right anyway. It’s just gonna be a pain in the ass pretty soon, so just save us both the grief and go tell James you want to keep your job. I’ll go fuck a girl in front of him so he knows it’s true.”

She huffed angrily. Jules wasn’t one to argue or fight. She refused to seem desperate. As much as I wanted to stay with her, I was afraid to. In that moment of disarray and confusion, I honestly felt this was the only way I could protect her.

“We just aren’t gonna work out.” I tried to sound certain and completely unaffected by that comment, even though it ripped through me like shards of rusted shrapnel.

I watched her through the glass. She ran her hand over her face, then nodded. “It’s probably best anyway.”

“Yeah, sure it is. It was just nice to pretend I could have simple shit most people take for granted.” There was a long pause, and out of desperation to make her leave me before I really hurt her, I said, “I mean, once we start touring, there’s no way I could be faithful.” Lowering my voice, I whispered, “And I don’t want to hurt you.”

I didn’t mean that, but I needed her to believe I did.

Her shadow disappeared from the bathroom, and several seconds later, I slammed my fist into the tile. Small cracks split through the stone.

What I’d just done made absolutely no sense, but when you’re in panic mode and utterly terrified, stupid shit seems to make sense.

Looking down at my hand, I watched the bright red blood trail over the ridge of my knuckles, splattering onto the white tile and mixing with the water circling down the drain.

That was the first time my own blood sickened me. I was diseased. I had been tainted. And now I had absolutely nothing.

Chapter 28

I’d spent most of the afternoon researching HIV on the internet, looking at symptoms, treatments, complications. I kept rehearsing how I would tell Jules. Just pretty much making myself sick.

During my search the health department called me, informing me that I had been reported as a sexual partner from someone who had tested HIV-positive. The label had beat the damn health department at their job. And that call from a stranger made it all too real. I couldn’t pretend like it was just James trying to fuck with me any longer.

Panic set in.

The word “AIDS” kept replaying in my head, making me unable to do anything besides trying to convince myself I didn’t have it. I obsessively felt my lymph nodes and tried to recall if I’d felt sick. I stumbled across a website that said the drugstores sold at-home HIV test kits, and thirty minutes later I was in a Walgreens, sweating.

It took me ten minutes of circling that aisle and staring at the blue and white box before I even touched it.

Fuck. This is too real.

The first time I reached for it I didn’t grab it, I only grazed the side of it because I thought I heard someone at the end of the aisle.

Sweat had collected inside my palms and a thin film of it coated my forehead. My mouth was dry and everything inside of me shivered. I pulled my hoodie over my head, secured my sunglasses over my eyes, and shook my head. Taking several quick breaths, I closed my eyes and snatched the item from the shelf, then hurried to the front of the store and slid the box to the clerk.

I didn’t look up. I kept my head bowed and my eyes aimed at that box. The lady behind the counter scanned it and slipped it in a bag.

I’m really buying a fucking HIV test kit. What the fuck?

“Forty-five seventy-six.” Her voice startled me and I jumped.

Flipping my wallet open, I started to hand her my card, but thankfully realized my name was on it. I shoved the plastic back into my wallet and pulled out a hundred-dollar bill, handed it to her, grabbed the bag, and walked toward the doors.

“Sir, you forgot your change.”

I waved my hand in the air and jogged outside. I didn’t care about my change, I just wanted to get the hell out of there before someone realized who I was and what I’d just purchased.

*****

Sitting on the edge of the tub, I hung my head. The timer on my cell phone finally sounded and I rose, taking slow steps toward the vanity.

Each breath I pulled in sounded like I’d just finished a marathon: heavy, raspy, uneven. Fear pummeled through my body, making me weak. I stared straight ahead at my reflection, unable to force my eyes down at the results. I looked healthy. All the girls I’d been with looked healthy. I didn’t want to look away from my reflection, because at that moment I could believe I was fine, and I was terrified that as soon as I glanced down, I would never be able to look at myself the same way.

I stared at my reflection, tracing my hand down my bare stomach, feeling over my muscles. It was as though I needed to remember this because I feared how I would look once I started wasting from the medications I’d have to shove down my throat. I had been vain and ignorant all of my life because I’d never really believed I could be destroyed. I’d never allowed myself to feel like something terrible could go wrong in my life. Who really wants to believe that? Every bit of this seemed surreal, impossible, and unimaginable.

I quickly looked down, my eyes jarring open, my jaw dropping, and every last bit of air rushing from my lungs when I saw the two lines clearly displayed in the results window.

Wait, that’s negative, right? That’s gotta be negative. Two lines is negative. T and C…

I jerked the instruction booklet open, knocking the testing kit over in the process. The pamphlet shook in my hands as I scanned the lines, my heart stopping then speeding up to the point of making me dizzy when I read back over the sentence informing me that two lines were a positive result.

I have fucking HIV? I’m sick! I’m diseased, I’m gonna die. Fucking shit. This isn’t real. This can’t be real. I can’t have HIV, I just can’t. I don’t want to.

Acid ripped its way up my throat and I ran to the toilet, spewing my nerves out in it.

After I’d vomited, I stayed on the floor and leaned my head against the cool wall. My body was drenched in sweat, my heart pounding; every last piece of me was tingling.

When something so damning, so profound, so unwanted happens, it causes an out-of-body experience. I felt like I was watching some horrible movie, because this couldn’t really be my life at this moment. Shit like this couldn’t really happen to me, could it?

After several moments of denial and almost convincing myself that the test was just wrong, Jules’ face crept into my mind. I kept replaying how many times I’d fucked her without a condom, how many times she’d sucked my dick and unknowingly allowed a disease inside her body, and the taste of bile wafted back up my throat. I could deal with the fact that I had it, but I had guilt and remorse and a complete inability to accept that I had most likely given this to her. She had trusted me, and she never should have.

Life at that moment seemed nothing short of a sadistic bitch from hell. Fate had waited twenty-seven years to put someone in my life that I loved. It had denied me the ability to be with her a year ago like I’d wanted, in which case, I never would have fucked the girl who had given me HIV, and now look at the situation; I had a terminal illness that I had most likely given to the girl I loved. I wanted to give her the world, I wanted to make her feel ways I was certain no other man ever could, and I had given her death.

I couldn’t believe that just like that, my entire life had been changed—other people’s lives had been forever changed. I’d been conditioned to believe that whenever I made a mistake, I could go back and repair it. I’d always had the label’s PR to do a public apology for me tearing up a hotel room, or for running through the lobby naked, or for fucking a senator’s daughter and publicly humiliating his family; but this was a mistake that no amount of backtracking could make go away. This was a stain that no amount of cleansing could erase.

Chapter 29

My house was absolutely silent, and I’d been sitting at my dining room table for what seemed like hours. I hadn’t been able to sleep the night before because all my mind had done was replay the sight of that test. I was too busy trying to figure out how to tell Jules, how to tell the guys, how to handle the onslaught of media that would accompany any official diagnoses.

I’d gotten out of bed at three in the morning to type up a letter to the label requesting they let me out of my contract. I figured it would be for the best. People can say what they want, but most probably don’t want to have physical contact with someone who they know has HIV. It’s human nature to avoid shit that can kill us. People have a fear of heights and snakes and spiders because they pose a threat. Instinctually, I was now a threat. Would fans really want to be at the front of the stage where my sweat could sling onto them? I’m sure some wouldn’t want to come to meet and greets and have me stand next to them in pictures. Not to mention, I’d read that the medications made you sick as hell, so how could I really travel like that and put on shows when I felt like I was dying, well, actually, while I
was
dying?

My phone sat in front of me, and all I’d been doing for the past hour was staring at it. I had to tell Jules.

How in the hell are you supposed to call someone and tell them shit like that? I knew that when I called her she would be expecting an apology, for me to tell her she didn’t need the label, that
we
didn’t need the label; not that she needed to go get tested for HIV.

Covering my phone with my hand and scooting it away, I slammed my head down onto the wooden tabletop. Then my phone rang.

I lifted my head and moved my hand away to see Jules’ name on the screen. I closed my eyes and pulled the phone to my ear, swallowing.

“Hey…”

“Tell me James is lying to me,” she yelled. “He’s lying, right? Just to make sure I stay the hell away from you?” She fell silent for a second, I guess expecting me to answer. “Rush”—her voice was shaking—“it’s a lie, right?”

I swallowed again and my pulse immediately raced, thumping through my temples and chest. I had to think for a second because there were a hundred things James could have told her, but when a loud sob broke through the phone and she panted to catch her breath, I knew
what
he’d told her.

“I’m sorry. I had no idea. I wanted to tell you in person, I—”

A shrill scream pierced my ear and I yanked the phone away. When I brought it back to my ear, she was ranting. “How could you do this to me? Why wouldn’t you have told me? I
never
would have thought you would be so selfish, so mean. I thought I knew you, Rush. What kind of sick fucker are you? You have ruined my life…why? Why would you do that to me, to all those other girls? How could you lie like that?”

Confusion drowned me because she made it sound like I knew I had it. “What do you mean?” I shouted over her tirade.

She didn’t stop, she just kept yelling at me. “I can’t fucking believe you. I just can’t! How could you fuck me
knowing
you had AIDS? Why would you even lie to me and tell me you loved me? Did you just want someone to be miserable with you? That’s why you suddenly decided you wanted to be in a relationship? Huh, give me AIDS so I have no choice but to stay with you? I fucking hate you! You are—”

“Jules!” I screamed into the phone. “I didn’t know! What the hell are you talking about? Do you think I would have put you in a position like this on purpose? Fucking shit, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t…I didn’t know.”

She fell quiet then cleared her throat. I could hear her swallowing back tears. “James told me. You don’t have to keep lying to me.”

Rage immediately consumed me. Every muscle in my body tightened and clenched. “James told you
what
? What did he tell you?” I growled.

“That you’ve known since we got back from tour. That you just came clean to him because you don’t know that you’ll be able to do the tour, whenever it happens. That’s why you wanted out of your contract,
not
because of me.” She pulled in a quick breath and mumbled, “I can’t believe you. I don’t know what to believe.”

“He’s lying, I found out yesterday. Yester-fucking-day!”

A disbelieving, sarcastic laugh forced its way out of her. “Okay, Rush. Sure. James is just lying for no reason.”

“Yeah, he is. He’s a piece of fucking shit. Don’t you think I would have told you? You really think I would have just kept fucking you?”

She didn’t say anything for a few seconds, and then she drew in a deep breath. “It doesn’t really matter when you found out, does it? That doesn’t change anything in the grand scheme of it all.” Her voice softened and hurt became evident in her tone. “If you found out yesterday, why didn’t you tell me then? Why didn’t you tell me the minute you thought you had it?”

Huffing, I stood up and ran my hand over the top of my head as I paced my dining room. “Jules, the label and health department just called me yesterday to tell me I’d been with someone that tested positive.”

“Wait, you haven’t even taken a test? So, you don’t even know if you have it then?”

I had to swallow, and my breathing quickly grew ragged. “I tested last night with one of those at-home kits.” I have never had such a difficult time getting words out of my mouth as I did at that moment. “It…it said that…it said that I had it. But I gotta go to the doctor and get tested again. Those tests can be wrong, you know?”

I could hear her crying.

“Jules, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do. That’s why I flipped out on you yesterday. I love you. I do fucking love you. I wouldn’t hurt you on purpose.”

I didn’t know what else to say to her.

“Sure, Rush, I know you are. I’m sorry too.” And she hung up.