“Why don’t you just give up?” I yelled again at him. The tears had started to flow down his cheeks, and there was no tissue I could give him, nothing to wipe up the wetness that revealed everything and yet nothing. The radio was playing something more happy now, but it just made me all the more angry. I wanted to hit him so bad, anything to stop the pain- his pain as well as my own. His sandy bangs were long enough to cover the black and blue mark that was swelling his left blue eye closed, a mark that I knew he was afraid of, as well as the person who gave it to him. I wouldn’t add to that bruise though, as much as I wanted to.

“It’s all your own fault. You only have yourself to blame!” I cried at him, trying to get a reaction, anything more than tears. He looked up at me with pain in his eyes, at least the one he could still open. I remembered that night, the night that he had given into the pressure and had gotten drunk. The night that he had given into his feelings. The night that I had found him in some guy’s lap, the two of them making out. Word had gotten around, especially after it had happened again, and he had gotten his ass kicked. I had tried to tell him that he wasn’t gay, but something in him had known all along. I suppose even I knew all along, but I didn’t want to admit it any more than he did. Less, if any.

“I can’t believe how stupid you are!” I shouted again, raising my arms, shaking my fist at him. He didn’t cower or flinch, my actions only brought on more tears. I turned away, I couldn’t take any more of this. I crumbled to the floor, exhausted with being angry, but still not understanding it all. That was what hurt me the most. He was so different than how I had known him to be before. The damned piano music was still playing, it must be Tori Amos I realized. The rage flew in me again, he should be listening to hard rock or punk rock, anything but this “girly” music. No other guy I knew listened to this stuff. It was why he was getting in trouble.

“You should have been more careful!” I screamed for the last time, turning back around to look at him. He had sat down too, tears still coming down his face. He was ugly like this, and I just wanted to leave. I couldn’t though. After the party he hadn’t just made out with the guy, he had followed him home and they had done it together. I talked to him later, and I knew that he was feeling really dirty about it, just horrible. What I said must have just killed him, but I had to say it. A few days later, the guy had come up to him and apologized and told him that he was sorry for any harm, but he thought he should tell him that he probably had AIDS. He got tested, and he had HIV. I talked to him for at least an hour that night.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do.” He whimpered at me, the first words I had heard from him since I began yelling. We were alone in the house, otherwise I wouldn’t have been so loud or bold. He didn’t know what to tell his parents, they didn’t know that he was gay and they didn’t know that he was dying. What could one tell their parents? I was sorry that I had yelled at him, after all, I should have been there to support him. I just couldn’t do that though. I was still too angry. He was a beautiful young man, why him?

“No!” We both sobbed in unison. I went to reach out for him, to take his shoulder and lend support, maybe even to give him a hug, but my hand hit glass. I had been talking to my reflection in the big mirror in my room. There was nobody to put his hand out to help me up, nobody for me to talk to, nobody to yell at me, nobody left to love me. I was alone in this, alone in talking to my parents, alone. They would find me later tonight, with my bruised eye and I would have to tell them. I was too attractive and too much of a good student for them to believe that I had done it out of anger, not to mention the fact that I couldn’t lie.