Page 27 of Love on Her Terms
I’ve not been bullied online. Thank God for small blessings.
“You know,” Echo said, looking sad for the first time tonight, “even someone who says they’re all in doesn’t stay that way. ‘In sickness and in health,’ the vows said. Jackson stuck with me ‘in sickness’ once, but he’d never agree to do it again.”
“That’s rat behavior, too.” Mina knew her relationship problems were unique—or as unique as could be when 1.2 million people in the United States shared the same disease—but facing relationship problems wasn’t unique at all. Everyone had them.
“How come you’re not bothered by my disease?” Mina asked. Over the years she’d told many people for various reasons about her status and gotten responses from shrugs to pity to judgment to fear. Echo’s response was as cool as the best health-care practitioner’s and much warmer.
Echo shrugged. “Maybe the alcohol? Maybe I need a friend and you seem like someone worth getting to know. Freaking out would probably cost me a friendship.”
“Well, I appreciate it.” Mina had known that moving to a new town would eventually mean more tells. She hadn’t expected to tell two people in such rapid succession, and she hadn’t expected the polar opposite of responses. She certainly hadn’t expected the equanimity Echo displayed, not ever.
“There any wine left in that bottle?” Echo asked.
“No.” Mina picked it up and shook it. “We drank it all.”
“Can you get home okay?” Echo shoved at Noodle, who resisted long enough to make her displeasure clear, then hopped off.
Home was across the street and four houses down. Mina could make it that far. “I think so.”
“Wanna stay the night? I have a guest bedroom. The sheets are clean.”
“I’ll be okay,” she said, standing and wobbling a bit. “I’m sober enough to remember to take my meds and, well, forgetting to take my meds is bad.”
The last time she’d gotten this drunk had been years ago, when the guy who’d given her HIV had shown up at a bar and was making the rounds, hitting on women. When she’d confronted him on the way to the bathroom, his only response had been “Are you going to tell them?”
No had been the cowardly truth that she’d tried to drown in shots of Buttery Nipple and Rattlesnake. She didn’t remember how she’d gotten home, and she certainly hadn’t taken her meds. Her morning had been spent hugging the toilet and listening to her roommate yell at her.
“I’m not gonna stumble past you sprawled out in my driveway in the morning when Noodle needs to go out to pee, am I?”
“If that happens, let me continue to sleep. I’ll need it.”
Echo shook her head, then looked sick. “Depending on my morning, I might let Noodle crap on the floor.”
* * *
“HEY,” DENNIS CALLED from across their usual Friday night booth. Judging by the irritated curl of his friend’s eyebrows, Levi was pretty sure he’d been trying to get his attention for a while. “Did you hear my story?”
“Yeah, I can’t believe it, either.”
“You know, you’re a shitty friend.”
“Tell a different kind of story, and maybe I’ll pay attention,” Levi said defensively, even though Dennis was right.
He sighed. “Or tell it again and I’ll pay attention this time. My mind is wandering.”
That was also a lie. Levi’s mind wasn’t wandering. It was camped out in front of his neighbor’s house, waiting for a sign that she was home, something he’d not seen once this week. It was like she was avoiding him. Which, if she was, he understood. While waiting for her, he’d been trying to avoid himself all week and hadn’t succeeded. No matter how hard he worked or how many weights he shoved on the bar at the gym, he and the cruel way he’d reacted on Sunday night were there.
“I think it’s your new neighbor.” Dennis took a swig of his beer. It was a good night. He was only on his second bottle of beer. The shot of whiskey remained untouched. “I saw her walking across the campus once. She’s cute. Too young for us.”