AIDS

"Mmmmmm baby, keep going...it feels so good....so good...."
"Wait, wait. Condom...use a condom..."
"It's OK, Kelsey. I've been checked before, everything is good, and I’ve been checked, all clear."
"Baby...what if...ooooooo..."
"If you get pregnant you can just get an abortion.”
"No, not o...oh god...oh god..."

~1 month later~

"Well, Kelsey, the tests came out negative. You're not pregnant. If you were seriously worried you should have come in much sooner though."
"I know doctor, I was just scared, I mean what if you said yes? Then what would I have done?"
"Well, it's good you came in anyway, you know that we tested you for STD's as well since you were in here anyway and hadn't been checked for awhile, correct?"
"Yes, of course. I'd asked for that to be done, one can never be too safe."
"Very true, unfortunately it appears that you weren't safe enough."
"Wha...what do you mean? You said I wasn't pregnant though!"
"You're not pregnant. You do however seem to have contracted AIDS. I'm so sorry."
"That son of a bitch! He said that he'd been checked! He said that he was all clear!"
"It's a sad fact, but people lie. We'll arrange for you to have an informational session, and if you'd like we can also sign you up for counseling. Unfortunately, we will have to inform your parents since your birthday isn't for another month."
"Oh no! Couldn't you just pretend I'm already 18? I'm so close! My mom will kill me!"
"I'm sorry Kelsey, but that's the law, besides, you'd have to tell your family eventually."
"Oh no...I can't believe this is happening to me. I know it happens to other people. But they're just numbers! I can't go into the stats. I just can't! This can't be happening to me! I don't deserve it!"
"But it is dear. I'm so sorry. I know that it's hard to believe but it's the truth. Now, the disease is still at a young stage. Here's some medicine that you can use to boost your immunity, hopefully that will keep you from getting sick for awhile, and it should help to slow the effects."
"How long do I have to take it?"
"I'm afraid you'll have to take it the rest of your life, more and more as you get older."
"Oh god...this can't be happening...no..."

~At home~

"What?!?!?"
"I'm sorry Mom. I never meant for this to happen. I didn't think one time...he said he was clear..."
"Oh honey how could you. Why would you do something like this?"
"I don't know...I never expected it to go so far...and then by the time I thought...he just said he was clear, and if I got pregnant I could just get an abortion, and I mean I couldn't think...and I'm sorry Mom!"
"I know you are. I know you are. God knows I remember what it was like being your age. And I certainly know what it's like not to want to stop. After all, if I'd been able to stop you wouldn't be here."
"No offense, but I always thought you were an idiot. I mean, I thought I'd be able to stop, I never thought I'd make the same mistake as you."
"I know. No one ever does. I'll have to call your father tonight and tell him. He won't be able to come home, he has to finish this trip, but once he does we'll get permission for him to skip the next trip so we can figure out what to do."
"What will my friends say Mom? What will I do about school? How can I keep going back?"
"Well, you don't have to tell anyone if you don't want to. If you do, make sure it's some one you trust. There's so little known still...you don't want anyone to judge you by it. As for continuing school, you can take awhile off to adjust, I'll call in as a family emergency which it is, but after that there's no reason for you not to go back."
"I love you Mom."
"I love you too."

~The phone call~

"I'm sorry Harry, but that's just the way it is. Our little girl has AIDS and we're just going to have to figure out a way to deal with it. We don't have any choice unless we kick her out of the house."
"Believe me it's a possibility. I can't believe she would be so irresponsible. Rach, you know how I feel about diseases."
"I know, but you wouldn't really shun your own daughter would you. She made a bad choice, I'm not denying that, but she's terrified out of her mind as it is. She hasn't stopped crying since she stopped talking to me. Don't you remember how terrified we were when we found I was pregnant with her? Imagine how much worse this must be. At least we knew what was involved with having a child. We don't know anything about AIDS though. And we had a choice to stop the pregnancy, and were older as well. What choice does she have?"
"We weren't that much older...and we didn't really have a choice...once you found out you were pregnant nothing I could say would convince you to get rid of the baby."
"That's all in the past. What matters now is if you're going to abandon your little girl when she needs you the most."

~2 weeks later, Kelsey's diary~

My life has changed completely. Nothing's the same. I don't look at anything the same. I don't feel the same. I never stop thinking about it. I'm not as carefree as my other friends. I can't even convince myself to talk to a guy anymore. It’s hard to picture forever. No one can see any difference in the outside. At least not that they understand. My friends have asked me why I’m so serious, why I never party anymore, why I don’t hook up with some cute guy. I just tell them that I have a lot of stress from school. That’s not the half of it though. I’ve been trying to get my friends to be more careful. But they don’t pay attention. And I can’t get them to listen to me with out telling them the truth. And I just can’t do that. If it got out I really would have to change schools. Or maybe just drop out all together. I graduate in 3 months though. Surely I can hold out that long…

~2 months later~

“You did what? With who? Why?”
“Yeah, me and Michael had such an awesome time. He took me home in his car, and then we were just talking, and he saw me rolling my neck around, and asked if I wanted a massage, and you know what comes next.”
“Jennifer you’ve got to go to the hospital right away!”
“Why, I’m on birth control, so no biggie.”
“Yes biggie! Michael gave me AIDS!”
“What? You’re kidding me Kelsey…You can’t be serious…How long ago?”
“Almost 5 months ago. I’ve known for almost 4.”
“And you didn’t tell anyone?”
“I didn’t want to be judged. You know how people react. Even my own father…he never hugs me anymore. He acts like I’m not his daughter. He’s perfectly polite. But I always see him looking at me out of the corner of my eye. And if I’m walking around the table, he always scoots his chair father under the table. I hear him and Mom yelling at each other at night. She says that he’s being a bastard for doing this to me. But I understand. I’ve always known he had a phobia of diseases. I just never thought it would affect me so much. I don’t know what I’d do with out Mom. She’s been amazing. Just a fountain of never ending strength. I never realized how wonderful she was.”
“God Kelsey…I never realized…I mean we all realized you had changed, but we never thought it was anything like this. We never even imagined anything so serious. I’m so sorry. Of course I’ll go to the hospital right away. Thank you so much for telling me.”

~1 month later, Kelsey’s diary~

Thank god we’re out of school. I know Jennifer didn’t mean any harm, but this last month has been torture. Someone called while she was in the hospital, and her parents said why she was there. So of course everyone was freaking out. And she said that I had told her to get checked out because of what happened to me. So of course word got out. Half the people have been treating me like I’m some sort of the monster, and the other half have had so much pity that it’s sickening. Thank god that I won’t have to go back there next year.

~4 years later, Kelsey’s diary~

I am officially out of college! Heck yea! This is so awesome! I got my major in Psychology and now I’m ready to be able to travel to different schools. It took me forever to decide what I wanted my major to be. I wanted to do something to make it so that more kids wouldn’t end up like me. But I didn’t have the slightest clue how to do that. I finally decided I wanted to travel around telling them how my life changed, and what I’ve had to do since then. I typed of the key diary entries that I’ve made over the years, and have been handing them out for students to read. I want them to be able to know me as a real person. Not just as some one who’s come in, given a speech, made them cry, and then vanished so they can completely forget about it 10 minutes later. I remember what high-schoolers are like; it was only 4 years ago that I was one! My counselor suggested that I get a degree in Adolescence Psychology so that I could better understand how to get my story to stay in their minds. Now I just have to figure out how to get the schools to let me in…

~8 years later, a classroom~

“So you got AIDS when you were only 17? Our age?”
“Yes, and I never expected to get it, it was a complete shock. Now I’m in the teacher position to all of you, but believe me, I’d be much more comfortable being the student even more. God knows I remember thinking my teachers had nothing better to do than to think of awful projects to assign us, but now that I’m an adult as well, I know that they really do have lives of their own. This is what I want you to take away with you. I’m not a statistic. I’m a real person. You guys have asked me about my friends, my family, my funniest stories, most embarrassing moments, strengths, weaknesses, you probably know me as well as my own parents by now. I am a person. Not a statistic. And all those statistics you’ve been shown over the years? People. Not just numbers. Please please please take this away with you. You don’t want to become a statistic. Be your own person. Don’t join the group of people who now have to take 24 pills a day like me. I’m 30 now, and I have to take 7 pills before breakfast, another 6 at lunch, and 11 during dinner and before I go to bed. I’m not that much older than all of you. I’ve just had experiences that you should pray to never have. I couldn’t get my friends to listen to me, and one of them ended up getting AIDS from the same guy who gave it to me. If even 1 of you will remember me, and be able to actually go to the hospital with some one to get the check, then I’ll feel that there’s a reason why I’m still taking all these pills to live. Don’t forget, condoms don’t stop STDS, so make sure that the person you want to sleep with is clear, don’t make the same stupid mistake I did. I lost a wonderful relationship with my father, I lost the ability to simply have fun with out having something holding me back, I can no longer travel easily since I must pack all these pills, I lost the ability to be a young person. Don’t let the same thing happen to you.”

~20 years later, Kelsey’s diary~

Ewwwwwwww I can’t believe I’m 50 now. I feel so old! What happened to my hair, my body, my skin, ughhhhhhh. I know I’ve been getting older all this time, but today I’ve actually turned 50. And my poor mother is freaking out because that means in 1 year she’ll be 70. I think I’ve lived a good life though. I’ve gone to thousands of schools. I still get many letters from students that I talked to 15 years ago. I’ve been able to watch them grow up from shocked teenagers to responsible adults. Some of them have gone to work in labs trying to find cures, others have become doctors to provide the tests, counselors to help people who have diseases, and others are health teachers of all levels trying to encourage their students to not make my mistake. I may have changed my own life for the worse, but I’ve changed so many younger people’s lives for the better, and I can be proud of that. People will still get AIDS, I can’t stop everyone. But I’ve been to schools all over the world. I went to schools where I had to have a translator standing next to me. I’ve been to little villages where they don’t even have schools; they just bring their children to listen. I’ve been all over the world, and I know that I’ve made a difference. I’m glad that I was able to at least put my misery to use, instead of sitting and moping for the rest of my life. I was an idiot, but I don’t believe I have anything to be ashamed of in my life. There’s never a day when I don’t regret what I did, or forget about the consequences, but I have learned to live with it. I believe that that is the greatest lesson that anyone can learn, because everyone will make mistakes in their lifetime, and the only thing to do, is learn how best to handle them.

~42 years later, Kelsey’s funeral~

“Today we are putting a woman to rest who touched all of our lives. She was not rich, nor a genius, nor anything spectacular, except in her caring for others. I don’t believe any of us shall ever know another woman so amazing. There have been many people who have attempted to teach us responsibility, but none ever took so much time, and allowed us to ask so many questions as did Kelsey Torrez. I remember when she came and talked to us in our junior year in high-school. I was currently dating a girl I liked very much, and we had arranged to spend that next weekend together because her parents would be away. Because of Miss Torrez’s speech, although she claimed that she had been checked and was all clear, I convinced her to come to the hospital with me. It turned out that since the last time she had been checked she had developed a STD; not AIDS, but syphilis. If it weren’t for Miss Torrez, I could very well have syphilis myself this day. In honor of her memory, I would like to dedicate this new medical facility, going to be used only for the research and development for a cure for AIDS. I and 6 other students who were able to come from the first class that she ever gave a speech in when she was only 23 will cut the ribbon for it. She lived 92 years as a strong, kind, passionate, woman, and although she never married, her last diary, dated 3 days ago shows no regrets. I would like to read you one quote from it. ‘I never imagined myself living this long. When I was 17 and discovered I had AIDS I thought my world had ended then. I’m glad to find out that I was so very wrong. I have enjoyed my life, and although my burden has been great, my rewards have been greater, in seeing young minds grow up with a new awareness, and seeing so many places, and meeting so many people, that I would never have known otherwise.’”