Hurricanes in Paradise by Denise Hildreth (web ebook reader .TXT) 📕

Winnie didn’t move. “I told you, honey; I work in the inner city. I know what the face of HIV looks like at first. I know its voice. I can read its hopelessness. And you could be its poster child.”

Tamyra sat there dumbstruck, staring at Winnie. Her body wanted to run. But she couldn’t move. The only person who had ever said those words to her had been the doctor who told her. And Winnie just lay there, as if she had said something as casual as “What do you want for lunch? the turkey or the ham?” This woman was like no one she had ever met.

Her heartbeat slowed. The blood slowly moved back to its rightful place. Over the last two days Winnie had made Tamyra feel like she could tell her anything. She slowly lay back down, turned her body toward Winnie, and leaned on her elbow. “No one knows.”

Winnie finally opened her eyes and turned her head. “They do now, baby girl.” She raised her glass and took a long swig, then rolled over and mimicked Tamyra’s position. “You haven’t told your family?”

“No.” She paused. Her eyes began to burn with tears. “I don’t know how to tell them.”

“Tell them like you told me.”

She sniffed and swatted at her tears. “I didn’t tell you.”

Winnie chuckled and reached down to grab a towel from the table beside her. “No, you didn’t, did you?” She handed the towel to Tamyra. “Do you want to tell me?”

The blood began to pump harder. She hesitated. Then finally spoke. “Yeah. I do.”

Winnie nodded.

“I met Jason two years ago. He plays in the NFL. We met on a blind date and that was pretty much it. He swept me off my feet, and I thought my life was as wonderful as a life could be, until I won my title, anyway. As soon as they placed the crown on my head, my life changed. I had to spend a year traveling the state and I wasn’t as available. That was when I noticed that he was acting distant. I questioned him about it, of course, and he answered me with an engagement ring. A four-carat, radiant-cut stone set in platinum. He said the ‘distance’ was all in my mind because I just wasn’t around as much.”

“Did you believe him?”

“At first I did, yeah. But when the new season started and he was on the road, I got a call from one of my close friends who I had gone to college with. She lives in Dallas and had seen him with a woman at a bar when his team was in town to play the Cowboys. When the team got home, I called one of his teammates, Ben, a guy with impeccable character, and just asked him if it was true. He didn’t respond at first, part of that teammate oath or something. But I begged him to be honest with me and he finally broke. He said there was rarely a city they went to where Jason didn’t have someone to spend an evening with, whether she was free or purchased. He asked me not to tell Jason who it was that had told me.”

Winnie shifted her weight and leaned in farther. “Are you still planning the wedding this whole time?”

“No, I stopped everything. But he had no idea because he had left it all up to me anyway, as if he were doing me a favor.”

Winnie puffed.

“So as soon as I got off the phone with Ben, I immediately went to my doctor to get tested.”

“Had you ever been tested before?” Winnie asked.

Tamyra’s voice constricted. “I had never been intimate before. He had been my first and my only.” The tears were hot down her face. She wiped at them with the back of her hand.

She watched as pity flooded Winnie’s expression. Winnie’s stubby, soft hand reached over and patted Tamyra’s. It was the same kind of touch her mother would have given her. “Go ahead, baby.”

“So I went to get tested and then waited. It was the longest week of my life. I had to avoid Jason’s phone calls and was doing pretty good at it until he showed up banging on my front door. But I even skirted around all of it that night too. The next morning I got the call from my doctor that changed my life. I went in to see her and she told me I was HIV-positive. That my T cell count was 889. And my viral load was 100,000. She announced my death sentence as if she were giving me results from uneventful, routine blood work.”

“Did you tell him then?”

“Yeah, I told him. I was in a blind rage. I don’t even remember driving over to his place that morning. All I remember is a depth of anger that I didn’t even know existed in me. I banged on the door of his loft like a crazy woman. When he came to the door, I went for his throat.”

Winnie’s eyes widened. “Like, fingers wrapped around his throat?”

“Oh yeah, I was screaming and yelling and crying. I told him I had given him everything and he had taken everything from me. I was honestly like a wild animal. I told him I hoped he died and that I was going to tell anyone who would listen that he had given me this. And that was the first time he ever hit me.”

Winnie wanted to respond. Tamyra could tell by the way she slightly jumped from her seat and the way she chewed on the inside of her mouth. “Where did he hit you, baby girl?”

“The first time he hit me, it was in my gut. He hit me so hard it took the wind right out of me and I fell back onto the sofa just trying to get air, any air. That was when he grabbed me by my arms, squeezing them until they almost went