Chapter 6 - THE HIV LIE
I need to say something about the sentence that started everything.
“Angela has HIV. Did you know?”
It worked.
That does not make it right.
Months later, I spoke with a counselor because I kept replaying that moment.
She asked:
“Why HIV?”
I answered:
“Because I wanted him afraid.”
That was the truth.
Not noble.
Not clever.
Afraid.
David’s doctor did exactly what a responsible clinician should do.
He took a sexual-health history.
Ordered appropriate testing.
Explained that testing immediately after a possible exposure does not necessarily provide a definitive answer for every infection and that follow-up timing matters.
By the time David rushed to the clinic, the Arizona trip was already outside the usual emergency window for certain preventive treatment decisions.
He eventually tested negative.
Angela later confirmed she had never been diagnosed with HIV.
Her earlier bloodwork was related to an autoimmune concern.
I apologized to her for one thing only:
Using a false health diagnosis.
Not for exposing the affair.
She said:
“After what I did, you don’t owe me an apology.”
I answered:
“This apology isn’t about what you deserve. It’s about what I want to be responsible for.”
She nodded.
That was the last personal conversation we had for almost two years.
I learned something uncomfortable:
A person can be wronged and still behave wrongly.
Victimhood does not turn every response into virtue.
May you like
That mattered because I did not want David’s betrayal to become permission for me to become someone I disliked.
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