Read Online My Soul Cries Out by Sherri L. Lewis - Free Book Online Page B

there’s nothing you could do to Kevin that could make him hurt any more than he’s already hurting right now, and has been hurting since he was ten.”
    â€œDang, Trina. You know I hate you right now, don’t you?”
    Trina laughed. She put a bag of popcorn in the microwave and picked up the chocolate. “All right. Enough of that. Let’s watch some movies.”
    I grabbed Trina and hugged her. “Thanks, T. What would I do without you?”
    â€œGirl, only God knows.” Trina bit her lip.
    What would I do without her?
    We plopped in our usual seats in her family room and she cued up the first movie. As the opening credits were running, a worried look came over Trina’s face. She clicked the remote and paused the movie. “Monnie, this might be hard to think about, but well . . . I know Kevin said he only cheated one time, but just in case it wasn’t, do you think . . . I mean, not that I think anything could be wrong, but just to be on the safe side, should you—”
    â€œI already got tested, Trina.”
    She breathed a sigh of relief. “When?”
    â€œMonday.”
    â€œDag, you didn’t waste any time.”
    â€œDidn’t want to take any chances.”
    â€œSo everything’s cool then?”
    â€œI don’t know yet. I can’t get my results ’til Monday.”
    â€œOh.” A bit of worry crept back into her voice. “Want me to go with you?”
    â€œNaw, I’ll be fine. Like you said, it’s just a precaution.”
    Was I fine? What would I do if the nurse told me I was HIV positive? I had done a good job of blocking it out of my mind the whole week. Now that Trina had reminded me, it was going to be a long wait until Monday.

8
    M onday lunchtime finally came, and I found myself sitting in a packed waiting room at the county clinic again. Fidgeting. Biting my nails. Hoping. Wishing. Praying.
    It only took them ten minutes to call my name this time, but it felt like ten hours. I tried to read the look on the nurse’s face. Was she nervous because she was about to tell me my life was over? She still had that uninterested, underpaid, overworked look, so I couldn’t get any clues from her.
    She sat me in the room and told me the nurse practitioner would be with me in a few minutes. Did they always require the nurse practitioner to give test results, or only when something was wrong?
    At a clinic like this, they wouldn’t waste the nurse practitioner’s time if it wasn’t something important. My heart started beating faster. What did I have? I prayed for something treatable like gonorrhea or chlamydia. All I had to do was pop some pills and it would be all gone. Yeah. It was probably chlamydia. Women could have that for years without any symptoms.
    Oh God, please let me just have chlamydia .
    I had to stop myself. What kind of prayer was that?
    After another ten-minute-feeling-like-ten-hours wait, the nurse practitioner walked in, looking down at my chart. She flipped through a few pages. Why did it seem like she was moving in slow motion? Was that a look of pity in her eyes? Was she trying to figure out how to break the bad news? My hands started shaking.
    She finally looked up. “The nurse gave me your chart to go over your abnormal results with you.”
    My heart froze. I could hear my heartbeat in my ears, and her voice started to sound far away.
    â€œIt seems as if there’s a mild abnormality on your pap smear. It shows—”
    â€œPap smear!” I exhaled a gush of fear and tension. “I’m not worried about a stupid pap smear. What about the HIV results?”
    She jumped at my outburst. “The nurse didn’t tell you? All your STD tests, including your HIV test, were negative.”
    I didn’t know whether to hug her or smack her for not saying that first. “Oh, thank God.” I took deep breaths to get the oxygen going to my brain again.