Paper Moon

The air was so still today, soft but heavy, pressing on my lungs like lead, and mosquitoes swarmed the courtyard where we drank pink prosecco and spoke of children and the impossibility of Forever. We were still eating donuts, because the man at the store liked my shirt and gave us twice as many as we asked for. It made me reflect over its meaning, and I remembered that the man who gave me the shirt turned his entire life around to help people, to fight for a future better than the one he'd been given.

He was 20 when he got the test results that claimed to be positive but really were anything but. We sat on his bed in the boys' house in Salt Lake City, this house that until that day had been nothing but parties and games and crazy idiocy. And for a while after that, the house sort of died. I think he nearly went with it.

But he rose out of those ashes, he picked up his bags, and he went to New York to tell people his story. All these years later, and his organization has grown to a global network of young people with HIV, who spread their message, who raise awareness and reach out to those who need the help.

We were so young, sitting on that bed, and the future looked so dark, so impossibly dark. We stared at each other and had nowhere to turn, nothing to say. But when I think of him today, when I see his accomplishment and think of all the Good he has done, my heart swells with pride.

All this I thought when the man at the counter smiled at me, and I wanted to tell him. To let him know that that shirt reminds me every time how proud I am, and how inspiring my friend is to me. Instead, I thanked him, and left a bill in the tip jar. Sometimes, it's enough to just be reminded, yourself.