How I contracted HIV is none of your damn business. I’m going to tell you what happened, but not because I owe you an explanation. Here goes.

My friend with benefits at the time casually suggested that he should get tested because he knew that he “messed around with several different people.” As he made this suggestion, it forced me to think on the last time that I was tested for HIV, which was a shaky a year and some months ago. The fact that I could not pinpoint the exact date of my last negative test result really bothered me, and the butterflies in my stomach began to swirl around like a storm…