Tierras Perdidas by: Adrianna Espinoza, Silver Gelatin Print, 2018
Most nights contrasted the blistering day with a cool, wet breeze. Not tonight. The humid heat filled the night air for miles on end. If one thing was for certain, none of that heat seemed to be coming from the street lights. The lights were doing a pretty shoddy job of lighting the area, actually. You’d have to get up close to someone to recognize who it was. It was a guessing game who was going to walk on by, an absolute mystery.
What wasn’t a mystery, though, were Meg’s heels. Each loud click kept the tempo, brisk and staccato. She paced back and forth, oftentimes walking faster as the buzz of the cicadas grew louder. The heat was clearly getting to her perm. Her fingers kept going up to her hair to fix everything. Keeping cool did not seem like an option.
She’ll burst into flames at any moment, he thought. I knew she wouldn’t take it well.
“How?”
Meg’s question caught him off guard. His cigarette was almost to his mouth, but he stopped short.
“What?” he asked.
Meg planted herself in front of him. “How did this happen? How did you get this? Where did it all come from?” She didn’t seem like she was going to stop.
He managed to get his words in: “I don’t know…”
After a moment, she went back to pacing again. The cicadas crescendoed once more, and another puff of nicotine was well overdue. His burning cigarette went straight into his mouth and in went the smoke. His body sizzled like normal, but this time he really focused on how much he or his body was destroyed inside. The sooner he burns out, he thought, the better. Meg was not on board for that, naturally.
“You’ll die if you keep smoking, you know,” she chided.
To which he quipped, “I’m already dying, Meg.”
Meg’s heels stopped clicking and her head whirled around; her perm followed close behind. It was too dark for anybody to see her shooting daggers from her eyes; one could still feel the pain that came with it, though.
That feeling needed to be burnt off. It was best to go for another smoke.
Meg reached down and snatched the cigarette out of his hand before it reached his mouth.
“Don’t be selfish,” she muttered.
He leaned back into the bench and groaned. Meg went for a puff, but opted to throw the cigarette down the sidewalk. She thought she wouldn’t get sick by sharing a cigarette, but at this point, who knows? If she got infected, then there was no cure to save her. It was best for Meg to be in good health. She had always been a good friend. Far from perfect, but decent enough. There weren’t many southern divas in town that could get along with a faggot, much less try and love him as an equal. At first, she wasn’t on board. It didn’t take long for her to sacrifice her reputation and say their friendship was worth maintaining. That maintenance started with attempting to pray the gay away, yes, but that went away over time. Meg was a person who listened well…most of the time.
“Why did you choose this?” she demanded.
That was out of the blue. “What?”
“You know what I mean.” Meg asked him why he “chose” to be gay before. The question didn’t come up all that often. When it did, though, it was followed by a period of understanding it until a stupid decision was made. His homosexuality was blamed, but in reality, he was just a little stupid. There was only one honest response to this question:
“It’s not a choice!” This time, he added, “I’ve told you this before.”
“But aren’t there better guys you can sleep with?”
Mr. Hawkins wasn’t the worst choice, in all honesty. There were a brain and a personality behind the man. Not all guys want to show that. His humor was especially tasteful. Sometimes, the occasional dad joke came out, but those weren’t too cringe-worthy. Hawkins was older than him, though; there was almost two decades difference between the two. It sounded strange, but what else was Hawkins to do? He never wanted a wife or kids, so it was reasonable for him to want some breathing room. Getting caught definitely wasn’t an option, but it turned out there were worse things than getting caught.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my choices are pretty limited.”
He probably wouldn’t have given Mr. Hawkins the time of day if there was another gay kid at school. That is, a gay kid comfortable enough with his sexuality. Unfortunately, there wasn’t. “Can you keep this a secret, though?”
“This isn’t something you can keep a secret!”
“I can—”
“Your body literally falls apart—”
“—before graduation!”
“What about after? Is that it?”
“It doesn’t really look like I can make it—“
“You act like you don’t even care about this!”
“I DO!”
The two were silent, but the cicadas were roaring. Their heads throbbed to the screeching harmony as salt forced its way through their sweating faces. At this point, Meg knew to proceed with caution; this was new territory for her. This friend of hers was not the sassy type, let alone moody. He actually could be dangerous when he was this hurt.
He wasn’t. Anything he would dish out would return sevenfold. That’s why he usually deferred, ignoring some of the taunts he got as best as he could. He expected words like “faggot” to not cut as deep over time, but each jab was about the same. The wounds just had to bleed out for a while until he felt clean, but this was different. It would be one thing if his wounds took longer to bleed; now, there was no point. One’s blood always feels filthy if every cell has been tainted.
He was still going to bleed, anyway. That’s what happens when you’re cut, and it looked like Meg would get to witness it.
The cicadas died down.
“I didn’t plan to be gay, or…or plan to get sick.” He was already starting to croak. “Some things in life choose you. If I had it my way, then maybe that would’ve been different. Sure, I chose to be with Mr. Hawkins down the street, but I needed a break! A break from being…”
He stopped and tried to breathe. Two short breaths shot their way in before he exhaled. “AIDS isn’t a good punishment for anything. If word gets out, then everybody would say that I deserved it, but who does?”
His hands went down to his pockets. “Maybe it chooses people at random. It chose me for the sake of messing everything up. If everybody’s right, and I’m going to hell, then that chose me, too. I just need to accept that and get on with it. The town might even be better with me out of the picture.”
He pulled out one more cigarette from his pocket and set it in between his teeth. Meg stood there while he tried to light it.
“Don’t say that,” Meg finally said. “Please, please, please don’t say that.”
He needed to know, Meg thought to herself. Maybe he wouldn’t feel so alone… “Look,” she sat down next to him. “I wasn’t going to bring this up, but you need to see that someone cares about what happens to you. If nobody else does, I do. I…”
Meg took a deep breath. It wouldn’t make sense for him to judge her. She felt a certain way and she could not change it if she wanted to. He knew what it was like to be in that position. What she had to say would put her in a painful position, but she had to tell herself it was like tearing off a band-aid. The pain would be temporary, and the rest is smooth sailing. All she had to do was say it. It’s time to tear off the band-aid. She took one more deep breath.
“I love you.”
Meg stared at him. Their silence was filled in with more cicadas blasting their song through the night. He couldn’t come up with a response. It wasn’t until the bugs’ hum started to die out that he forced an answer out his mouth.
“I love you, too,” he said. It was carefully executed to where Meg took it platonically.
Hopefully, that was what she meant.
“No,” she shook her head. “I love you.”
The cicadas were silent. Street lights replaced the bugs’ song with a slight buzz; its sharp hum could crawl under anybody’s skin. Finally, he started to speak, but Meg cut him off. “I know…you’re gay. My feelings can’t be reciprocated. Still, how you treat yourself means the world to me. At this point, there’s no changing that you’re sick and with AIDS, but there’s got to be something you can do to help yourself. I truly want to help you, and you don’t have to love me back. That’s too much to ask of you, I know. Just don’t give up on yourself while you’re still here. Please.”
Meg took one more breath before she got her last words in.
“I guess I’m telling you this,” she said, “to let you know that I’m scared for you. That, and I won’t be leaving your side anytime soon.”
The cicadas returned quietly. Meg searched for a reaction, but she wasn’t getting much of one. He threw his cigarette down on the pavement during her confession, and his gaze remained fixed on it. Some people look like they’ve seen a ghost; he turned into one right before her eyes.
Meg faced forward, trying her best not to burst into tears. There was no doubt in her mind that their friendship was ruined. Eye contact was going to make him uncomfortable at this point, much less speaking. Cicadas began to fill the silence again while the two sat uncomfortably, listening to the bugs’ hum as it ebbed and flowed through a monotonous aria. A light began to flicker on the street, but they continued to sit there. In fact, they waited until the very end of the song. The song died out, and one of the street lamps finally went out. Meg didn’t move, but he glanced over. It was pitch black, almost as if Meg had disappeared entirely. There was no sound, no light, and now no Meg.
So this is what it’s like, he thought.
There was nothing more painful than the nothingness he felt in that moment. He had to do something, whether it was going home or to pull out his Walkman. Any movement, though, would make him more lost then he already was.
This was going to be his future, and he was not looking forward to it.
“Meg…” he said, sheepishly. He could barely even hear himself.
He called her again, louder this time. She didn’t respond, causing his heart to fall to his stomach.
“Meg—”
“What is it?” Meg’s response was almost immediate the third time around. He felt her eyes on him, too. What a relief!
“Remember me…please.”
She embraced him, with one hand behind his head and another across his back. He huggedher as well.
“Of course I will,” she promised. “I could never forget you.”