The Truth

Billy

On the surface, Billy was no different to the rest of us. He was slightly older, and dreadfully unattractive, but initially it was only Josh who saw past his shitty jokes and constant gifts.

"Never trust someone who's constantly giving," Josh said.

"Maybe he's just a giving person," Carly said.

"Everyone who gives like that wants something in return. Last night, when Lukas was sleeping, Billy shook him on the shoulder and offered him a sweet. He woke him up in case he wanted a sweet. Then, while we were all sleeping, his phone rang - Billy's, that is - and he answered it and had a full conversation. He didn't even lower his voice. There's something wrong when a person has such little awareness of others but keeps giving. It's like he's performing a role that he doesn't get. He's a sociopath - he only knows to take from others and that's what he expects they want."

Carly and I laughed. What he said made sense but it was over the top. He'd known Billy for a weekend, and although Saturdays and Sundays inside lasted forever, it was too soon to make such a drastic judgment. For my part, I didn't mind Billy. His constant, inept attempts at humour certainly frustrated me, but I felt no animosity because of it. His ugly face just became another one in the crowd.

Carly, among others, came to resent him for his religious idiocy. In every session he'd speak about how "God, or my higher power for those of you that aren't religious" had been a key part in his recovery. He had been clean for nine years. Happiness came down to realising that God had a plan for all of us - we just had to stay positive. His excuse for landing up in an institution was that he'd stopped taking his meds and so he'd chemically crashed. Now he was fine, and he only continued the program because he'd already started.

His idiosyncrasies gradually began to show. When a certain contentious issue was brought up in a social climate meeting, he put up his hand and stated that he'd had no part in it, even though no one had mentioned him. Then he used Shel as an example in another issue - an excuse for blaming her - and feigned not to understand why she wouldn't talk to him for the rest of the day. Josh theorised that he really did not understand.

A while later we realised there was a snitch among us - tattle taling about any indiscretions committed by the patients. We threw around blame until it settled on Billy. We knew then that, for all his generosity, he was always ready to stab us in the backs. And when we confronted him about it, he again seemed not to understand. Maybe Josh got it right.

"I almost relapsed this past weekend," he said in a much later session. "I went out with some old mates and they took me to a bar, even though I told them not to. If not for my faith, I wouldn't be here. I would've been kicked out, or taken myself out, to get back on the drugs and booze."

"I did relapse this weekend," I said. "My dad let me stay over. Although It was nice have a roof over my head, everything else was purgatory. So I went out to a shebeen, going into the township of my own accord, and got shitfaced and had sex with a stranger out back." Unprotected.

"How is that for you?" Jen asked.

"It feels like I haven't grown since I've been in here. That I've gone straight back to my old habits."

The ever-dependable Carly accompanied me to the HIV testing department. I did this far too regularly but the fear never went away. I'd taken ARVs the morning after this disastrous mistake but their success is never guaranteed. And I knew that I'd have to take this test again in another few weeks. HIV is supposed to be undetectable in the first days.

"Have you been counselled about the risks and possible outcomes?" the nurse asked me. I told her I had. "Okay. I'm going to prick your finger and take a drop of blood, then place it on this strip. If the blood rises above the second line then you're fine. If it only reaches the line, you have to take the test again in two weeks and if it has the same result, then we have a further test to confirm. If it reaches just the first line, that means that you're positive."

I watched the maroon smudge spread slowly up the strip with the horrified assurance that it would stop any second. It passed the first line and my relief was cut short by the thought that I might have to wait two weeks to be entirely sure. It reached the second line and I saw it stop. I don't know how much time passed before it continued its ascent. Maybe it had never stopped.