CHAPTER 42: FIRST FRIEND

The sound of crying was the only thing filling the quiet room, echoing off the pale walls like a sad, broken melody. It was soft at first, more like a whimper than a wail, but it built steadily, rising and falling in waves that refused to be ignored.

Anita sat across from her. Her hands were folded on her chest as her back leaned on the chair, watching Tessa bawl her eyes out – shoulders shaking with every sob, her breath coming in jagged little bursts like a record skipping on a painful song.

Anita exhaled quietly, her heart aching with a tired kind of sympathy. Not pity, never that, but the ache of someone who had once cried in the same silence, in the same way.

She reached for the tissues. Again. A heap of used tissues sat on the table like a defeated army, damp and crumpled.

"Here," she said quietly, sliding another fresh wipe across the coffee table. "At this point, we might as well invest in a tissue company."

"I–it hurts s–so much," she hiccuped between words, her trembling hand reaching forward to take the tissue.

Anita didn’t speak. She just watched quietly as Tessa blew her nose, sniffing again.

"Wh–what do I tell my family, my friends?" she covered her face with her palms, "Everyone’s going to stay away from me. They’re going to look at me as a HIV patient. They’re going to be more cautious and, and—" she couldn’t even finish it. Imagining how her life would become after this, Tessa wanted to just...die.

Anita leaned forward just slightly, her expression steady, voice low and even. "They’ll look at you the way you teach them to."

"What?" Tessa slowly lowered her hands, eyes rimmed red and glistening with tears as she focused her attention on Anita.

Anita met her gaze. "You’re still you, Tessa. This... doesn’t erase the person you were yesterday. It doesn’t define your worth. It changes some things, yes. But it doesn’t change everything."

Tessa blinked, her swollen lip trembling. "But it feels like it does. Like I’m... contaminated. Like, like I’m a threat to humanity."

Anita’s jaw tightened at the word. She reached for her own mug of tea, now cold, and clasped it in both hands as though it grounded her.

"Do you know how many women I’ve seen go through this exact storm?...like they can’t get up after a fall?" she said, her tone soft but firm. "Too many. And every one of them felt what you’re feeling now. Devastation. But the brave ones...the ones who fought back against the shame, ended up living full, powerful lives. Not because people let them, but because they insisted on it."

Tessa gave a watery laugh, short and bitter. "Brave," she murmured, shaking her head. "I don’t feel brave."

"No one does when they’re bleeding," Anita said. "But that’s the thing. Bravery isn’t loud. Sometimes, it’s sitting exactly where you are, facing it without running."

Silence fell between them for a beat, the crying tapering off into small, exhausted sniffles.

Tessa wiped her nose again. "I don’t know how to do this."

"That’s why you came to me, isn’t it?" Anita asked, sipping her tea.

Tessa nodded, tears spilling once more. "My family cannot stand up against Clifford. And my mother... she’ll break. She already has so much to deal with–her health, the stress. This will destroy her. And my dad... he won’t know how to fix it. He’ll blame himself for letting me date him."

She let out a hollow laugh. "As if I didn’t choose him against their will. As if I didn’t love him."

Anita’s expression remained calm, watching her silently over her tea cup.

"That’s the worst part," Tessa whispered. "I loved him. I trusted him. And he still did this to me. He gave me this virus like it meant nothing. Like I meant nothing."

She looked up, eyes bloodshot. "How do you survive something like that? Loving someone who leaves you with a life sentence?"

Anita didn’t speak right away. She gave the question the gravity it deserved.

"You survive by grieving it," she finally said. "Not just the diagnosis, but the betrayal. The version of him you thought was real. The future you imagined. You grieve it all. And then, little by little, you begin to separate his choices from your worth."

Tessa stared at her. "I feel so stupid. So used."

"You’re not stupid," Anita said calmly. "You were in love. That’s not a flaw, Tessa. It’s not a weakness. It means you trusted. That’s human. He broke that trust. That’s on him, not you."

Tessa hugged herself tightly, as if she could hold her own pieces together. Her gaze drifted to her untouched tea. No steam, no warmth. It was cold.

"And my friend... what if they all leave? What if they—"

"You prefer them, or me?"

Tessa blinked, stunned.

Her head snapped up at Anita, like she’d just heard thunder crash in a library.

"W–what?" she croaked.

Anita set her teacup down gently, then folded her hands in her lap. Her tone remained steady, but her eyes carried weight.

"You said, what if they all leave. So I’m asking you, do you prefer them, or me?"

"I... I don’t understand." No, she did, but she couldn’t believe it.

Anita Blackwood — the Anita White — a woman whose friend list was as scanty as the teeth in a baby’s mouth, the woman whom countless women admired from a distance, craved to befriend, but didn’t dare to go close to. She was the kind of woman who didn’t do attachment. A woman who’d dine with Queens and First Ladies without giving them as much as a second glance...

...was offering her, Tessa Lane, a twenty-one-year-old college student with trembling hands, a broken heart, and HIV status, a place beside her.

Not out of pity. Not out of obligation. But by choice.

Tessa’s breath caught in her throat.

Tessa grew up watching Anita speak on the TV. Her mother never missed any of Anita’s rare interviews — "That woman speaks like her words are dipped in fire," her mother used to say, eyes glued to the screen. Anita wasn’t just a public figure in their household; she was a voice of truth and power in a world that silenced women.

Tessa became Anita’s fan, saw her as a role model, tried to emulate her in every way but failed. She idolized her, and never thought, for once, that they’d sit on the same table, let alone...

"Y– you’re saying... you want to be my friend?" she whispered, voice barely above the ghost of her voice.

Anita didn’t flinch, didn’t smile, didn’t soften. She simply nodded once.

"I’m saying if the people you thought would stay choose to leave," she said, voice quiet but firm, "then make room for those who’ll walk into the fire with you instead of running from the smoke."

Tessa stared. Her lips parted, but no words came out. Just a fresh wave of tears — not the kind that tore through her, but the kind that slipped down quietly. Healing ones. Honest ones.

"I... I... I prefer you," she whispered.

Anita nodded again. "Good." She reached out a hand, for a handshake, "Anita White."