Plastic chairs formed a circle in the middle of the room, and the sunlight streaming through the large windows bounced off the pale yellow walls. Large ceramic pots sat in the corners of the room, their green plants fake, but effective in brightening the space. When I’d first come here, it had felt like an institution, but things had changed. Now the circle felt like a safe place, and the people I’d met here had become family. I sat down next to Will, who had his long, jean-covered legs spread in front of him. He offered me a lazy smile and raised his fist in greeting.

“Hey, mate.”

I bumped my fist against his. God, he was a baby. His freckled face and red hair made him look even younger than his nineteen years.

“What’s doing?”

People trickled into the room and took their seats. Most were young males, but there were two women, plus Frank, who had to be nearing fifty. Not that you’d know it with the way he acted. He pulled more pranks than any of the young guys did.

I was always early to things, so I knew we still had a few minutes to kill before whoever was leading the group today would begin. “Nothin’. You?”

“Just enjoying the view.” He grinned and I laughed, following his gaze to a dark-haired guy across the room.

“You still hoping Tim will dump his boyfriend for you?”

“Nah, that’d be a dog act, to hook up with someone else’s partner in here. But that don’t mean I can’t take in the sights while I still can. Only a few days left, then we’re out.”

I nodded, shifting in my seat, trying to get comfortable.

“You looking forward to going home?” he asked, diverting his attention back to Tim. Tim continued to scroll through his phone on the other side of the circle, unaware of Will’s infatuation.

“Yeah, I really am. I appreciate everything I’ve learnt and all, but I left my life in pieces. Who knows what I’m going home to, but I’ve got to go sort it out. I’ve done all I can here.”

He nodded, finally giving me his full attention. “You’re a different guy from when you came in here, you know. Remember how that first week or two you wouldn’t speak to no one and wouldn’t even look at us in group times? I bet you didn’t even hear a word for the first month.”

“I might have been in denial for a while.” I chuckled.

“A while? You took that shit to extremes, brother. You were the absolute worst out of all of us. Doc kept tryin’ to tell you that this thing wasn’t a life sentence, but you were hell-bent on beating yourself up over it. Pessimistic son of a bitch.”

I punched him in the arm. “Fuck off. I wasn’t that bad.”

He gave me a look that clearly said I had been. “It’s all right. We all knew you’d only just gotten your diagnosis. We were all in the same boat.”

The night I’d left my apartment, I’d stumbled into the nearest taxi and given the driver the brochure I’d grabbed off the coffee table. It was one of the papers Reese had shoved under my door, along with the Post-it note, laying her heart on the line. The HIV Association of Australia ran a live-in clinic for newly diagnosed patients. You could stay for as long as you needed to, and they taught you how to manage your HIV and offered counselling and support. I was still drunk when the driver had pulled up in front of the big white, hospital-looking building and I was shocked when they’d even agreed to give me a room. Shocked, but so bloody grateful. If they hadn’t let my drunk ass in, I probably would have turned around and gone home and never looked back. In hindsight, it was only liquid courage that got me that far. But once I was in, I’d known I’d done the right thing. Well, at least I had once I’d recovered from the world’s worst hangover.

“It’s been weird, hasn’t it? Good weird, though.”

Will nodded. “Yeah, but I’m keen to start living again. Being in here is like being in limbo. I miss my friends. I miss going out.”

“You miss hooking up.” I laughed.

Will blew out a long breath. “You know it.”

“So no settling down in your near future then?”

He shook his head. “No way. I’ll be responsible, of course. I’ll take my meds and I’ll have ‘the conversation’ before things get heated, but I’m not about to turn into some nun.” He eyed me shrewdly. “And you’re going home to your Mrs. Right?”

“I hope so, though I doubt she’ll even speak to me.”

Will grinned. “Then you get down on your hands and knees, confess to being a dickhead, and beg for her forgiveness.”

“That easy, huh?”

“It could be. You won’t know until you try.”

“It’s a lot for someone to take on. And she’s already gone through a lot of shit. I don’t want to add to that.”

Will’s ginger eyebrows pulled together in the middle. “Maybe you should let her be the one to decide whether you’re a burden or not? You’re way too pretty to be sitting at home alone on Saturday nights for the rest of your life, Low. And you know we’ve learnt that’s likely to be a really long time. Ain’t neither of us about to die from AIDS at thirty no more.”

He was right of course. Not so much about me being pretty, but about letting Reese decide for herself. I was past all the self-loathing I’d been carrying around. I’d done a lot of work on myself while I’d been here—therapy groups, meditation, even some yoga, though that had been a bit of a disaster at first. I’d felt like a dickhead and had spent an entire class paranoid one of my balls would pop out the leg of my shorts. I’d realised quickly that running shorts were not suitable yoga attire and was better prepared for my second class.

I’d run hundreds of kilometres, using the time to search my soul and pushing my body until I found that state of bliss where my mind felt clear again. The counsellor I’d been assigned to had helped me realise I pushed people away, to avoid them leaving me. He’d explained it was a way of keeping control, after a lifetime of abandonment. My father when I was a baby. My mother. School friends who’d turned their backs on me when they’d found out how we lived.

And I’d talked about Reese. I’d talked about her so much Will had actually banned me from saying her name for an entire twenty-four hours once. But she was one of the few who’d never left me, and who I could trust when they said they loved me. She’d stood by me, time after time. No matter how hard I’d tried to push her away, she’d pulled me right back. And if she gave me another chance, I’d be damned if I’d ever let her go again.

I nudged Will with my shoulder. “You’re pretty smart, you know that?”

“Handsome too, right?”

“You’re definitely not modest, that’s for sure.”

He shoved me with the palm of his hand as the door opened. The nurse who ran the clinic came in and sat down, crossing her legs at her ankles.

“All right, you lot. Who’s got something they want to talk about today?” She looked around the circle, meeting the gaze of each patient.

I raised my hand, and when the nurse nodded to me, I stood up and cleared my throat. “I don’t have any fears or questions. I’m fresh out of those after two months in here.”

There was a sprinkling of quiet laughs from the now familiar faces around the circle, but the nurse smiled proudly, as if my words had just made her day. I grinned back at her.

“I don’t have fears, but there is something I want to talk about.”

Will sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest like the cat that ate the canary.

“I met this amazing woman a few months ago. And I finally feel like I deserve her.”