"Mac, Mac are you awake?"

The sound of my best friend's voice throbs painfully in my ears and I very slowly open my eyes, my eyelids squinting against the harsh florescent light. "What?" My voice is raspy and harsh, far removed from my previous gentle tone.

"The nurse, she stopped by a few minutes ago. I'm supposed to give you these."

I attempt to raise my head to see what my friend is holding but my decimated body refuses the action. I sigh and mentally curse my failing immune system. A memory flickers across my mind, its fingers brushing against my conscious thoughts. It is a memory of me when I was seventeen, young, vibrant and healthy. It was a time when I was happy, a time long before I was raped and contracted AIDS. A time long before my body began to betray me because of an action caused by my heart which longed to return to a man who lived years ago in the past.

"Mac?"

My friend's voice grabs attention of my constant wavering thoughts. It is more difficult to keep hold of my mind, to keep a tight reign on my thoughts which want to fly out of my head and go in various directions.

"What?" Longer sentences tire me too quickly to say them. My friend is forced to deal with one or two word answers.

"The nurse wanted me to give you these."

"What?"

She holds a white paper cup close to my face. "Ice chips," she says with a forced smile. She reaches her hand into the cup and removes one of the chips. With gentle hands, she rubs the solid water mass over my parched lips, to moisten them. Almost involuntarily, I part my lips and my tongue hungrily seeks the piece of ice. Deftly, Rebecca inserts it into my dry, thrush covered mouth and removes her fingers before they come into contact with any part of my body.

My throat convulses a few times, a few faux swallows before the ice chip makes its way down my esophagus. I cough once and then stop.

"Want more?" Beck asks motioning towards the cup with a fake smile plastered on her face.

"No."

"They're good for you. They'll help you get better quicker," she says with forced cheer.

I force myself to glare at her, at good, kind-hearted loving Rebecca Marshall, a girl who had stood by my side for over a decade. I swallow with some effort, forcing enough salvia into my mouth so I can get more than two words out. "We both know," I manage with some effort, "I'm not leaving here."

My best friend shakes her head and blinks her eyes, so I don't see the tears that are quickly gathering there. I don't know why she feels as though she has to hide her emotions from me behind a mask of false cheer. I had made a resolution that I am going to die, indeed that I want to die. I made that resolution the moment I woke up on the harsh, saw-dust covered caravan car of Madame Sophia, far removed from his arms.

"Don't say that," Becky says offering me another ice chip which I refuse. "You know that isn't true. You're going to be fine. It's just a phase Mac. You and I, we'll be back in our loft in no time. That is, if you eat the fuckin' ice chips like you're supposed to."

I force my eyes to look down upon my lesion covered and trembling hands. I know there is no way I am ever going to see the inside of our apartment again. I gasp when a spasm of pain rips through me; undoubtedly it is another one of my organs failing.

"Mac?" Nervously, and I think unconsciously, Rebecca grasps my freezing hand. Her sudden touch is startling to me, since we have not made physical contact since I was diagnosed with the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome a little over six months ago. She was afraid she'd contract the silent killer from me. At first, her fear of me hurt, but like any pain, save the pain of a crushed heart, one grows accustomed to it. "Mac, are you all right?"

I nod and force a smile. "Yeah," I wheeze. "Yeah."

"You sure? Want me to call a doctor?"

"No."

"Is there anything I can do for you?"

I grin in earnest. "Yuh—yes."

"What?"

"My…my notebook." My throat muscles are beginning to spasm, making it difficult for me to get many words out. Without me asking, Rebecca thrusts another ice chip into my mouth.

"What about your notebook?"

"Guh—get it please."

She nods and raises from her chair beside my bed. She crosses my confined hospital room and opens the closet where my stuff is stashed. The few possessions Beck brought from our loft, the few material things I will ever touch or see again.

"Got it!" She says, holding up the much battered blue spiral bound notebook. Holding it tightly, she crosses back to my bed and once again sits down on the hard plastic chair. "What do you want me to do with it?"

"Ruh—read it to me."

Rebecca nods and opens up to a random page. "'About a week later, I was released from the hospital into the custody of Rebecca. My mother refused to leave New York, afraid I would try something stupid like kill myself. I had already made that attempt twice and failed on both accounts. She was afraid I would allow the fact I was raped and my subsequent diagnosis of AIDS to get to me. So she and Becky tried their hardest to keep my in high spirits. I don't know why, I'm simply a dead girl walking.'"

My best friend looks up at me and frowns. "This is some depressing shit," she said, flipping ahead a few pages. She once again begins to read. "'"Mac, take your AZT.' The saying of the loft! Everyone, it seemed, felt compelled to utter that melodious phrase. If my mother wasn't out food shopping, she too would have joined in the annoying chorus.'"

My best friend stops reading and grabs a tissue from my bedside. She pretends to sneeze and surreptitiously dabs her eyes. She doesn't think I realize she is crying. She sniffles a few times and then favors me with a grin. "It's weird not yelling at you to take your AZT," she says, her voice breaking ever so slightly. She gives my decrepit body a once over and then once again wipes at her eyes.

"Damn allergies."

"Yuh—you can cry you know," I rasp. "I nuh-know what's going to huh-happen to me."

She smiles and allows a solitary tear to slide down her cheek. Quickly, she blinks away the others. She doesn't want to acknowledge the fact that her best friend and 'sister' is dying. "It'll be weird not yelling at you to take your AZT. I'll miss that."

"Me too." My hands twitch on the thin hospital coverlet. "Me too."

A moment passes where neither of us says a word. Then my friend breaks the silence. "Mac, do you forgive me?"

"Fuh-for what?"

She swallows hard, in vain attempt to keep the sobs out of her voice. "For dragging you to Steve's party that night? For leaving you so I could get laid by Steve, leaving you alone knowing you'd never been to a frat party? For letting Steve hook you up with Kyle? For not leaving the party to look for you as soon as I realized you were missing but rather went back for another round with Steve? For inadvertently getting you raped and causing you to die?" She is crying in earnest, tears of guilt release themselves in sobs of torment. She clutches my hand tightly. "For not comforting you when you needed me? For letting my fear of touching you get in the way of our friendship? For trying to make you forget him?"

With a great deal of energy, I force one of my shaking hands to grasp hers feebly. I force myself to swallow several times so I can speak. "I—I don't blame you. Never did. Never will. Not your fault. Love you like a sister," I hate how my body refuses to let me utter full sentences. I do not have the energy. "Don't blame you. Never blamed you. No need to forgive you."

"Just say you forgive me Mac. Please?"

"Forgive you. I forgive you."

She smiles and wipes her eyes. She thrusts another ice chip into my mouth and this time, she wipes my lips with her thumb. "Thank you."

"Ruh—read to me," I wheeze.

"From your notebook?"

"Yuh—yeah."

"More of the depressing shit?"

"Fruh—from the beginning. Want to hear it. Want to hear about him. Need to hear about him. Love him. Please?"

Rebecca nods and opens the cover of my battered notebook, stopping at the first page. Her voice shakes from suppressed sobs as she reads. "' Whoever said "life is like a box of chocolates" neglected to factor in deadly food allergies; trust me, I should know.'" She looks up from the book and stares at me. "That part?"

"Yuh-yeah. Tuh-hill the end puh-lease."

Rebecca nods and once again reads the sentence. I close my eyes and lean into the softness of my pillow, allowing my mind to delve into the recesses of memory and pluck forth the images of the strangest adventure of my entire life. Images from the adventure that Rebecca is reading to me, images from the adventure that nearly took my life and separated me from the one man I ever allowed myself to love.