By the time the news came through from the doctor she was already gone, she had hated bad news all of her life, but this time
the bad news she knew would come would be the news that would end it all. She had been called in to see the doctor over half
an hour ago, he had called her at work an hour ago to come in and see him to pick up her results. She had been attacked
by a junkie on the streets a couple of nights before and had only brought up the courage to tell someone that he had jabbed her
with a needle. The doctor had requested she have an HIV test. So she went along gracioulsy and given her blood, but as time went
on she realsied that she couldn't live with this. She had watched her friend die of HIV many years ago and she never wanted
to go through that. She had watched as her friend grew weaker and weaker by the day, how the skin lesions had spread over his body
and how at the nd he had not even resembled the friend she had come to know. She had a family, a husband and two children, she couldn't
no she would not put them through that. she was not the type of person who liked having someone look out for her, she loved her
children dearly. They wouldn't understand that mummy was dying, that she would not be with them always, how could they understand
something like that. And her husband, she didn't want him worrying about her, about how long he had left with her, always wanting
hjer but fearing that she would pass this onto him too. She wouldn't allow it. God, how long had the doctor been gone for now?
thirty minutes, forty-five, this wasn't good news, she just knew it, something deep inside was whispering to her "it's over".
Why did she have to be so stupid, why couldn't she have just waited with her friends in the bar that night, why did she insist on walking
home alone, why couldn't she have gotten a cab. But the voice inside was right, it was too late, there was no point in looking back now,
wondering what should have been, and what could have been.
  It was too late, the thing that hurt the most is that she could not go to the police now, she did not remember his face, she had showered
away all possible evidence as soon as she got home, and she had told no-one, she thought i was just another way to get people to feel sorry
for her and that was not something she wanted. The bastard was going to get away with her murder and there was nothing she could do about it.
It freaked her out to think that essentialy although she was still alive, she had been murdered.
She did not wanna go out like this, like some frail old woman too wracked with pain to do anything for herself, to become a complete dependent
on her family, she was a proud woman, and she believed herself to be a strong woman, someone who could make the hard decisions when push come to shove.
She sat alone in the cold doctors office, white paint drying on the walls, no pictures, no colour, completely void of personality, the room
seemed lonely, like no-one lived here. Her mind made up, a tear rolling down her face, she stands to her feet. Slipping her belt off her body loop
by loop. Once off, she ties it into a circle, she looks around. She sees a bar hanging from the far side of the doctors office, where o curtain
should have been. She slips the loop over her head and with the rest of the belt dangling from her shoulders she walks towards the bar. Behind
her she drags a chair from the far side of the room. She climbs upon the chair and slowly so not to make a mistake she ties the other end of the
belt around the bar. her body wracked with sobs, she's afraid, she doesn't want to leave, but she  see no other option. She can't go home and
be with her family now, she was a different person now. Part of him was part of her. She thinks she is more like him now.
With one final gasp she says goodbye and kicks away the chair. Oh my god, she never thought it would hurt this way, the breath being sucked
away from her like she was in a vacuum. The lights are dimming now. its too late. its always too late.
  The door opens. the doctor walks into the room. Shouting for help he rushes to her, but she had allready left. it was too late, too late for
her to hear that her tests had come back all clear.