Ficlets

Everything Changes with a Glass of Water

“Are you okay Hazel? You seem a bit…stressed?” I smiled; Joel always knew when I was upset. I laid my head on his shoulder and sighed, “I’m just really tired is all.”

“Aww, is there anything else?”

I curled up closer to him as he wrapped his arms around me, “Liam got in trouble in school today too.”

“Oh? What did he do?”

I gulped. How am I suppose to tell him this? “He was just acting out is all.”

“And what are you worried about? Do you think he’s going to become a problem child or something?”

“Not really. Just…well I’m a mother. You’d understand if you were in my place.”

“Okay,” He agreed. I yawned, “Can you get me some water?”

“Sure.”

Little did Hazel know, that as Joel went searching for a glass, he came across a cabinet, finding bottles upon bottles of AZT with Liam and Hazel’s names written on the prescriptions. He understood.

He learned.

But Hazel still did not know that Joel knew they had AIDS .

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