Angelica

A word was written on her wrist.
The needle pierced her smooth brown skin through the dot of the letter ‘i.’ Angelica, 26, watched as the syringe vacuumed the blood from her body. She didn’t flinch.

She was already grieving two mortalities. Love. Anger. Bewilderment. Fear. Her feelings were exhausted. The needle might have been a mosquito.

Johnno looked at the tattoo and asked what it meant.

“It’s something I never want to lose,” she said.

Angelica loved her boyfriend. They’d lived together for three years, in an apartment in Sydney’s inner city. She never suspected he was bisexual, never thought to use a condom. The pill was easy and sex was great. “I’m HIV positive,” he told her one night.

Johnno looked at her arm again, his green eyes teary, and pressed the word with cotton wool. “Faith.”