Last week, my health teacher made this long speech about how girls should spend their formative years discovering themselves and making close friends. Friendships, she said, are just as fulfilling as relationships. And I guess she’s right. I’m so grateful to have found Lydia and Claudia. I love them tons, but not in a romantic way. Not having that makes me lonely in a way that’s hard to describe.

I force myself to sit up. It’s a Saturday, which means I’ll have to be at rehearsal in an hour, where I’ll see Miles. I thought the lonely feeling would go away after our first kiss, but it’s just morphed into something else: longing. Knowing that there’s a chance we could have sex almost makes it worse because I can’t help but hope. Even if it means I’ll have to tell him.

Most people are worried about contracting the virus. If I told Claudia and Lydia, they wouldn’t have to worry about that, since we’re not exactly going to be exchanging “fluids” any time soon. But it’s different with Miles.

It doesn’t help that now I have to figure out who wrote that stupid note. I don’t even know the first place to start looking. At the freshmen in Drama Club? Eh, I doubt any of them have the patience to leave a note in my locker and wait for me to read it. Ms. Klein? Doubtful. She’s a pain, but not evil. Who else could it be?

“Why does this have to be so complicated?” I ask out loud. The Aida poster on my wall just stares back at me.

Whatever I’m feeling—frustrated, horny—gets worse at rehearsal. It’s like an itching inside that I can’t scratch and it just makes me uncomfortable. Rent is a great musical, but watching it every day makes me think about the friends my parents only mention occasionally, the ones who died before I could meet them. Ignored because they were gay guys with AIDS.

The epidemic is scary in a way I can’t fully wrap my head around, like a horror movie that sticks with me for hours after the ending credits, making my stomach flop and my knees shake. It doesn’t seem real. The fact that it is real, that it happened, makes me want to grab the kids onstage, shake them, and ask, “Do you know how serious this is? This isn’t just stuff someone made up for a musical, this is about actual lives.”