“Would you like to go ahead and do STI testing then? Just in case?”

“Okay.” Her eyes stung. She was not going to cry. But she understood. STI meant STD. Sluts got STDs. She’d seen the scare pictures in sex ed. The sores and the foul smells and the snickers forever behind her back. She was not that girl. She was not that girl.

“It’s a blood test and a urine sample. Shouldn’t take long at all. What about birth control? Would you like Plan B today?”

“Okay.” She was on the Pill, but had she remembered to take it that night? Or the night before? Or last night?

“Do you have any reason to think your partner might be HIV positive?” asked the nurse.

“What?” Sweat popped open the pores on her neck, beneath her arms. Her breath quickened.

“If you think you might be at risk we can get you on PrEP. It’s one pill a day for twenty-eight days. It’s not one hundred percent, but if you start within seventy-two hours of exposure and take it as directed we think it’s very effective.”

“Okay.” Claudia tried to swallow but her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. The nurse was talking about AIDS. She might have AIDS.

“Is this the first time you’ve had unprotected sex?” asked the nurse.

“Yeah. I guess it is. Was.”

“Was it a new partner?”

“Um…” The nurse waited, but Claudia couldn’t think of what else to say. She felt like she was shrinking.

“Was alcohol involved?”

Claudia nodded. “I’ve only ever blacked out once before.”

“Do you think that’s what happened? You blacked out from drinking?”

“I don’t really remember.”

“Would you say you think the sex was consensual, then?”

“Consensual?”

“If you were incapacitated, do you think you were the victim of an assault?”

Claudia didn’t answer. She remembered dinner with Lolly and Adrienne Kennedy, the twins she’d gone to prep school with. But after that there was nothing.

“Claudia?”

“I don’t know.” It took everything she had not to scream it.

“Okay. If you’re willing, I recommend the STI tests, and the PrEP, just in case. Have you ever used it before?”

Claudia shook her head.

“The side effects are minimal, but you do have to take it every day for the whole twenty-eight days for it to be effective.”

“Okay.” She sounded like a moron: okay okay okay. She should have questions; she did have questions, but she seemed to have lost the ability to ask them. Nearly lost the ability to speak.