Sidenote: This story is completely fictional and is of my own of my opinions and beliefs.

“Hey Ethan, how are you?” Sam asked as she and Ethan sat together for lunch. It had been at least 8 weeks since they last spoke, both were dealing with problems of their own. “I’m doing… I’m doing… I’m fine” Ethan responded hesitantly.

Despite Sam feeling that he was hiding something, she ignored her instincts. “Well how have you and Bill been doing?” he then asked her, to which she responded “We’ve been doing great". However, her uneasyness was so blatant to Ethan that he gave her a look. She then explained "I mean, everything just happened so fast. But we’re fine now, and we’re going to be alright”.

“What happened?” he asked, it was out of character for her to act this way, and to look so pale.

She began to become more nervous as there were many people in the room. Ethan seeing this moved closer to her, and held her hand “It’s alright, you can tell me anything”, he paused. “Now, what happened?”.

“It was one time!” Sam said in frustration. “It was one time, and it wasn’t even that great! I mean, how can one mistake mess up everything!” she said, and repeated again. Her face turned red as she became more and more in a in a fluster, she didn’t know what to do in her situation, as she felt the walls of religion and forced morality close in around her.

“What do you mean? What did you do?” Ethan asked as he tried to calm her. “Bill and I had sex 6 weeks ago, and we didn’t use protection” she said, looking at Ethan in the eye. “And now, well, I’ve been feeling nauseous recently, bad cramps, and noticed that my period was late” she paused. “I went to the doctor a week later after that, and” she paused again.

“I’m pregnant, and Bill doesn’t know” she stated as she sighed. It was the first time she had told anyone about her condition, she for the first time felt relief, instead of shame. “And my parents don’t know either, they just think that it’s my time of the month again, and God I wish it was”.

Ethan’s face was emotionless, but was listening as she continued to speak.

“When I first found out, I felt so much shame. You remember all of those abstinence lessons we had in class, and those talks about virginity. ‘Your virginity is like a flower’ Mrs. Talbot would say. I remember she had all the girls in our class hold these flowers in our hands, then crumple them. ‘Now try to repair them’ she said, however because of the delicacy of the flower, we were not able to. ‘That flower is your virginity’ she said, ‘and your virginity can only be taken by your husband, not by anyone else’. Those words still haunt me today” with her placing her hand on her stomach when saying the last sentence.

“Mrs. Talbot never taught you about condoms either?” Ethan asked with surprise. “No, did she teach you?” Sam replied. “Well, unfortunately no. I mean, we were taught the same things as you, that ‘God is watching’ and being told that ‘premarital sex is a sin.’ We were never taught about condoms. I mean, one of my cousins from California tried to talk to me about it, but I still didn't get it. And well, that leads to something that I have to tell you too,” he said.

“What is it Ethan? You can tell me anything” she remarked, grasping his hand.

“Well, Mark and I, sort of did the same thing as you and Bill a while back, except neither of us got pregnant” Ethan stated hesitantly. “Yeah, so what’s the problem with that?” Sam smirked.

“I got a blood test yesterday, and, it turns out that I now have HIV” he said. Sam’s face became pale as he said this, with her smile fastly disappearing. “I’d never thought to ask Mark about his past, his sexual history, but now I see I should’ve”. “Well, why didn’t you wear a condom” Sam asked. “Because I didn’t see any risk in Mark and I doing it. I mean, I knew that this HIV/AIDS thing is real, but it didn’t even cross my mind until I saw my positive results yesterday. You see, homosexual sex was never talked about during ‘Sex Ed’, because, well you know why. They believe it’s sin, something morally wrong. And I just never knew until it hit me all at once. 2 days ago I felt so invincible that I could take on the world, but now, I can barely look at myself in the mirror. The shame, the shame” he said.

“Don’t say that! There is nothing wrong with being gay, nothing! I just don’t understand why they don’t teach it” Sam declared. “It’s because of the abstinence education” Ethan said, “because in our state of Arizona, schools aren’t required to even teach sex education, not even in 2018.

“I mean, I don't understand why they don't just teach us about sex in the first place? Really, we're all going to do it anyway" she then paused. "So, what are we going to do now?” Sam asked, having an unsure look on her face.

“Maybe we can…”, then the bell rang. “We’ll talk after class Sam, and try to get everything sorted out. I don’t want to be late to 5th period again, or Mr. Gibbons is going to mark me late again” Ethan said, trying to brush it off.

Both students after saying their goodbyes headed different directions, and off towards their classes. It was their spring semester senior year of high school, and they were both already accepted to UC Berkeley and NYU. They firmly believed that they would sort out their situations when school ended, they really believed.

US Sex Education Info Links:

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1622610

https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/group/age/youth/index.html

https://www.glsen.org/learn/policy/issues/nopromohomo

http://www.prochoicearizona.org/what-is-choice/sex-education/