Hilary, infected when she was 17, from Toronto

I was seventeen years old when I met my boyfriend. We had met through friends. He worked at a club downtown. We had unprotected sex within a few days of dating. About 3 weeks into dating him, some people at the club realized we were dating and asked me if I knew that he was HIV positive. I did not believe them at first so I asked my boyfriend. He said that it was a really mean rumour that his ex-girlfriend had made up. I believed him. About 3 months later we were laying in bed and he rolled over and said that he had something he wanted to tell me. I thought he was going to say he’d been cheating on me or something. I was not expecting to hear him say that the rumours I had been hearing were true! That was on a Friday. By Monday I had an HIV test done at my doctor’s. Four and a half weeks later my test came back positive. I was really in shock. My doctor asked me if I had any questions. I was really in shock so I said ‘no’. Then, I went to a specialist – it was there that a social worker referred me to Positive Youth Outreach and AIDS Committee of Toronto.