This Time My Blood Is Mine

My boyfriend, Tony, dragged me to the campus blood drive run by the Student Volunteer Coalition. I was chronically anemic—nowhere near the safety threshold to donate—but when I tried to pull back, he just scoffed. "Why did you even join the SVC if you don't have a bone of civic duty in your body, Naomi?"

He coaxed and guilted me onto that bloodmobile. But I didn't know then—not until I was already lying on a sterile hospital bed—that my blood wasn't destined for some anonymous bank.