The hospital room is too bright. Fluorescent lights hum overhead, the kind that make everything look washed out and unreal. I sit in the donation chair with my sleeve rolled up, watching the needle slide into the crook of my arm. The nurse tapes it down and adjusts the line. She's efficient. Kind, in the distant way hospital staff are kind when they've seen too much.
"You're doing great," she says. "Just relax."
I nod. My thumb presses into the inside of my left wrist, hidden beneath the armrest. It's the only part of me that's moving.
Across the room, Giselle lies in her hospital bed, propped up on pillows, IV in her arm. She looks pale and delicate, exactly the way she needs to look. Her eyes find mine and she smiles—small, grateful, the smile of someone who's been saved. I look away.
The blood moves through the tube. Dark red, steady. I watch it fill the bag and think about nothing. That's the trick I've learned over three years: how to be present in my body without actually being there. How to float just above the pain so it can't quite reach me.
"You okay, honey?" The nurse is back, checking the flow. She's looking at me more closely now. "You seem a little out of it."
"I'm fine," I say.
She doesn't look convinced, but she doesn't push. She just pats my free hand and moves on to check Giselle's vitals. I hear them talking in low voices. Giselle's laugh is soft and breathy. She's good at this. She's always been good at this.
The donation takes twenty minutes. When it's done, the nurse removes the needle, tapes gauze over the puncture site, and brings me a juice box and crackers. "Sit for a bit," she says. "Make sure you're steady before you go."
I sip the juice. It's too sweet. My head feels light and hollow, like something has been scooped out and not replaced. I stare at the clock on the wall and count the seconds. Sixty. One hundred twenty. I just need to get through this. I just need to get out.
Then I hear the crash.
I turn in time to see Giselle on the floor beside her bed, one hand clutching the IV stand, the other pressed to her arm. She's gasping, eyes wide, face twisted in shock and pain. Two nurses rush over.
"She pushed me!" Giselle's voice breaks on the words. She's looking at me, tears streaming down her face. "She—she grabbed my arm and shoved me off the bed—"
"What?" I stand up too fast. The room tilts. "I didn't—"
"Look!" Giselle holds out her arm. There's a bruise there, dark and ugly, wrapping around her bicep like fingerprints. "She did this! She came in here and—"
One of the nurses is already on the phone. I hear her say Drew's name. I hear her say security. The other nurse helps Giselle back onto the bed, murmuring reassurances. Giselle is sobbing now, full-body shaking, the kind of crying that looks like trauma.
I take a step toward her. "I didn't touch you. I've been sitting in the chair the entire time—"
"She's lying!" Giselle's voice is raw. "She's been harassing me for months—she can't stand that Drew loves me—"
The room is spinning. I press my hand against the wall to steady myself. My mouth is dry. I try to find words, but they won't come. It doesn't matter. No one is looking at me like they want an explanation. They're looking at me like I'm dangerous.
The door slams open.
Drew strides in, still in his suit from the office, his face a mask of cold fury. He doesn't look at the nurses. He doesn't look at Giselle. He looks at me.
"What did you do?"
I open my mouth. Nothing comes out.
He crosses the room in three strides and grabs my right arm just above the elbow. His grip is iron. "I asked you a question."
"Drew, I didn't—"
He yanks me toward the door. The force of it sends me stumbling, and then there's a sound—a wet pop deep in my shoulder, loud enough that I hear it before I feel it. Then the pain hits. White-hot, total, radiating down my arm and into my chest. I can't breathe. I can't see. My knees buckle.
Drew is still holding me. His hand is still clamped around my arm, right above the joint that just came apart. I make a sound I don't recognize—something between a gasp and a scream.
"Security's calling the police," one of the nurses says. Her voice sounds far away.
Drew lets go. I collapse against the wall, cradling my right arm with my left. The shoulder is hanging wrong. I can feel it, the bone out of place, the socket empty. Every breath makes it worse.
"Good," Drew says. His voice is flat. "She assaulted someone in a hospital. She can explain it to them."
I look up at him. At the man I gave three years to. The man I just gave my blood to save his first love. He's staring down at me like I'm something he scraped off his shoe.
Giselle is still crying in the background. The sound is soft and broken and perfectly timed.
I close my eyes. My shoulder is on fire. My head is still light from the donation. I press my thumb into my wrist and count.
One. Two. Three.
I can make it through this.
I have to.
