I donated bl00d to save my boyfriend after his friends told me he had been in a serious ac:cid:ent. As I was leaving the hospital, I heard someone behind a door say, “I can’t believe she fell for it again.”

single one of them,” he replied, closing his eyes.

I watched him.

He didn’t cry or make a dramatic scene, and I was relieved. I had no interest in drama anymore.

“I don’t expect you to take me back,” he added softly.

“How thoughtful of you,” I replied sarcastically.

“Can you ever forgive me?” he asked desperately.

I remembered the dizzy girl sitting outside the clinic, my mother holding my hair on the bathroom floor, and the life I had built in Arizona.

“I don’t know if forgiving you even