Reborn: Blood Bag No More, I Am Their Ruin

Mila Collins was given a week to live but for six days she had been all alone in the hospital when her family lived in the same city. They say your life flashes before eyour eyes when you die but all Mila Collins could see was the ceiling tiles above her hospital that she had been staring at for six days.

Her kidneys had stopped working, and a machine hummed beside her doing what her body no longer could. Her skin felt thin as paper. Every breath tasted like metal, and somewhere beneath the beeping she could hear the quiet sound of her own time running out.

She was twenty nine years old.

The door opened, and for one foolish second her heart lifted. Maybe this was the moment. Maybe her family had finally come to say goodbye.

Her mother walked in first, holding a printed sheet of paper at arm's length like it smelled bad.

"Do you know what this room costs per night?" Margaret Collins said, not bothering with hello. "Do you have any idea?"

Mila tried to answer, but her throat was too dry.

"$300 for a private room, Mila. We could have put you in a shared ward, but no, you insisted on being dramatic."

"I never asked for this room," Mila whispered.

"Well, someone had to pay for it."

Her father came in behind her, already looking at his watch. Richard Collins wore the same expression he wore at every family event, polite boredom with an edge of impatience.

"Can we make this quick?" he said. "We have a reservation at seven."

Mila looked at the two people who had raised her. For as long as she could remember, she has been donating her blood. When Sophia needed a kidney, she gave them a kidney. She had handed over her savings, turned down a promotion abroad, and given up the apartment she loved so she could move back into their house and be closer to Sophia's care.

She had even given up Edison, the one man who had ever looked at her like she mattered, because her mother said a sick sister needed her more than a boyfriend did.

Now she lay on her deathbed, they were worried about a dinner reservation.

"Where is Sophia?" Mila asked quietly.

Her mother's face softened for the first time that day. "She's coming. She's very upset, poor thing. She had to stop for flowers."

A moment later the door swung open again.

Sophia floated in wearing a cream silk dress, her hair perfectly curled, a bouquet of white roses in one hand and a paper bag in the other. She looked radiant. She looked healthy. She looked very lively like she had never been sick a day in her life.

Mila stared at her.

"You look well," she said.

Sophia smiled sweetly. "I've been taking care of myself."

She set the roses on the table, then reached into the bag and pulled out an orange. It was the same orange Mila's coworkers had sent over that morning in a fruit basket with a handwritten card wishing her a quick recovery.

Sophia peeled it slowly.

"I hope you don't mind," she said. "It would be a shame to waste it."

The sweet smell of citrus filled the room. Mila watched her sister eat the fruit one piece at a time, and for the first time in her life she felt a coldness inside her chest.

"Sophia," she said. "Where is Aidan? He hasn't visited in two weeks."

Her parents exchanged a glance.

Sophia popped another segment into her mouth and leaned close, until Mila could smell the perfume she had bought her for her twenty fifth birthday.

"Oh, Mila," she whispered. "He's been busy."

"Busy with what?"

Sophia's smile widened.

"With me."

The machine beside the bed beeped faster.

"I've been helping him, you see," Sophia said softly, almost kindly. "You've been so sick for so long, and a man has needs. Someone had to take care of him while you were away."

Mila stopped breathing.

"For how long?" she asked.

Sophia tilted her head as if the question were adorable.

"Since before the surgery."

The room went silent. The surgery happened 4 years ago. Mila turned to her mother, desperate for her to say something, anything, to deny it, to shout at Sophia, to show even the smallest flicker of outrage.

Margaret only sighed and checked her nails.

"Don't make a scene, Mila," she said. "These things happen."

Something inside Mila cracked.

"I gave her my kidney," she said, her voice shaking. “I gave up everything for her. How could you let her do this to me?"

Richard finally looked up from his watch.

"Because you owe her," he said.

Mila stared at him.

"Owe her?"

Margaret turned to her husband and gave a small, tired nod. "She's dying anyway. It doesn't matter now."

"What doesn't matter?" Mila asked.

Her father shrugged, like he was about to confess something as small as a parking ticket.

"You're not our biological daughter, Mila."

The words made no sense. She heard them but they bounced off her mind like rain on glass.

"What?"

"We adopted you from an orphanage twenty eight years ago," her mother said. "Your blood type was a perfect match for Sophia. The doctors told us she would need a donor eventually, so we chose you."

"Chose me?" Mila whispered.

"Do you think we picked you because you were special?" Margaret said, almost laughing. "You were the right type. That was all."

Mila's whole life unraveled in front of her. Every birthday her mother had forgotten. Every Christmas gift that went to Sophia. Every time she had been told to be grateful, to be patient, to be a good daughter.

"So everything," she said slowly. "Every blood draw. The surgery. All of it was..."

"Maintenance," her father said.

Sophia licked a drop of juice from her thumb.

"You were very useful," she said sweetly. "Thank you for that."

Mila's vision blurred. She could barely lift her hand, but she gripped the sheet until her knuckles turned white.

"She was sick," she said hoarsely. "She needed me."

Her mother glanced at Sophia and Sophia laughed. It was a bright, careless sound that did not sound sickly at all.

"Oh, Mila," she said. "I was cured four years ago."

The world went completely still.

"The diagnosis was never going to go away," Richard added calmly. "Not as long as we still needed you."

Four more years of monthly blood donation recovery all for a sister who had been perfectly healthy the whole time.

Mila opened her mouth but no sound came out. She only stared at the three of them, the people she had loved more than herself, standing around her bed like strangers at a funeral that wasn't worth attending.

Margaret looked at her watch.

"We should go," she said. "We'll be late."

Richard nodded and straightened his jacket. Sophia picked up her purse and gave Mila one last sweet smile.

"Goodbye, sister," she said.

The door closed behind them with a soft click and Mila was left alone.

The machine kept beeping. The orange peel lay on the table, bright against the pale sheets. Her breath came shallow and slow, and the stained ceiling tile blurred above her until it was nothing but a pale smear.

She thought of Edison's kind eyes. She thought of the apartment she had loved. She thought of every dream she had put away because someone told her she was needed.

She was not loved but was used thoroughly. Her chest tightened and the beeping began to slow. A single tear slid down her cheek and disappeared into the pillow.

If I could live again, she thought, my blood will never belong to anyone but me. Shortly thereafter, her world went dark.

She did not know how long she drifted there. It could have been seconds or years. There was no pain and no sound only a soft, endless quiet that felt like falling backward through water.

Then a sharp sting pinched her arm. Mila gasped and opened her eyes.

She was lying on a narrow bed in a small, familiar room. Sunlight spilled across a yellow wall. Above her was a ceiling with a faint brown stain shaped like a crooked heart.

Her heart pounded.

She lifted her hand and stared at it. It was smooth, strong and young. A fresh cotton ball was taped to the inside of her elbow, and a single bead of blood was blooming through it.

On the desk beside her, a calendar hung from a nail. The date was circled in red, the way her mother always marked blood draw days. It was the year she turned nineteen.

Mila sat up slowly, her breath trembling.