My Bone Marrow? Not For My Killer

Senior year, the whole school lined up for bone marrow compatibility tests, all to save the campus belle, Mireille Hollis, from leukemia. I was the only match. The same Sybilla Carrow they had cornered in the bathroom and slapped around for three years. I lay on that collection bed for four agonizing hours, giving up my stem cells. I thought maybe, just maybe, I would get a simple thank-you. Instead, after she recovered, she said, "Someone like you, if you are a match, you donate. If you do not, you are a murderer." And after that, the humiliation only got worse. Much worse. Then came that shove on the stairs. I tumbled down, her laughter ringing in my ears. The back of my skull cracked against the edge of a step. Blood oozed from my ears. By the time the ambulance arrived, my pupils were fixed and dilated. I was reborn. The day the matching results came out, I clutched that report slip and slipped into the bathroom. Whoosh! The water gushed. Gone. Just like that. My bone marrow? No one is touching it in this lifetime. No one. ***** The report fluttered from my fingers into the toilet bowl. Whoosh! I stared down as those few printed lines were swallowed by the swirling water. Match successful. Those two words had been my death sentence in my last life. "Sybilla! You done yet? The homeroom teacher wants everyone to gather!" Valerie Vance's voice snapped from outside the door. I slammed the flush button, watching the shredded paper spiral into the drain. "Coming." When I pushed the door open, the sunlight pouring through the corridor window made me squint. Outside Class Twelve's door, a huge crowd had gathered. Homeroom teacher, Mrs. Sterling, held a list, reading off names one by one. "Everyone, please actively participate in the matching. This is a life-saving matter. We all know about Mireille's situation..." I stood in the very back row of the crowd. The moment the name "Mireille" tumbled out of Mrs. Sterling's mouth, my stomach lurched. In my last life, I had stood right here too. And heard Mrs. Sterling say, "Sybilla, your blood type is very rare. Go for a more detailed checkup." Heard Mireille's mother rush into the office, sobbing, clutching my hand and begging, "Please, child, I am begging you!" Heard myself say, "I am willing." Then came that bed. When the collection needle pierced my arm, the nurse said, "This might sting a little; just bear with it." I bore it. For four hours. My hand went numb. Half my body would not move. My lips turned pale. The doctor said maybe I was a bit dehydrated and told me to drink more water. I lay there thinking, 'Mireille, I saved you. You will not hit me anymore, right?' She recovered. The day she came back to school, she wore that white floral dress, her cheeks rosy, her hair sprouting dark fuzz. During the break between classes, she and three others cornered me in the bathroom. "Sybilla, stop acting like you rescued me. Someone like you, if you are a match, you donate. If you do not, you are a murderer. If I had died, it would have been your fault. Got it?" I got it. Then she shoved me, and the back of my head banged against the cold tile wall. The next time she shoved me, it was down the stairs. "Sybilla? Hello? Earth to Sybilla?" Valerie Vance jabbed me hard. I snapped back to reality. Out in the corridor, students were still shuffling into the classroom in twos and threes. Someone was holding up a phone, snapping a picture of the matching registration form on the desk, and posting on their socials with the caption, 'Save our school beauty.' I spotted Mireille's three shadows, Corinne Pike, Tabitha Cross, and Greer Linwood, clustered by the office door, red-eyed, sobbing and hugging Mireille's mother. They were crying so pretty. Last lifetime, when I wept on the donation bed, my hand numb and useless, nobody saw a thing. "Mrs. Sterling," I spoke up. Our homeroom teacher looked up. "What is it, Sybilla?" "About that blood test recheck, the doctor said I am slightly anemic, and they do not recommend going further with the matching." Mrs. Sterling paused, taken aback. "Anemia? Is it serious?" "Not serious, it is just... the doctor said the donation process puts a heavy strain on the body, and they told me to think it over carefully." That part was true. In my past life, three months after the donation, my hemoglobin just kept tanking. I blacked out on the track during the eight-hundred-meter run in gym class. The school nurse said recovery after donating hematopoietic stem cells varies from person to person, and that I was just a slow healer. And what was Mireille doing back then? She was on the sidelines, watching the show, saying, "She is totally faking it." "Alright, take care of yourself." Mrs. Sterling made a mark on the list. I turned and headed back to the classroom. As I passed the office window, Mireille's mother was weeping, clutching Corinne's hands. "I only have this one daughter... she is only eighteen..." Corinne was weeping along with her. "Mrs. Hollis, do not panic. The whole school is helping with the matching. We will definitely find someone." In my past life, I was the one who said those words. Back then, I had gripped Mireille's mother's hand and said, "Mrs. Hollis, I will do it." She hugged me, sobbing, calling me a good child, their family's savior. Then her daughter pushed me down the stairs. She went to the school to pull the surveillance footage, said it was "an accident, just kids messing around," and paid five thousand dollars in compensation. Five thousand dollars. One life. I pushed open the back door of the classroom and slid into my seat by the window. Sunlight poured through the glass. I pulled my hand into my sleeve and traced the vein on my arm. That was where they drew it in my past life. The needle was twice as thick as a regular blood draw. When the nurse jabbed it in, she said, "You might feel a little pinch." But it was not a little pinch. It was a searing, bone-deep agony. Not this lifetime. I drew my arm back and flipped open my math textbook. The boys at the next desk were muttering. "Heard there is only one match, but nobody knows who. The school is keeping it hush-hush." "Has to be a girl, right? Mireille has that O-negative blood type, crazy rare." "Even if they found a match, they might not be willing to donate. That procedure is brutal, from what I hear." "Not donate? Is that not murder? Mireille is only eighteen!" I flipped open my workbook. The pen tip touched the page. I could not take in a single word. Yet I did not look up. The public address system outside crackled to life. Mireille's mother's voice came through, so hoarse it was barely a whisper. "Everyone... I am begging you... My daughter is in the intensive care unit... The doctors say she might not make it through the month..." Sobs spilled through the speakers. The classroom fell dead silent. I set my pen down. My knuckles went bone-white. In my last life, that voice had melted my heart right then and there. Back then, I had thought, no matter how cruel she was, she was just an eighteen-year-old girl, dying. This life, I picked the pen back up. And on the scratch paper, I wrote a single word: No.