The blood of a love

         Now looking back I see what I did wrong. I should have been grateful, but I took everything for granted. That's just who I was. Way back in my twenties, my version of a good time was getting so drunk that I woke up in someone's backyard across the state.

         One night, with three of my best junkie friends, which I now know they werent much of friends at all, were out and about just looking for trouble. And of course, knowing us, we found it. We had four different packs of beer, all to our liking and we drove around as I was already in the back seat completely intoxicated. My three buds and I found an old run of train tracks; and me being dumb and young (not that there's any other kind of young) got out of the car. I hopped down the tracks singing a terrible version of Grease, laughing hysterically, while stumbling around like the drunk I was. My friends laughed at me so I kept jumping from plank to plank, loving the attention.

Only until my foot got caught in part of the old broken rail and I took the tramatic fall and blow to the head. After I laid there, quite dramatically, for a good ten minutes my "friends" finally noticed that I was bleeding uncontrollably. The only good kind of credit I can give to them is that they got me to the hospital just in time. I remember waking up to humming machines and mumbling doctors. I was fine, but had gotten about two pints of donated blood. They had contacted my family but since I was alive they didn't bother to come and see me. I was out of the hospital in two days only to strut my seventeen stitches and a bottle of beer, in hand, down town. I lived my life as I always had!

Beers and women were my calling, therefore, I went with it. Until that day that forever changed my life for the better. In, September of 2011, I was taking a walk with no exact destination. I passed the hospital that I had been in only a few months ago, and I saw one of those armoured up ambulences, and walked towards it. There was a young man, about the same age that I was, back then, checking in the donated blood he had brought from the donation center. I had approached him and we talked for awhile. Just nonsense about how he liked his job, just being friendly, at first. But as we spoke I mentioned how I had gotten the couple pints of blood after my accident. I liked him, he was a cool guy and definitely seemed like real friend material. We grew fond of each other during our short conversation and he offered me the offer of a lifetime.

Which of course I didn't know that till now. He told me that they keep records of who gets who's blood and how much, and at first I wasn't too sure why he did.

I don't understand why he did it but I didn't stop him. He had logged into the companies computer and I told him my full name. He told me that there wasn't much of a chance I would know my donor, no chance at all, but I just so happened to. My jaw dropped when he said her name.

That name that I've worked all these years to try and numb, Claire Smith. She was my first love all throughout high school. But when I got into drinking she couldn't handle it, and lets face it, I neglected her. Something she had already been. I don't know why I kept doing it when I knew I was going to lose her because of it but I did...and I lost her. I then only drank more after that to try and numb the pain but that didn't get me anywhere. I had spent my twenties drunk and heartless. But when I heard her name it was like I could feel again, and my world came crashing down.

I remember thinking "she saved my life", and "her blood is what kept me alive". Which I guess she technically did and was. But still, I spent the next few weeks trying to find her and when I did she wanted nothing to do with me. I don't blame her but from that day on I've never once taken a drink. It's 2070 now and I'm seventy-nine, she'd be seventy-eight, and we still don't speak. I talked to her for about three minutes flat acouple of years ago but nothings changed. Im guna' have to say that the only thing I've come to realize, even now is that when I mentioned she was my first love was that she was my last.