She felt sick. What was it really to be afraid of? A tiny pinch in the arm, just a few drops of blood, and then it would be over. She shivered.

The elderly man who sat next to her turned his head and looked at her.

“Nervous?” he asked.

“A little”, she answered, noticing that her voice was unsteady. The man smiled.

“Have a cup of hot chocolate”, he said and nodded in the direction of the coffee machine. “It usually calms my nerves.” She found herself smiling at the man, a tiny bit relaxed by his comforting words.

“Thank you sir”, she said and picked up her bag from the floor, started digging in it trying to find her purse. The man nodded again, still smiling when he went back to reading the newspaper in his hands.

She stood up from her chair and put her bag down on it, then turned around and walked across the room to the coffee machine.

While she put the coins in the machine she realised she had called the man ‘sir’. Why would she do that? She was always polite but to call someone ‘sir’? He was old, but was that really the reason?

The beep from the coffee machine woke her from her thoughts. The cardboard cup was steaming with the hot drink.

She brought it back to her seat, trying to give the man a smile as she sat down. She was still nervous. She could feel how the hot liquid in the cup heated the blood in her hands. Was that good? Did it help the blood fluid?

She sighed and looked up on the clinical white ceiling. She had problems with blood. Surely this was why she had chosen not to study to become a nurse, which had always been what her father wanted her to do.

The man next to her looked up when he turned the page in the newspaper, he nodded and smiled again. She smiled faintly and held up the little cup as if to say cheers.

He had no idea of how twisted her problem actually was. To him she was an ordinary young woman with an ordinar discomfort with blood. She wished it was true, that it was not more complicated than that.