The Girl Lethally Allergic To Men

Summary

I was born with a lethal allergy to men.

According to my mother, any physical contact with a male would trigger a violent anaphylactic shock—my throat would close, my skin would erupt in hives, and my heart would simply stop. The doctors called it a rare "heterogeneous protein hypersensitivity." There was no cure.

To keep me alive, my mother divorced my father when I was a toddler and forced my sister, Riley, who is two years younger than me, to attend all-girls schools alongside me. For twenty years, the three of us lived in a sterilized world, a fortress without men.