The Man She Let Die

I paid Curtis Robinett 200 thousand dollars a month to be a standby blood donor.

My fiancée, Eden May, thought it was a waste of money. So she reassigned him to work part-time as her personal assistant instead.

When Curtis accidentally submitted my marriage license appointment as a divorce filing for the 99th time, I kicked open Eden's office door.

She didn't even look up.

"We're in no rush to get married anyway," she said calmly. "Curtis is just careless. That's how he's always been."

Later, in the emergency room, I called Eden while doctors rushed around me, my throat shredded from yelling.

"Where's my emergency medical kit?" I rasped. "What did you do with it?"

Curtis answered instead, his voice warm and smug.

"You mean the expensive leather bag you kept in the cabinet? I swapped it out for a large party snack box. It holds everything just fine, and honestly, it looks a lot more cheerful.

"Ms. May's brother and sister-in-law are both career soldiers. Your bag didn't really match that image, so I thought this would be more appropriate."

My vision dimmed. My hands shook as I told Curtis to come donate blood.

Eden laughed softly and cut in, "Stop pretending you're anemic just to get attention. If you're actually sick, deal with it. You're at the hospital; I think the doctors are fully capable of keeping you alive. Curtis is afraid of needles. He's not coming."

Then, she hung up.

She didn't appear until the surgical lights finally went dark.

"Curtis had me bring you chocolate milk," she said. "It's good for recovery. It's not that he didn't want to help. He just faints at the sight of blood."

She placed a settlement waiver on my bed.

"I was the one who told him not to come. That 200-thousand-dollar monthly salary is his pay as my assistant. It has nothing to do with you. You didn't have to call the police for that. Sign this, and I'll go get the marriage license with you."

I thought of what I had just seen in the operating room.

Eden's brother, Harvey May, was bleeding out on the operating table, waiting for a lifesaving drug that never came. In the final moments of surgery, he could do nothing but lie there and die.

I looked at her and said evenly, "You're the immediate family. It's not my place to sign that."

"Matthew, that's enough. You're obviously fine. Who are you putting on this show for? So you suffered a little. Did you really have to drag Curtis into this, like you wanted him dead?"

Seeing how pale I was, Eden May sighed. She casually opened a bottle of chocolate milk and handed it to me.

"Be good and sign it. We're family. There's no need to make this ugly. Harvey and Laurel care a lot about their image. Don't make this hard on me."

"Ms. May, please don't argue because of me. Mr. Stone just couldn't wait anymore, so