The Blood I Gave Him, The Love He Stole

The big rig came barreling straight at my side of the car.

Then the crash of impact.

I squeezed my eyes shut in terror.

In my ear, Charles's frantic voice.

"Eugenia!"

The pain I braced for never came.

Slowly, I opened my eyes.

The truck had swerved and slammed into the guardrail along the roadside.

A hair's breadth from hitting us.

I stumbled out of the car.

Charles, finally coming back to himself, came running after me.

"Summer, are you all right?"

I opened my mouth to answer.

A hot stream came gushing out of my nose.

When I opened my eyes again, I was already lying in a hospital bed.

Charles was talking with the doctor.

"Can she skip the transfusion this time?"

"Eugenia's on her period. She's not well."

The doctor let out a long sigh.

"It's possible, but the patient would have to be managed with medication. She'd need to stay in the hospital for half a month."

Charles said that was fine.

I bit my lip and held back the tears.

They seemed to have forgotten.

Why we'd pretended to be a couple in the first place.

Charles walked over to the bed and took my hand.

"Summer, just stay here and take good care of yourself."

"Eugenia and I will be busy with the wedding for a while."

"The day you're discharged, I'll come pick you up."

His tone was so natural.

So natural that I was starting to feel unmoored.

As though he and Eugenia Vance were the real couple.

And I was just the outsider.

Before I could react.

Charles took a phone call and got up in a hurry to leave.

I saw the caller ID.

The contact name read "Sweetheart Eugenia."

My heart gave a sudden jolt, the sting of it almost real.

I watched his back as I asked.

"Can't you stay and keep me company?"

Charles's steps came to a halt.

He turned and looked at me.

"Summer, be good."

"I'll come see you once I'm done."

With that, he walked out without looking back.

I stared at the open door of the hospital room.

The tears I'd been holding back finally fell.

I couldn't hold on to him.

And I couldn't hold on to his heart.

Never mind.

The surgery required a long preoperative preparation.

This stretch of time was as good as any.

From that day on, Eugenia said it was to put my mind at ease, and so she reported the entire process of her and Charles's wedding prep to me.

I had just finished a blood draw and sat down when a message popped up on my phone.

"Summer, Charles looks so handsome in a suit. You have to see this."

In the photo, Charles was crouched down, slipping a high heel onto Eugenia's foot.

I was on my knees on the floor, vomiting from a drug reaction, when a message popped up on my phone.

"These are the wedding candies Charles picked. Aren't they pretty?"

Every one of them was a fruit flavor I couldn't stand.

I had fallen out of the bed from the pain and was reaching for my phone to call the nurse.

Her message popped up on my phone again.

"Summer, I'm just in love with the wedding decor sketches Charles put together."

I stared hard at this image.

I'd seen this picture before.

It was the third-anniversary gift Charles had given me.

Our future wedding.

Back then he'd kissed my forehead and said with a smile:

"Summer, this is the wedding design I made for you. One day I'm going to marry you right here."

But now.

It belonged to Eugenia.

Seven straight days of preoperative treatment wore me down until I started thinking of giving up on the surgery.

I dialed Charles's number.

"Charles, I'm in so much pain."

"Could you come to the hospital right now?"

As long as he came.

I'd give up the surgery.

But the other end was silent for a long moment before he spoke.

"Summer, let me come see you once I'm done, all right?"