Runaway Bride

I wake up with heavy eyes. Gloom surrounds me, and darkness apparently takes control of my vision. I stir, uncomfortable, imprisoned, and immobile in the bed where I am. Attempting to sit up, my body screams at me to stop, aching and pitiful. I grunt with annoyance at being unable to sit up as I always have.

“Easy, brother, take it easy. It’s going to be all right. You’ve been asleep for a long time, it’s only fair you feel a little dizzy.” It’s Dawson who positions himself next to me.

“What happened?” I question.

My brother helps me sit up in bed with my back half straightened. He shakes out the pillow and places it behind me in a smooth, gentle motion.

“You had the surgery, but the important thing is that you’re okay. That’s what matters to me.” I hear the creak of the chair as he sits down.

My eyes are heavy, and my head is throbbing.

“Twin intuition, perhaps? Or maybe you’re worried about nonsense and simpletons?”

“Good morning,” they interrupt just as I go to answer Dawson. “I see you’re awake already.” David reaches over to open my eyelids and shine a flashlight on them.

I’m still dozing. However, something detonates in my brain. Confused, I analyze the situation. I don’t see the light. The glow of the flashlight doesn’t bother me, burn, or cause me to want to look away.

When Dawson rearranged the pillow, I heard it, felt it, as I was close enough to do so. I recognized their voices, both Dawson’s and David’s... but I didn’t see them. At no time did I see them.

“But what...?” I slap David’s hand and hear the flashlight fall to the tile in the room with a clatter.

I touch my face, startled.

it was just a bandage over my eyes, one of

days before and after the surgery. He informed me that, for safety reasons, a bandage would be placed on my head, which would go from the nape of my neck to my forehead to protect the

off-center. I blink, annoyed and uncomfortable, to find a way for the shadow and gloom to

on, you must tell me during the time you are in the clinic, both in observation and in a basic room. Nothing will be unnecessary. If you

you? Is that what you want? Haven’t you noticed that I couldn’t see shit? Fuck,

inquires between confused and worried.

Is that normal?”

can’t see him, I feel it. I know he is there, and I don’t need my eyes to make his presence almost palpable. Our connection has always been like that: so real, honest, natural, and straightforward. I guess that’s why the betrayal with Arianna affected

eyelids again and searches for

nothing, nothing more than a flow of flashes, of light—shadows in movement. Everything else

and told me that they were going to proceed to place a transparent plastic mask on me in order to sedate my body before the intervention on my nerve atrophied

tried to reach her clumsily, but I failed. She fell from the second floor, and the back of her head landed on one of the rocks that adorned the garden I had sent her to plant. I followed her trajectory, but as I was aware of the fall, perhaps because my intention was not to die and leave my son helpless, or maybe because it was not my time to perish, I did not die like her. I hit the sprinklers hard and

What does this mean? Am I going to stay like this?”

was the

bright gaze. He would look at me lovingly when I approached him as if I was

the first twenty-four

process? Of recovery? Or have I lost my sight for good? You better

think you need to calm down.” My brother stands next to me and squeezes my right

grow up? How am I supposed to hold him before he falls to the ground when he trips over his feet? How am

that something like this could happen. The good thing is that, for the moment, it seems that the atrophied nerve is