Runaway Bride

“Are you sure?”

I almost want to smash my face against the wall, hit it again and again until my neurons start working again. I stare at Darío. I can’t believe that he is actually blind, that after trying to regain what he lost with the death of his late wife, he is now left in that state for the rest of his life.

My heart and mind cannot believe it.

I cannot give it up so easily.

He cannot give up. I have seen and heard so many miracles. For example, being cured of cancer, a fatal disease. Or diseases like HIV have twenty or thirty years of a healthy life without setbacks through care. Losing your vision is not the same. I know it is not, but it is impossible for me not to consider every option that manifests in my head.

“I think you know the answer to that question very well.” He focuses his eyes on me, but I know he can’t see me. I understand.

I have been unable to move or peel myself away from the hard wood of the bedroom door. His arrival has made my heart beat fast, and memories that have haunted me since the night we spent together have returned.

“I’m sorry, really. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to offend you...”

“You don’t,” he interrupts me, “and you never will. I know you don’t want to offend me, and this situation, I assure you, Tatiana, is something I could never have considered as the beginning of our marriage.”

“Our marriage has never been like ordinary ones,” I gasp without measuring my words.

“Don’t say that. I tried every way to give you a wedding, a ceremony, and a lunch with your family. I tried to make you feel at home when you came here to the castle. I made you...”

“I know everything you did.” I approach him, unsure, and place my hands on his shoulders. He tenses instantly but gradually relaxes. When I see that my hands are no longer a bother or an agony, I give myself the chance to continue. “I know what you did from the first moment, and I understand. I’ll be completely honest with you: I don’t understand why even at this point you’re still saying that you and I...” I stop abruptly.

remoteness and his barrier of coldness have by all means prevented me from getting close to him. It has prevented us from carrying out this alliance in a satisfactory way for both of us, even when inside me, my heart beats so fast to have him close and when my hands tingle with desire to caress his skin

didn’t tell me the truth; you told me you were going away on business. So I had to find out from Donatella.” Listening to her talk on the phone by mistake, I felt so inferior and minimized to infinity. “You didn’t have the confidence, just like when you saw me with my sister’s letter before you

decision and even more to hear you say

“You say you don’t want to get over your... Arianna.” Donatella mentioned the deceased’s name to me days ago. “I understand. I don’t

he acknowledges. At least he has the courtesy to lower his

sigh sadly. “You should have told me at the

that trust. I’ve known you for a few days. I couldn’t... I couldn’t tell

stab into me like a sharp dagger. I feel my heart bleed inside, and my eyes let the tears escape. It’s a horrible feeling, and it’s a half-truth what he blurted out because in my gut, I do trust him, and I

could have gone away and left me in full care of your son, the most precious thing a person can have, and you left him to me.” It’s

straight at me, shoulders slumped, and mind

He reaches into his pants pocket; it’s a gesture he makes repeatedly. I wonder if he’s resisting touching me

surgery told me something else. They gave me to understand that he really wants me. Although his mind wants to avoid it, his heart feels something for me.

me so himself: he’s still not over her, and he’s not interested in getting her

trust me as a wife, as a person, and not enough to tell me that you have a high probability of dying in surgery, but that you

She knows Dante perhaps more than I do. She is a woman. She’s the

if something happened to you? Did you even think about

uncomfortable. I feel like grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and shaking him until he understands what I mean until he understands

of world is it that I came to live in? One where people can have unbridled

what I wanted to be when I was someone’s wife. It’s not what I wished and dreamed