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.

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 like that night at the lake. Had I known that our relationship could be so simple without marriage, I would have stayed that way, as the woman at the lake, the one who brought smiles to his face and could strike up a conversation with him without being looked at as if she were a horrible person,

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 left. You said the trust was important, but you don’t keep your word. You

I regret making this decision and even more to

this pain in my chest for days now that almost keeps me from breathing. “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 has the courtesy to lower his head and almost blush.

told me at the exact moment

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 do believe he’s a good man. It’s just that life has mistreated him in an irrational and

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 silly, his earlier excuse. Not

front of me, staring blankly, still looking straight at me, shoulders slumped, and mind dislocated, deserves to be cared for and understood, to receive positivity and good care. Support from his family.

I wonder if he’s resisting touching me or if he’s trying to stop any kind of touching

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

false? Because I know that he loved his late wife, the mother of his child. He told me so himself: he’s still not over her, and he’s not interested in getting

me, for Tatiana, it doesn’t make sense that you don’t trust me as a wife, as a

a woman. She’s the one who took care of us as children when we were little. I knew you’d be fine with

you? Did you even think about that?”

shaking him until he understands what I mean until he understands how false and empty his words sound. His logic is not at

of world is it that I came

I was someone’s wife. It’s not