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.

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

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 only employ

how much I regret making this decision and even more

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 want to take her place. However, the least I deserve from you is respect and trust. For example, for you to tell me something as

he acknowledges. At least he has the courtesy to

should have told me,” I sigh sadly. “You should have told me at

have that closeness and that trust. I’ve known you for a few days. I couldn’t... I couldn’t tell you that I was going to undergo

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

son, the most precious thing a person can have, and you left him to me.” It’s silly, his earlier excuse. Not knowing

little cruel. But, right now, that man in front of me, staring blankly, still looking straight at me, shoulders slumped, and mind dislocated, deserves to be cared for and understood,

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

to the city for 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. That gives me sad and false hopes

told me so himself: he’s still not over her, and he’s not interested in getting her out of his heart either.

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

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

if something happened to you? Did you even think about

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

he still doesn’t trust me? What kind of world is it that I

someone’s wife. It’s not what I wished and dreamed