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.

what I think of our marriage, of our unconventional alliance. He could have tried to give me a lovely ceremony and make me feel that the castle was my new home, but the truth is that his emotional 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

inferior and minimized to infinity. “You didn’t have

decision and even more to hear you say that. Trust

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 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 important as the fact that you’re going to have surgery

At least he has the courtesy to lower his head and almost

should have told me at the exact moment you decided to do the

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

what he

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 knowing me, not trusting

been a 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

it’s a gesture he makes repeatedly. I

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 in a world where I have not asked to

late wife, the mother of his child. He told me so himself: he’s still not over her, and

you don’t 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 trust me with the care of your son for more than a week.”

left you with Donatella. She knows Dante perhaps more than I do. She is a woman. She’s the one who took care of us as children when we were little. I knew you’d be

you? Did you even think

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

that I came to live in? One where people can have unbridled sex and the next day

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