A little over a year ago
“Tell me something, brother. Anything, but tell me something,” my twin begs.
“I’m not going to lash out at you, Dawson.” I take a sip of the scotch in my hand and stare him straight in the face. I’ve never known how to hide my fears. Better to die facing them than to die trying to escape them. “You slept with Arianna.”
“I was drunk.” He has no reason to apologize, least of all with that simplicity. “I didn’t know she...”
“That she was my wife? Your sister-in-law? Didn’t you know she was the one you were fucking? Let me get this straight... You came to my house, went up to my room, saw an ass on the bed, took off your pants, and nailed her like
I get settled in the apartment I rented just for this week, which is located in the very center of the city, close to the clinic where I will have the surgery in a few days. It is scheduled to leave quickly. If the medical check-up goes well, I will be back at the Magghio Castle in a short week. I try to be as optimistic as possible, even though I know that the chances of getting screwed are greater than those of being saved. I must try because I don’t feel myself forgetting details. I can’t think about what will happen when my son takes his first steps when he goes to school for the first time, and the day it’s his turn to do his music or arts performance. I want to be there. Also, I don’t want to forget him or forget the color of his eyes or how he smiles. The problem with this deficiency in my brain is that it will get worse and worse over time. In a few years, the prognosis is to affect my short-term memory. D
“What are you doing here? Who told you where to find me?” I ask him with one foot in the door, blocking him from entering.“You think you’re the only one who can locate people, brother?” he flashes that smile that was capable of convincing our mother of anything when we were little.Many years ago, we stopped being those boys romping around the castle. We are adults now, masters of our own decisions and guilty of our own mistakes.“There are ways to track down your twin, or do you forget everything we did as teenagers? Now you come with your saintliness, being the most correct of all, believing yourself superior as if you were not capable of making mistakes. We all make mistakes!”“I will go
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
A week later...“Careful. Step, another one. We’re almost to the entrance.”“Shut up, please!” I snap at Dawson.I’m annoyed and unhappy with life.It’s been a week since the surgery, and I still haven’t recovered my vision. Expectations for doing so were between 20 and 30%. The odds of staying this way forever were even higher than the odds of fixing it.Why didn’t this happen to a murderer? To a criminal? To a corrupt person? Why, as cliché as it sounds, do bad things happen to good people?While it is true that I have not been a saint, I do not deserve a wreath of flowers, and I do not deserve the
“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 m
His hands caress my body. They run slowly up my waist and back. They run over my abdomen and my breasts. I feel him everywhere, and I like that. It fascinates me. Combined with the memories of the night before our wedding and this moment, plus the longing I had to see him and know that he came out of the surgery well, the desire I feel is voracious. I need to possess him. I need to feel him everywhere, to feel that I am his and he is mine.“Easy,” he whispers.Without knowing how and why, I gently push him to the edge of the bed, still with our mouths entwined and our lips in a dramatic story of unbridled pleasure. We end up lying with our arms and legs entwined. He starts to take off my dress without delicacy. I don’t care what happens and throw it on the floor. I undo the buttons covering Darío’s slightly hai
I run out of the room so fast, I fail to notice someone in the hallway in time, so I end up slamming into a muscular wall.“Hey, sister-in-law! Take it easy. Where are you going in that beautiful handmade dress?” taunts Dawson.I pull the fabric up to my chest; I think the sheet covers even part of my throat. I blush from head to toe. He’s the last person I would have wanted to meet in the hallway in this shape. I should have thought things through before I ran away. It’s all his fault, or at least partly his fault. It’s Dawson’s fault. If he didn’t have a twin with whom it was possible to confuse him, Darío would have believed me and trusted my words, or maybe not.I don’t know who could hurt him so much and so badly that,
I arrive at my parents’ house in ten minutes. I didn’t think for a second where to go when the family driver asked me for directions. The man was kind enough not to look at my appearance when I got into the black sedan.“Daughter, what are you wearing!” my mother exclaims as she opens the front door. “You’re a woman married to a respectable man!”“Forget what I’m wearing. Why don’t you ask me what he did to make me come to the house like this?” I tell her as I walk in and go straight to my room.“Don’t yell at me!”“Yes, I do yell at you!” I quickly look for something to wear. It’s getting late already. I look at the cuckoo clock I have ha