Marriage Merger

Chapter 44

Whoever had recommended bed rest in the beginning really hadn’t considered how tiresome and tedious staying in bed all day could be.

Ximena had had just about enough of bed rest and the continuous nagging from her family didn’t help at all. If they weren’t forcing her not to move about too much, they were telling her to eat all the healthy muck they kept on bringing to her room. The icing on the cake was the fact that they had moved her downstairs for easier access to places like the living room, kitchen or the outdoors. Like she even went there…

Probably the most painful thing was how conflicted she felt about how things had gone down with Adriano. He would call her at least 5 times a day non-stop and each time she would want to pick up, Amanda’s horrid words would echo in her mind. And she just couldn’t bring herself to forget them even though it had been a while since she heard them. A coma had arisen because of them so forgetting them would certainly not be easy.

Her father was determined for her divorce to go through. He had already contacted his lawyers and they had been working on it since the day she was discharged. The clause about the 40% still stood as it is and the lawyers couldn’t really find a way to avoid it; unless both parties agreed to part ways and with how desperate Adriano seemed, an amicable mutual settlement would never be reached. She was sure that he did not want a divorce. If anything, he still wanted her…

Just as much as she wanted him!

And she felt utterly guilty about it. Ximena loved Adriano. Very much so, that despite concerted efforts to shut him out and be angry at him, she felt like she was somehow being unfair to him. And it was tremendously stupid that she would be feeling guilty about not hearing him out. What was there to say? What was Amanda doing with his phone that night? Why hadn’t he told her about her?

It was a total mess.

Just on schedule, her phone began to vibrate on her nightstand and she groaned out loud. “You know, maybe if you picked up, he’d stop calling you so much,” Chelsea reasoned from where she was seating on her bed.

Ximena bit her lip as she took her phone and stared at Adriano’s name flashing across the screen. After contemplating about it for a few seconds she swiped the screen and held it up to her ear. “Ximena, baby,” his velvety voice resounded through her ear and she almost swooned. It made no sense how she still reacted like that to him. “How are you doing?” he asked her gently.

She cleared her throat. “I’m fine,” she replied lowly, and looked out the window.

“It’s so good to hear your voice after all these weeks. How’s your recovery? Do you still have the casts?”

“I got them removed yesterday,” she answered him simply, trying to not sound excited or bored.

He sighed. “Your being so cold, amor.”

“How do you expect me to be, huh? The adoring, dotting wife? You honestly can’t expect me to act like nothing happened. Do you know how hard this is for me?” she sniffed, wiping the lone tear as it slid down her face.

“I…I understand that but what hurts me is that you were so quick to believe what Amanda told you that you didn’t even give me the benefit of doubt. And you won’t even here me out either! I’ve tried to visit you so many times in the past few weeks but I couldn’t even get close to your gate. You can’t let this break us apart, Ximena. It’s not fair.”

She quickly sat up as her pulse quickened. “It’s not fair to you? Hey, I’m the one who humiliated myself, confessing my love to someone who doesn’t share the same sentiment. I’m the one who was in the coma for six weeks! And I’m the one who’s still suffering whilst you’re probably with her. Don’t tell me it’s not fair when you’re the one who’s not being fair. And you know what, stop calling me. Don’t look for me. What we had is over, whatever it was. Goodbye,” she almost screamed into the phone and ended the call, before collapsing back onto the bed. Before she knew it, she was sobbing.