My Secret Longing

My unforgiving wife.

When you are beyond redemption, it always takes a shock to your core to make you see what is at stake if you don't at least try. I would have continued to be the dumb fuck I was if not for seeing my wife in the hospital. That moment when she clutched her belly like it would disappear any moment and asked the doctor if she could stay another day so she would feel safe, it would haunt me till the day I die. The doctor didn't know why she asked that, but I knew why. I saw it in her face clearly, the fear and the loneliness she must have felt the night before despite having a waste of a space husband like me.

When I stood there staring at the terrified woman who loved me even when she shouldn't have, I realized why Daniel and Rosie wouldn't talk to me. I finally saw myself through their eyes, and I wanted to kill that person who didn't return his pregnant wife's call and who carelessly slept through the night in the office when his wife might have died along with his children. For the first time in my life, I felt ashamed of myself for living such a pathetic life.

I was blinded by my own fears to see how much I was hurting that foolish woman who could have had a million times better husband than me but instead chose a monster like me. I felt like a fraud when I asked for her forgiveness because even I knew I didn't deserve one. I simply sat there like a statue when she poured her heart.

What Bhavishya said was true though, I was indeed a coward. I was hiding because I was afraid of getting hurt, letting anyone close, and losing them again. But she was wrong about one thing, she was not the safest bet. Letting her in was the most dangerous thing I ever did after losing my parents. No one knew the most important detail about my parent's death except Rosie. The car they rode before the crash, I presented it to them for their anniversary a month before. My dad drove cars almost his entire adult life but never ever got a single scratch in his car or never was in a single accident before that.

The irony was that I presented them with the most luxurious car thinking it would be safe for them, but within a month, I lost them. And when they died, I was in North America finalizing a deal that made me a billionaire. I wanted to give them the world, but I lost them even before making my first billion.

From the time I turned eighteen and went to Harvard, I barely spent quality time with my parents thinking first I would earn all the riches in the world and then leisurely spend it with them. But all of that dream vanished in the blink of an eye. So I got angry with them for leaving me alone in this world and later started to close myself off from anything that would potentially cause me pain.

I buried myself in business, creating a barrier between me and the outer world. After my parent's loss, whatever I touched, turned gold, and I became the youngest billionaire in Brazil. I lied to myself that was what I wanted, and it was enough. I was also angry that they died together, leaving me alone to fend for myself.

They both loved each other to the point of madness. I was lucky in many ways because I had the most amazing parents in the world. I was uncontrollable and wild when I was a kid. At that time, there was not much awareness about gifted children, and if it were other parents, they would have thought of it as some abnormality and sent me to an asylum or something. But not my parents, they matched me in recklessness, and we as a family were happily eccentric. Also, at the right time, they gave me good guidance to choose my career path.

It was easy for me to offer marriage when I thought my ex was pregnant because I knew it was a transaction. I just had to give my money, my name, and in return, didn't have to open myself up. I was safe from any future pain.

I came to Fortaleza not because I was fooled or hurt but because I lost the meaning in life. The way the media portrayed my life made me realize how shallow my life was. Even though I had everything, I felt all alone. That's when I decided I needed a change, shifting to Fortaleza and leading a private life.