Marriage Merger

Chapter 42

It had been 6 weeks since Adriano had last spoken to Ximena and also since he had seen her vibrant blue eyes opened.

When he heard about the accident, his heart stopped and his entire world came crushing down. Although he had been slightly drunk at the time, the shocking news made him sober up immediately. It was like ice cold water had been poured into his bloodstream, along with fear.

Granted, receiving a phone call telling you that your wife had been involved in a serious accident and she was in the ER undergoing surgery to save her life wasn't a matter to be taken lightly. He himself almost died on the way there with the alarming speed he had been driving at. If the cops had pulled him over for that, he certainly wouldn't have complied.

Apparently, someone had driven straight into the driver's side due to her not having stopped at a red light, which was highly unusual. Ximena was an excellent driver; an even better one than him so how in the world have that happened? What was doing out at that hour? It was well past office closing hours but she was still on the road. Had she been looking for him? That would explain the numerous messages and missed calls.

Adriano didn't have to be told that this was his fault; he knew it well. The fight they had had that day caused all these damned events and now the only person that he ever cared so much about was in a coma...one nobody knew when she'd come out of, if she'd ever come out of it.

But he didn't want to think like that. No, he chose to believe that she would wake up one day and come back to him. He would have to do a lot of apologizing since he hadn't done that till now, oh how stupid he had been! The last words he had spoken to her were cruel and heartless. He should have never dealt with the situation in his anger. Silence will always be golden.

He had even resorted to praying, something he didn't do much of since his childhood years. You see, he had prayed multiple times before for his mother to come back but she never did. After that, he pretty much had given up on his faith but the recent tragic events had brought it back. Every other hour he found himself saying a silent prayer to God, asking Him not to take his wife away from him so soon.

It really does take almost losing someone to realize how much you love them, his conscience mocked him relentlessly. If those subconscious thoughts had a mute button, he probably would have pressed it by now. Why couldn't he get a break? The guilt was basically eating him up; inside and out. He had put his work on hold, rarely ate and only ever left Ximena's side when he needed to take a shower.

It pained him to no end to see her sunken eyes and hollow cheeks, not to mention how she had looked after the surgery. The bandages, the casts on one of her upper and lower limbs, the bruises, the blood...it was all too traumatizing for him. Adriano had cried in silence when he got to first see her, her family also joined him in the suffering. Dolores had been in hysterics; he could only imagine what it felt like for a mother to see her child in such a state. Andrea looked broken, being held by her twin brother Salvador who looked no better. For the first time everybody got to see that he did love his older sister, despite that sibling rivalry.

Emilio was the worst of them all. Not once did he shed a tear but Adriano didn't miss the wetness brimming in his eyes. He had been angry, downright furious...at Adriano. He had marched up to him and grabbed him by the collar. "You were supposed to be by her side, to protect her. Where the hell were you when this happened?" His father-in-law growled in his face. Santiago had been correct, Emilio was frighteningly intimidating. He had almost crapped his pants then and there.

But he couldn't give a response. Call it cowardice or whatever but there was no way in heaven or hell he could have possibly answered that question. What was he going to say? Mr. Dos Ramos you daughter and I got into a fight and some bitter words were exchanged. At the time of the accident, I was drowning my guilt and misery in alcohol... Emilio would have probably put him in the hospital room right next to hers!