Page 188 of Falling for the Wife

“Tell me to wait for you. I don’t care how long it takes; I’ll wait until you’ve finished with this life before making a home with me. I love you that much. I’ll wait until you’re ready.”

She shook her head, eyeing me as if I had lost all of my senses. “I’m always going to want you, but it’s not you I want to spend the rest of my life with,” she delivered with utmost cruelty. “You were my last hurrah before I had to be with the man I can’t live without. Don’t you see that, Luca? I chose him because it’s him I wanted to be with. Don’t get me wrong, those two weeks were amazing, and you were quite a stud in the sack, but that’s all it’s going to be between us, nothing more.”

“A stud in the sack?” I calmly repeated, even though fury and hurt engulfed my entire being. “Well, good luck to you satisfying your husband with your talentless pussy.”

She released a sharp gasp, mortified by my severe insult.

She’d had it coming. What kind of woman would kick a man who was already on his knees, begging for her while he offered her his world—his life—on a platter? A heartless woman would. That was what she was, and I was glad she had finally showed her true colors. It was laughable that I had thought her sweet and kind at one point.

Good riddance. It was best. From this point on, I would never remember that woman. She would be erased and never spoken of again. I would go on with my life as if she had never existed.

Life awaited.

Nove

“There’s an email reminder about a Power Boat Competition in Terracina for a charity event in five days that you signed up to participate in…” Gino gave me a quizzical brow, seeming skeptical as he gazed at me like I had lost it.

“The event… right.” I had forgotten about that. I had agreed to do it eight months ago, before everything had started going awry.

It had been a week since the calamitous night, and I must say that my mentality was almost par with the old Luca, prior the talentless disaster.

Life was almost better, and it would improve even more once I was back to my healthy self.

Gino looked at me expectantly, waiting for my response. “What reason should I tell them for the cancellation?”

“I…” I momentarily halted speaking as I tried to breathe through the loud pounding of my heart and the crippling migraine that had sprouted out of the blue. It felt as though it was spreading rapidly, like a cluster of throbbing aches, and my entire head felt like it was prickled with needles in every pore.

Grinding my teeth together, I gripped the back of the chair, needing a little assistance since it was becoming unbearable to stand straight. “Can you… ask for my pain killer?” I screeched out as the pain worsened to an escalated level while everything swam before my very eyes, spinning my sight. Then I blacked out, losing consciousness.

Sometime later, I awoke groggily in the hospital, surrounded by the medical folks buzzing, making things worse. The first thing I noticed was that, even though the massive migraine was gone, there was still a dull ache inside my brain, as if the headache was in remission and would resurface if something stressed it.

Vittorio’s face stood out amongst the people in the room, and in my peripheral vision, I could see both of my parents looking rather grim. Well, the old doctor surely didn’t seem happy, either.

I was about to say something about the headaches being simply a result of me not following his orders when he decided to speak, silencing everyone in the room.

“You have a brain aneurysm,” he stated, using his voice in a doctor to patient fashion—professional, detached.

What in the world did that entail? It sounded complicated.

“It’s vital to get you in for an operation because, once it ruptures, your chance of survival lessens.”

Wait—what?

“Is that a tumor?”

He shook his head. “The wall of your brain artery has a weakened section that protrudes out from its inner tube. You have a saccular aneurysm, which we believe is a result from the head trauma you got from the crash. It’s an unfortunate thing, but we must count our blessings that we found this out sooner rather than later, and since the aneurysm hasn’t ruptured, it’s highly recommended that that we perform surgery on it by clipping the tube or endovascular coiling. Once this is addressed, we shall monitor it closely in any case it comes back again.”

“And, if I don’t get the surgery, what happens, then?” I roughly inquired just as I heard my mother’s shrilling cries in the background, accusing me of being such a selfish person.

Choosing to ignore her hysterics, I raised my brow at Vittorio, waiting for his answer.

“If you choose not to have a surgery, we can keep a close eye on it just to make sure it doesn’t rupture. I can prescribe medication that will help alleviate some of the eye pain and relieve the cranial pressure. Regardless, I still recommend the surgery because the chances of it rupturing might not be that high, but if you’re stressed, it isn’t lessened, and if you don’t drastically change your lifestyle, it just might. Once that happens, there’s a high chance that you might die, or if not, disability is also more than likely. You’re young, Luca. If you choose to have this operation, you’ll recover quickly and still get on with your life, minus intense stress that results to high blood pressure.”

I wasn’t even thirty years old, and I was already dealing with this kind of medical issue. Life certainly loved to fuck me over once it started to detect enthusiasm from me. Hell, what should I do now?

“Don’t be such a foolish child. Get the damn surgery, Luca!” my mother piped in with her uninvited opinion.

This was my body, my life, my decision. “If I slow down with my lifestyle and lessen the stress as you stated and decide not to get the surgery, what are the chances of it rupturing?”