As Ariel continued talking about terms and conditions, Mia felt a deep, dark hole forming in her chest, threatening to swallow her whole. The air became dense and hard to breathe in that room that she once considered her refuge.
Her heart ached with a real physical intensity, her soul hurt as she listened to Ariel talk about divorce as if he were discussing the weather, as if the last two years together meant nothing. Her dreams crumbled with every word that came out of his lips.
They had shared two years of apparent perfect happiness, where he had protected her every second from any pain or worry, where he had avoided making her suffer with almost obsessive care. Why was he now inflicting the greatest pain of all?
"You... don't you love me anymore?" The question came out as a broken whisper, laden with all the anguish that threatened to drown her.
Ariel did not directly answer that question, his eyes darkened as he simply questioned with a calculated coldness:
"Mia, why do you take the divorce petition in such a dramatic way and not in the same pragmatic way that you took it when I asked you to be my wife? You accepted it with surprising ease when you barely knew me, as if it were just another transaction."
Mia recalled with painful clarity that crucial afternoon when Ariel appeared unexpectedly at the modest house of her parents, who did not accept her as a true Conde after she showed up at their house claiming to be the daughter they had lost so long ago.
She had been lost as a five-year-old child, was adopted by good parents who died two years ago, it was then that Mia went to the house of her real parents because she had barely learned that she belonged to the Condes.
However, when she arrived and said she was their daughter, they rejected her because, it turned out, years after Mia was lost, they found a girl identical to Mia and claimed that she was their lost daughter.
Nino Conde performed particular DNA tests which came back positive, and happiness returned to the Conde family.
But it turned out that Mia also carried part of their blood, which left them perplexed, because they had only had one daughter. The family did not accept her because she was a newcomer, although the grandmother allowed her to stay, everyone showed her contempt because they swore that she was an impostor who had pulled strings to make the tests come back positive.
Mia earned more contempt from the Condes when she decided to accept Ariel Rodriguez's marriage proposal, that day they hated and despised her with all their being.
Ariel Rodriguez had treated her with a lot of love all this time, he had been an excellent husband. If Mia wanted him to bring down the moon, he would bring it down for her, if Mia wanted anything impossible, he would do the impossible to give it to her. However, right now he was behaving so coldly that her heart ached because of his attitude.
"Ariel..."
"Please, don't make this more difficult. Accept the divorce, accept the conditions and let's end this."
Mia's chest constricted, as she did not expect him to break her in this way.
She, apparently showed a fragility, but she was stronger than Ariel thought.
Mia was not going to beg, she was not going to beg Ariel to stay with her for her son. So, she dropped the paper that was inside her pocket, and gathering all the strength that characterized her, she stood up and said.
"Okay, I'll give you a divorce." Without further ado, she turned around and set out to leave, but walked so clumsy that she tripped on a piece of furniture.
It was so abrupt that even the furniture moved, which caught Ariel's attention, who immediately got up to help her, but she refused to be touched.
Ariel stood still while he watched her leave. When he saw her walking lame, he hurried to approach her, because he knew that she could not climb the stairs.
"Don't touch me! I can do it myself," she said, however, when trying to raise her leg on the first step, she felt the lump in her thigh.
Mia cried, more than for the internal pain of the heart.
Ariel grabbed her in his arms and carried her to the bedroom, where he laid her down gently and went for the medicine cabinet to heal her.
Upon returning, he saw Mia crying, but she held back her tears and looked away.
Ariel settled down next to her, began to apply ointment gently, trying not to hurt her.
"Ariel, why do you want to get divorced?" Ariel did not answer, he continued applying the cream on Mia's leg. "Have I been a bad wife? Have I not taken good care of you?"
She wanted to understand why he had so suddenly decided to divorce her, if every day she saw him happy.
"You have been a good wife," said Ariel. "The reasons for the divorce have nothing to do with that."
"Then? What's going on?" She thought that maybe the Rodriguezes were bankrupt and he did not want to drag her to ruin.
Ariel had always taken care of her, so much so that she thought her marriage would be eternal, however, now he had asked her for a divorce.
"Are you sick? Are you going to die? Do you have any terminal illness?" Her question frustrated Ariel.
Actually, he was sick, he had diabetes, but it was not that he was going to die at that moment. But the reason for his divorce was because Zoe had returned.
Zoe was the woman Ariel really loved, the woman he married Mia for. Zoe was identical to Mia, and that was why, when she abandoned him for no reason, Ariel decided to marry the sister, since she was identical and reminded him of Zoe.
Even the way Ariel always treated Mia was because he saw her as Zoe. Mia Conde was just a substitute healing his wounded heart.
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