Dulcina Calvo wakes up to discover that the man in the hospital bed has disappeared.
Just as he was about to get up to go look for her, Esteban Zaragosa had already returned with his cell phone in his hand.
Dulcina Calvo relaxed, “Where were you? Why didn’t you wake me up?”.
“Watching you sleep so soundly, I couldn’t bear to call you.”
Dulcina Calvo looked at the time on her phone and asked, “It’s late, you must be hungry. The doctor said you can have a liquid meal tonight, I’ll bring you some porridge.”
She was about to leave when Esteban Zaragosa took her wrist between his and the man looked at her gently, “It’s late, where can I get porridge, order it to go?”.
“But the takeout can be less than clean …”
“I have the numbers of some private chef restaurants that I can send directly.”
Dulcina Calvo helped him lie back down on the bed: “Well, I’m a little hungry too, order two”.
“Good.”
When the porridge arrived, there were many sandwiches in it that Esteban Zaragosa could not eat, all ordered for Dulcina Calvo.
Dulcina Calvo worked up an appetite: “This place has some really good glass shrimp meatballs, can you take me there when you get out of the hospital?”.
Esteban Zaragosa looked at her soft, clear little face and suddenly became a little quiet.
Dulcina Calvo did not listen to his answer and looked at him: “What’s wrong? Is your white porridge tasteless and unpleasant? Do you want some sugar?”.
Esteban Zaragosa shook his head and spoke faintly, “Tomorrow morning, you’re going home.”
“No, I just took a few days off from the hospital, don’t worry, it won’t affect my work.”
“I mean you don’t have to come take care of me later.”
Dulcina Calvo looked at him with some confusion and said with a smile, “But you need to be taken care of right now. As your girlfriend, I’m supposed to take care of you when you’re sick, and you’ll take care of me when I’m sick, so why kick me out? Staying here to take care of you is much easier than working at the hospital, and it’s not tiring.”
“If you are no longer my girlfriend from now on, you don’t need to take care of me.”
Dulcina Calvo’s hand gripping the chopsticks froze, and with it the smile on her lips hardened. “Esteban Zaragosa, what are you talking about, it’s not that I think taking care of you is a burden, I’m worried that you’re sick, I … ”
“Dulcina Calvo, let’s break up”.
The disposable chopsticks in Dulcina Calvo’s hand slipped out of her hand and fell to the floor.
She cracked a smile and said, “Esteban, Esteban Zaragosa, are you kidding me?”.
Esteban Zaragosa’s dark eyes, staring at her, said, word for word, “I’m not kidding, I’m serious.”
“Is it because my parents keep stopping us, so…”
Before the words could finish, they were interrupted by Esteban Zaragosa: “It has nothing to do with your parents”.
Dulcina Calvo, her eyes slightly reddened, looked increasingly puzzled: “And why?”.
“I suddenly realized that I don’t like you that much.”
Dulcina Calvo, with her hands lost, suddenly stood up, choked a little and questioned him: “… What do you mean by suddenly realizing, after all this time, that you don’t like me so much? Esteban Zaragosa, what exactly do you mean? ”
After a long moment, Esteban Zaragosa narrowed his dark eyes slightly, looked down at his folded hands and spoke without a hint of emotion, “I’m tired of playing, is that reason enough?”
“…”
Dulcina Calvo felt a vague tingling in her body, not knowing if it was from anger or from being so upset, but she tried with restraint to calm down.
She took a deep breath and asked, “So, from the beginning, you weren’t serious about me?”
Esteban Zaragosa looked up and merely asked rhetorically, “Do you think it is possible for people like us, who are not even of the same class, to get married?”
Dulcina Calvo was very hurt by what Esteban Zaragosa said, which really hurt her, more than indifference with stinging.
Dulcina Calvo’s hand, which hung on her leg, was crumpling into a fist: “But you once divorced Claudio Belles for me.”
“First of all, I never had any substantial marital relationship with Claudio Belles, and I did not decide to divorce her after meeting you; your presence only gave me the excuse and the opportunity to do so.”
Tears, finally came out of her eyes, she did not want to cry, forcefully with the back of her hand to wipe away the tears, “but why only now mention the breakup, before why not say? And … I asked you, you said you were serious about me, why did you lie to me?”.
Why does he worship her so much if it’s just for fun, the kind of worship that clearly gives the wrong impression of true love?
“I’ve told every woman I’ve dated that I mean it – do you believe what men say when they’re in love?”
“Dad…”
A slap, hard, on the left side of Esteban Zaragosa’s face.
Esteban Zaragosa looked at her slowly and asked, “Relieved?”.
“…”
“If you are relieved of your hatred, stop bothering me.”
“…”
Dulcina Calvo covered her mouth and turned to flee the hospital at a brisk pace.
He ran hard, harder than he had ever run a marathon in school, because he never wanted to see Esteban Zaragosa again.
Why has it come to this …
A few hours earlier, he had asked when they could enter their names in a ledger, and she had thought that was a precursor to a proposal, that he was really thinking about their future.
But now Esteban Zaragosa was telling him that it was just for fun and that there was nothing serious.
His stubbornness and insistence on Esteban Zaragosa turned out to be a joke when mom and dad objected.
He told her to trust him and that she would solve all difficulties as long as she was with him, but now, he breaks up with her, saying that they are not the same kind, that she is not worthy to talk to him about her feelings and that he is even afraid that she will persecute him.
…
After fleeing the hospital, Dulcina Calvo burst into tears, went home and spent the night awake.
I received a WhatsApp message from Estrella Berrocal in the morning.
Estrella Berrocal asked him, “How is Dr. Esteban? Has he been left alone in the hospital to take care of him lately and is he doing well?”
Dulcina Calvo repeated a few words with difficulty: “I am not going to go to the hospital to take care of him.
“Huh?” Estrella Berrocal didn’t understand what it meant.
Dulcina Calvo quickly returned the message: “Estrella, could you please not mention this person in front of me again?
Estrella Berrocal became even more suspicious: “Have you had a fight with Dr. Esteban?”.
“No, I broke up with him.”
“…”
Within seconds, Estrella Berrocal’s call came directly.
Dulcina Calvo hesitated for a few seconds, thinking that even if she didn’t face him now, she would have to face him later, and that it would be better to finish him off as soon as possible.
As soon as she picked up the phone, Estrella Berrocal asked worriedly, “Didn’t you and Dr. Esteban have a good time yesterday? Didn’t you say he proposed to you? Why did you and Dr. Esteban break up in the blink of an eye? Could there have been a misunderstanding?”
“There was no misunderstanding, he said we weren’t in the same class and he was just messing with me.”
Estrella Berrocal frowned: “… a second Lázaro Morejón?”
complained Dulcina Calvo: “You are right, Esteban Zaragosa is no different from Lázaro Morejón, he is a second Lázaro Morejón, even worse. ”
Estrella Berrocal unconsciously analyzed, “But Dr. Esteban doesn’t seem like that kind of person…”
Dulcina Calvo shouted in exasperation, “It is.”
“Okay, okay, don’t cry yet, where are you now, I’m worried about you.”
“I’m home, Estrella, can you come keep me company?”
assured Estrella Berrocal as she prepared to leave, “Okay, will you wait for me for half an hour? No second thoughts, we have the next good man without Esteban Zaragosa. “