Permission to Love

Chapter Seven

It came in one big blur; the fitting, the rehearsal dinner and before Kathryn can bring herself back from the darkness she has been living in, she is standing at the front of the church with her hands locked in Alexander's. She thought her heart would be pounding inside her chest, she figured her palms would be clammy and shaky but instead she is calm. Her mind is at peace and she has no anxiety or fear because she knows in her heart this isn't happening. She knows that, at any moment, those double doors at the back of the church will swing open and James will stop everything. The choir will grow silent and every head will turn to judge the boy wearing a black leather jacket and dingy blue jeans. He will make his way up to the front of the church and object to this travesty before taking her hand in his and pulling her far away from all that threatened to destroy their happiness. She knows in her heart that this is what is meant to be and her eyes are still glued to the entrance of the church when the preacher clears his throat to try and get her attention once more.

"Kathryn? Do you take Alexander as your husband; to have and to hold, in sickness and health, for better or worse, as long as you both shall live?"

The church is silent in anticipation of Kathryn's response but it takes a moment for her to process what is instead of what she imagined would be. All eyes are on her and the church doors are shut tight, no beautiful boy wearing a dark leather jacket in sight. Her nerves are finally getting the best of her as she swallows them back and glances around the church one last time. Her father shot her daggers while her mother continues smiling and wiping away tears as fake as those perfectly manicured nails grasp at the tissue. Kathryn looks back at Alexander and fights the urge to turn and run out those doors because she knows it is pointless, and without the incentive, she feels compliant and purely helpless. "I do." Those are the last words she spoke before everything went back into it's blurred state of being. One moment she is standing at the front of the church and the next she is in a long black limousine on her way to a five star hotel paid by the proud parents of the groom. The noise from the wedding has disappeared and all that remains is the deafening silence filling the moving vehicle. Alexander turns to Kathryn and lets out a breath of air she was almost sure he has been holding through the entire ceremony. 

"I'm sorry."

She finally turns to him after awaking from her daze once again and waits for his words to process before speaking softly. "For what?"

He shakes his head and stares down at the empty space between them. "This was wrong and I should have said something. No one should have to marry under orders. I promise that as soon as I get my fathers investments and I get a solid grasp on how to conduct the business myself I will personally draw up the divorce papers, or annulment, or however they do it." He chuckles nervously and glances back at Katherine. He is met with a small smile as she shrugs and the sadness behind her gestures become nothing short of heartbreaking.

"He didn't come. None of it matters anymore. Married, or single, or divorced,...happiness just isn't in my future, it never was." She sighs and faces the front of the limo before whispering softly. "And neither was Jamie."