A knot too tight

Part 3-Allie

I was angry. The most angry I had ever been in my entire life and all because of the person I had vowed to always keep at an arms length.The atmosphere in our car was awkward, I tried not to notice the worried glances my parents kept throwing my way. Just half an hour more, you can do it, I kept chanting in my head. I could almost make out the tops of the church in which my marriage was to take place. This was supposed to be the happiest, most dreamiest day of my life but instead I am here trying hard not to let more of the tears spill down my face. This is what happens when you agree to marry someone just because they make your family happy. No one pressurised me into this, that is no one except James of course but seeing how happy my parents and brother seemed to be around him I had given in. I glanced down at my phone when another message alert came up.

I am sorry.

Just these three words from him and immediately I felt better. There was another message soon after.

I just thought that I will be the adult in this relation and make amends. Not that I have done anything wrong🤭.

So much for feeling better. I thought wryly.I remember glancing up tracing the church piers against the sky as it grew bigger and bigger but then that's the last thing I remember. There was an earsplitting scream then everything was blank.

When I woke up again everything had changed, we were no longer in the car but all of us were standing around a hospital bed. I looked around taking inventory of everyone but my parents and brother seemed just fine, except for the look of extreme worry on their faces. Then who else could be there on the bed, that got them so depressed... I leaned over standing on tip toes to see over my brother's shoulder. I gasped.... I would have fainted if I could... I saw myself hooked to a lot of moniters.I was dying or dead,I didn't know which. I heard my mom softly sobbing into my father's chest but what really surprised me was James. I hadn't really seen him at first but now I saw his dishevelled figure slumped over the foot of my bed. That was what shocked me more than my own dying self, to see James so unlike his cocky, arrogant self. I tried to enter my body but I couldn't, I felt like vapour passing through everything. I tried calling my parents, my brother. But I couldn't......no one could see me, I was dead yet I was alive. Is this how death worked or was it only me. Was it my parents grief that was holding me back from going wherever the dead goes to... I didn't know... Right now I didn't have the time to contemplate all this for the doctor was making all of them leave, I watched as the nurses removed the various wires attached to my body. One them closed my lifeless eyes. And I watched as my brother drag James away kicking and screaming away from my body.
I didn't know what good it was to me anymore but this was our moment of truth, both James's and mine,that he loved me beyond all the absurdities of his character that was the only truth that remained, punching me right between my eyes.

May be every soul got the chance to see his or her funeral. Because right now I was at mine. I watched a numb James, as he sat zombie like near my body. God how I wished I had seen beyond his tough exterior before. I stood near him placing a comforting hand over his shoulder not that he could feel that or may be he could because I felt him shrug me off, hissing to leave him alone without looking behind to see who it was. What if he could see me, but I was not ready to take any chances least someone think he has gone mad.The prayers over with, all the people I knew came forward to pay their respects to me.My parents, my brother and atlast James, he made his way towards my body kneeling down he slipped the wedding ring onto my lifeless fingers.He threw himself over me, his body wracking his gut wrenching sobs. No this was not the James the world knew, I hope after this shock has worn off he will be that person again or I wouldn't be able to forgive myself.