I stand at the front of the church fidgeting\u00a0slightly.\u00a0A pair of small children walk in slowly. The girl in a light pink gown that flows out from her waist making her look like a cake topper, smiles at the crowd as she tosses tiny fistfuls of red rose petals. The boy hanging onto her arm buries his face in her shoulder, shyly avoiding everyone\u2019s gaze.<\/p>\n
I\u00a0frown and look down for a moment at the shiny church floor beneath my feet, trying to think when she would\u2019ve changed her mind on all of this. When Caroline decided to have a traditional wedding instead of the wedding of her dreams. I shake my head at the thought. This wedding shouldn\u2019t even be happening, and here I am knit picking the details. I cross my arms, wanting to be angry, but feeling only despair\u00a0building up inside of me.<\/p>\n
I shift anxiously from side to side as\u00a0the bridal party approaches. Each bridesmaid has a dull, strapless dress in a shade of peach, and hair curled into little ringlets that are pulled back slightly\u00a0to keep the hair out of their faces while still showing off the same hairstyle on each girl. The groomsmen have dark tuxes with light peach vests over a white shirt and a white bowtie.<\/p>\n
I nod to myself as I recognize some of the bridal party. Caroline\u2019s twin brothers walk down the aisle with girls I don\u2019t know. Caroline\u2019s cousin Rene, her college roommate, and her best friend are part of the bridal party as well.\u00a0I feel my stomach roll as the maid of honor walks down the aisle. I blink back tears and mutter, \u201cno, no, no, no.\u201d<\/p>\n
No one turns to look at me, not that I expect them to at this point. I shake, feeling anger building up inside of me.\u00a0Mallory gives a bright, perfect smile as cameras flash. She clings to the best man, who looks more than pleased to have a size two model on his arm. A size two model that has done far more damage than her perfect little face let\u2019s show.<\/p>\n
I stare coldly at her as she crosses to the bridesmaids\u2019 side of the alter to stand with the other bridesmaids. They all lean close together and giggle lightly in anticipation of Caroline\u2019s appearance.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d cry, if I could. I\u2019d scream or run at her and throttle her if it would work. Mallory spent the past eight years stalking Caroline as her own personal project. She told Caroline she was going to Hell for getting mixed up with me.\u00a0God won\u2019t let Caroline into heaven with neon pink hair, or if she gets a ring tattooed on her finger instead of an expensive gold band that will only get dirty or lost later in life. God won\u2019t let Caroline into heaven if she doesn\u2019t start dressing more like a lady.\u00a0God won\u2019t let Caroline into heaven if she\u2019s dating a Methodist Lesbian. Caroline won\u2019t get into heaven if she marries me in the woods and not a heterosexual male in the Catholic church. Mallory broke into our apartment and attacked us several times, she\u2019d left threatening messages on our walls in sheep\u2019s blood when we\u2019d leave for work. She harassed us on the street, slashed the tires of my car, and led Caroline to\u00a0hurt herself to make up for the fact she loved me.\u00a0The cuts I would clean, and kiss, and tell Caroline she didn\u2019t need to hurt herself. That I loved her, and I always would. That no matter what happens I would be happy for the rest of my life if she was by my side.\u00a0Caroline would give me tear-filled smiles and cry out over the fact Mallory just wouldn\u2019t let us be alone\u00a0and happy.<\/p>\n
Now there\u2019s no chance of us ever being happy. The organ begins to fill the room with \u201cHere Comes the Bride.\u201d I frown and look down the aisle. There\u2019s no way that can be right. It\u2019s bad enough that Caroline decided to get married in a church, but she swore to me she never would have a clich\u00e9 wedding. She\u00a0told\u00a0<\/i>me she wanted to walk down the aisle to N.I.B and wear a rainbow-colored prom dress instead of white. She made me promise to shoot her if she even considered wearing heels with her dress or decorating the reception with little fairy lights and artsy DIY centerpieces. She always said she wanted her wedding day to be as far from normal as possible. She wanted the bridesmaids and groomsmen to wear rainbow colored togas and hold candles instead of flowers. She wanted the ceremony to take place at dusk, and that there would be absolutely no children allowed.<\/p>\n
Everyone stands up, turning to face the doorway.\u00a0I look up too and my heartbreaks to see my Caroline looking so out of place on her own wedding day. She steps down the aisle, guided by her beaming father, who\u2019s probably proud of the fact his daughter is \u2018cured\u2019 of her \u2018homosexual phase\u2019 as he so called it. Caroline\u2019s hair is bleached so light that it\u2019s nearly white. No longer is the blinding pink that made\u00a0me\u00a0call her Bubbles.\u00a0Her face is covered in conventional red lipstick and smoky eyeshadow.\u00a0Her dress is the traditional white, covered in sparkles. It\u2019s a straight, floor-length gown that drags on the floor behind her. Not the\u00a0poofy\u00a0rainbow dress that I know she bought for today. The day that was supposed to be our wedding day.\u00a0The dress has long lace sleeves, covering the scars that I so tenderly cared for.\u00a0She teeters\u00a0slightly as she walks, which tells me she\u2019s wearing heels as well.<\/p>\n
I look away. Her smile is fake, and her eyes are sad. This isn\u2019t the day she dreamed of. I wish I could reach out and hold her to me. I long to wrap her in my arms and pet her head. I\u2019d whisper, \u201cI\u2019m here,\u201d a million times until she relaxed.<\/p>\n
I reach out to touch the alter, to reconfirm the fact that I already know to be true. My hand passes easily through the marble, and I sigh. Even if I did touch her, she wouldn\u2019t feel me. She can\u2019t see me or hear me either. The only plus side is no one can see the fact that I\u2019m in my favorite pair of blue yoga pants, a tank top, and my hair is still in a messy bun that it\u2019s been in for the past two months.<\/p>\n
I glare down at Mallory, feeling the hatred\u00a0rise up\u00a0inside of me once more. Maybe she knows it, maybe she doesn\u2019t, but I know this is all her doing. That\u2019s the funny thing about being dead. Everyone may see an accident, a suicide, a tragedy, but I know that my death was murder. It isn\u2019t speculation for me anymore. Once my life left my body I suddenly had the knowledge of everything that had happened in my life. I knew my best friend in preschool had lied to me about not being able to spend the night, I knew that Caroline always knew what I got her for Christmas because I talked in my sleep, and I knew that the night I died Mallory crawled under the car and cut the breaks. She crossed herself after doing so, telling herself that she was doing the work of God.\u00a0That my car being unable to stop at that red light and running straight into a semitruck was her holy duty to fulfill two months before my wedding.<\/p>\n
I look to the groom, who is completely unassuming. He doesn\u2019t know I\u2019m next to him, then again how would he have that knowledge?\u00a0Though I\u2019ve never met him before, I know he\u2019s\u00a0some relative of Mallory\u2019s who thinks he\u2019s cured the Lesbian of Caroline. As if I was the one that snuck into Caroline\u2019s room at the age of thirteen and stole a kiss as a joke. As if I was the one who got caught staring in the locker room senior year of high school. As if I\u2019m the one that confessed my deepest darkest fantasies the first time we got drunk on a friend\u2019s alcohol freshman year of college.<\/p>\n
I inhale as Caroline steps up before me and her groom. Her father kisses her on the cheek as Mallory\u2019s relative links arms with Caroline. Caroline\u2019s lips tremble. I can see it written all over her face. She doesn\u2019t want to go through with this. Everyone else wants her to, but she doesn\u2019t. I can see now that some of the white underneath the lace of the sleeves is a large quantity of gauze. I can practically feel her pain and know that she cut up her arms only hours before the service. Her last cry of desperation before she pledges her life to a man who she\u2019s only known for two months.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love you,\u201d he whispers in her ear.<\/p>\n
Caroline forces a smile. She looks straight ahead, seemingly straight at me. For a moment it feels like she sees me. Except I know that isn\u2019t the case. But, I can\u2019t deny that somehow, she knows I\u2019m here.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love you,\u201d she whispers. Her soon to be husband smiles appreciatively, thinking it was for him. \u201cI\u2019ve only ever loved you. I won\u2019t forget you,\u201d she says so softly that even I almost\u00a0didn\u2019t hear her. She lowers her eyes and the moment is gone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Marissa Henkel I stand at the front of the church fidgeting\u00a0slightly.\u00a0A pair of small children walk in slowly. The girl in a light pink gown that flows out from her waist making her look like a cake topper, smiles at the crowd as she tosses tiny fistfuls of red rose petals. The boy hanging onto… Continue Reading The Wedding that Should’ve Been Mine<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-230","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/14-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/14-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/14-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/14-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/14-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/14-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":396,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/14-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/230\/revisions\/396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/14-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}