I Wrote An Arranged Marriage Story. Now, If You'll Excuse Me, I Have Some Suicide to Commit. (Final Chapter)

Made by ThatLittleSpark

Made by CrazBanna

Made by Chrisenta

To my eternal shame, I have lost the name of the final person who made the story a banner - if you're out there, I'm sorry but thank you anyway.

Vince’s POV

There wasn’t enough time for me to think when it happened. It was all so fast. One moment Abigail was standing beside me, the next she was on the floor, blood soaking the front of her jacket and no matter how hard I shook her or how close I pulled her to me, her eyes continued to glaze over and her heart continued to grow faint until I couldn’t feel its rhythmic beating at all.

Nothing else mattered to me when I realised that it was too late. Everything around me was blurry except for Abigail. I didn’t register the fact that my father was attempting to leave, or that he couldn’t because soldiers were blocking the exit. I didn’t comprehend the way my father raised the gun –the same he’d used to take Abby’s life only moments earlier. And I certainly didn’t notice it when the soldiers opened fire.

It wasn’t until his blood was mixing with Abby’s across the floor tiles that I even realised my father was dead. Not that I had a mind to care. There was only one thing in the world I cared about and my shocked disbelief was slowly giving way to the realisation that I was losing her.

I brushed some of her blonde hair away from her face. My hand was shaking and I despised how unresponsive she was to my touch even though her skin was still warm. Pulling her face upwards I tried to force her green eyes to meet my grey ones the way they had so many times in the past but it was useless. Her eyelids were open but she was staring at something I knew I couldn’t see, something elsewhere, in another world, perhaps.

There was a strangled cry from across the room and I looked up to see Abigail’s father having to support himself against the doorframe. The soldiers around him were carving a path, making room for the enormity of his grief as he saw that I was cradling his daughter’s lifeless body. It disturbed me to see him the way he was, devoid of any control. But it wasn’t until I witnessed his violent anguish that I realised I was just as much of a mess.

The paramedics tried to get me to relinquish my hold over her but I refused to let go. They had to check her pulse while I held tightly onto her. They needn’t have because I already knew that she was gone and it hurt more than words could ever say.

The part which hurt the most was how quickly it had happened, how quickly she had left me. There hadn’t been time for anything – not even to tell her I loved her.

When it came down to it, Abby had escaped a lot of things, from moving cars to multi-storey buildings and arranged marriages. But the one thing she hadn’t been able to escape was death.

*

‘Would you like something to drink, sir?’ the stewardess asked me, waving a half-sized bottle of champagne. I shook my head. Alcohol was neither what I needed nor what I wanted. It only confused my memories and I wanted all of them to be crystal clear. I never wanted to forget a single moment that Abby and I had together.

I was on a plane to New York. The last time I’d caught a plane I had been with Abigail. But that was over a year ago and since then so much had happened. For example, Of Vixens & Villains was made into a film. That was why I was headed across the Atlantic Ocean. Abigail’s family had invited me to the premiere. I no longer hated that play; I found it impossible to hate anything even vaguely connected with Abigail.

When they learned about Abby’s death, people found it hard to believe that someone with so much talent could die so young. She hadn’t even reached her nineteenth birthday. At least she would never become like Orson Welles as she’d feared. The posthumous accolades came pouring in for Abby’s plays. Every single one she’d written had now either already taken to the stage or was set to do so. Her parents accepted the praise on behalf of their deceased daughter.

I was anxious about seeing Abby’s parents. It had been a while. Although Abby’s mother took her first born child’s death hard, she didn’t feel it nearly so much as Abby’s father. He blamed himself in part for what had happened. When he’d heard that Abby’s home had been attacked, he’d come out of hiding to visit the Royal Mercy Hospital where he’d met with Carmen. She told him where Abby had gone. He knew that Scotland Yard wasn’t safe – my father had too many contacts among the police. So he contacted MI5 who, as it turned out, had been keeping a watch on my father ever since the announcement of the merger between Halifax Banks and El Banco di Cortez. If he’d only arrived a few moments earlier, if he’d contacted them before Abby’s life was ever in danger maybe she would still be alive.

For my part, I blamed myself as well. Why couldn’t I have saved her? I would only have had to take a single step and the bullet would have hit me instead. Chances were that I would have survived. But none of those things had happened. I hadn’t stepped in front of Abby and her father had arrived too late.

Almost everyone who had known Abby blamed themselves in some way. Even Matt who had been held hostage by corrupt police officers the entire time my father was doing the same to Abigail and me. As I was on the plane to New York he was in Milan, drowning himself in Italian models. He’d confessed to me that although what he’d felt for Abby was the closest he’d ever felt to love, it still wasn’t strong enough to result in anything more than a platonic relationship. Abby had always loved me, he said. Even though she didn’t get the chance to tell me so herself, he maintained that I was the only person she would have wanted to die in the arms of.

Over twelve months later, it still made my chest ache and my throat tighten to think of it. I’d had months of sleepless nights and still woke occasionally, mid-nightmare. But I didn’t regret the nightmares because they were just one more link I had to Abigail and in a twisted, masochistic way, I never wanted them to stop. I never wanted to let go of her because she was, without a doubt, the best thing that ever happened to me.

Since then, although I still clung to Abigail, the rest of the world had to move on. I offered the CEO position of Halifax Banks to Christopher Thornleigh but he told me he wouldn’t take it for all the money in the world. I would have done the same because all the money in the world would never have brought Abigail back. Nothing would; this wasn’t a fairytale and I certainly wasn’t Prince Charming. The position of CEO went to another of Halifax’s executives. Then I claimed my inheritance, a sum which could have bought several small African nations, and took up where Abigail left off.

By writing.

I wrote a lot of fiction, some of which was published. But what I liked to write the most was the truth. The truth about Abigail, her image committed to the written word where I could always revisit it if I needed to. By writing about Abigail, I was ensuring that no matter how old or how forgetful I became, I would always have a way to see her, to bring a shadow of her back to me, just a glimmer, enough to get me through the day. It was my consolation, my closure which never really closed anything at all, just opened up more memories. But the memories were what I clung to.

Which brought me back to the stewardess.

She placed the bottle of champagne back on the trolley and moved off up the aisle to see if the next person wanted any. I watched her go absent-mindedly before turning to the window. Abby had been right, it really did just look like a lot of ocean down there. I smiled, feeling the tautness of the scar over my lip. She gave me that scar. It was a remnant of our final kiss and I traced a finger over it the way I usually did when thinking of Abby which, admittedly, I did a lot.

When the plane touched down in JFK airport, I was greeted by Abigail’s parents first. Her mother hugged me as if I was her own, planting kisses along my cheeks and making worrying remarks about my skin tone. Was I getting enough sun in England? Perhaps I should pick up some Vitamin D tablets from the pharmacy?

At first Abby’s father just shook my hand but a moment later he pulled me into a strong hug. When we broke apart, although he looked somewhat awkward about our exchange, he didn’t take it back or apologise for which I was glad.

And then, there was Jessa. Things between us were still strained; she only offered a meek wave to which I returned a smile. She had gone backto school and after her final exams intended to study playwriting in homage to her sister’s memory. In a lot of ways, despite her sibling being gone, Jessa was still trying to make up for the fact that she had betrayed her sister through her marriage to me. Not that we’d been married for a long time. After Abby’s death it had all come out into the open, everything my father had done. When it went to the courts, the judge had our marriage immediately annulled. He’d also promised to have Jose Cortez pay dearly for his part in the tragedy. Unfortunately, that was impossible because Cortez’s lawyers argued that although he had partaken in the bet, he had never pulled the trigger on the gun. Cortez was reinstated as CEO of El Banco di Cortez but by now, the press had also caught onto the story and he was hounded so relentlessly by them that he was forced to retire again, this time in disgrace.

As wonderful as it was to see Abby’s family again, I was somewhat relieved that I had declined their offer to stay with them at their hotel. If I could have, I might have liked to stay in Abby’s old apartment but it had been sold shortly after her death. Instead, I was going to stay in the apartment of the only woman apart from Abigail whom had ever meant anything to me; my mother.

The inside was neat except for the study in which unused paper lay strewn across the wooden desk along with writing implements. It looked as though the last person to stay here had been using it a lot. My chest tightened as I realised that person was Abigail.

Swallowing hard, I sat in the chair and looked over the desk, searching its contours for any trace of the girl I had lost. Did Abigail scrunch up that ball of paper? Was that Abigail’s ink spill?

I shook my head, attempting to clear it. I knew I couldn’t go on this way forever. One day the scars would fade, maybe the hole inside me would even heal. But for now, I didn’t want it to end.

Getting out of the chair, I glanced briefly around the rest of the room, curious to find anything else amongst my mother’s belongings which could tie Abigail to this place. My eyes stopped on the fireplace. There was a pile of ash inside of it which didn’t fit with the tidy demeanour throughout most of the apartment. Paper poked up from underneath the cinders and I pulled it out to examine it.

My breath caught in my throat as I recognised Abigail’s handwriting within the charred edges of the pages. I began to read what she had written. They were letters, addressed to me. In each one she told me that she loved me and missed me and couldn’t wait to see me so that we could be together. It was the lifeline I’d needed. As far as I was concerned, I had found the Holy Grail as Abby’s words spoke to me from beyond the grave.

I love you, more than these stupid letters will ever be able to tell you, Vincent Halifax. I know you’re taking your time getting to me, but if I have to, I’ll wait for you for eternity.

I thought of Abigail’s grave, how it contained something which wasn’t her. Her body wasn’t her. These words, they were the Abigail I knew and loved. Her body had merely been a vessel and now it was an empty shell, lying beneath a headstone.

But the headstone was important.

It was in the very same cemetery as my mother’s, my way of introducing them to each other, seeing as I couldn’t do it when they were alive. My father was buried elsewhere and I hadn’t given him a gravestone. He didn’t deserve the same recognition or remembrance that they did. The words on Abby’s headstone I carried with me everywhere. Her parents had let me dictate it and it had been my message to her just as these letters were her message to me.

Abigail Thornleigh.

Forever missed.

Forever loved.