I Was Dead – Chapter 1 – Let Me Introduce Myself

Six eggs.

Six fucking eggs.

I was lying on my back in a supermarket parking lot, staring at the sky, and all I could think about was that six of my eggs were broken.

The carton had landed beside my head. Half the eggs were smashed, their contents slowly spreading across the pavement. One orange had rolled under a parked truck, and my milk was leaking somewhere near my feet.

I couldn’t move.

My head hurt like hell.

And I was going to be late for dinner.

Which was particularly annoying because I’d spent the entire afternoon planning it.

But wait.

Before we get into why I was lying on the frozen ground surrounded by groceries, let me introduce myself.

I’m thirty-two, engaged, and generally quite good at keeping my life together.

Clearly, there are exceptions.

I have a good job, a house, a car, and a man who loves me enough to put up with my personality.

And trust me, that’s not always a small achievement.

We’ve been together almost five years. Engaged for three.

Yes, three.

My mother considers this a personal insult.

Every family dinner eventually turns into a discussion about wedding dates, venues, or the possibility that I’m secretly planning to become a nun.

My fiancé usually handles these conversations better than I do.

He holds my hand under the table, smiles at my mother, and tells her we’re working on it.

I tell her I’m waiting for the right financial conditions.

“What conditions?” she asks.

“Someone else paying for it.”

My fiancé laughs.

My mother doesn’t.

Anyway, I love him.

I really do.

He’s smart, successful, handsome, and annoyingly good at getting people to like him.

He’s also the kind of man who makes decisions for a living and then comes home and spends fifteen minutes asking me what I want for dinner.

I usually tell him I don’t care.

Then reject his first three suggestions.

Marriage is going to be wonderful.

He was the one who pursued me.

And when I say pursued, I mean the man had absolutely no intention of taking a hint.

We met at a charity event through work.

I was there because my boss had decided that networking was important.

I disagreed.

I had a deadline, a presentation to finish, and approximately zero interest in standing around making small talk with men who introduced themselves by mentioning what car they drove.

He came over while I was checking my phone.

“Are you waiting for someone?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“My Uber.”

He laughed.

I didn’t.

I was serious.

He asked if he could buy me a drink.

I pointed toward the bar.

“It’s an open bar.”

“Then I suppose I’ll have to impress you with my personality.”

“That’s a risky strategy.”

He laughed again.

And instead of walking away like a sensible person, he stayed.

We talked for almost an hour.

Well, he talked.

I occasionally interrupted to disagree with him.

At one point, he asked what I did for fun.

“Sleep.”

“Seriously?”

“Sometimes I also eat.”

He smiled.

“You’re difficult.”

“You’re observant.”

He asked for my number.

I told him I was busy.

He asked when I wouldn’t be busy.

I told him probably sometime after retirement.

He said he could wait.

I thought he was joking.

He wasn’t.

The next morning, he sent me a message asking whether I’d made it home safely.

I replied six hours later.

He asked me to dinner.

I told him I had plans.

He asked about Friday.

I had plans.

Saturday?

Working.

Sunday?

Laundry.

“You’re making this difficult,” he texted.

“I’m not making anything. This is my actual schedule.”

“Then tell me when you’re free.”

I looked at my calendar.

And because I was beginning to find his persistence entertaining, I gave him a date almost three weeks away.

He booked a restaurant.

Immediately.

Three weeks later, I arrived twenty minutes late because a client meeting had run over.

He was already there.

Waiting.

With two glasses of water on the table.

I apologized.

He stood up, pulled out my chair, and said, “I was starting to think you’d invented a fake restaurant to get rid of me.”

“Don’t give me ideas.”

He laughed.

That was our first date.

It lasted four hours.

And when he walked me to my car, he asked when he could see me again.

I told him I’d check my schedule.

He kissed my cheek.

“Do that.”

By the time I got home, he’d already texted.

Next time, I’m booking five hours.

I smiled at my phone like an idiot.

Which was embarrassing.

I had standards.

Apparently, he was meeting them.

Five years later, he still occasionally complained about how hard he’d had to work to get that first date.

Usually in front of our friends.

“You have no idea,” he’d say. “I practically needed an appointment with her assistant.”

“I didn’t have an assistant.”

“Exactly. I had to negotiate directly with management.”

I’d roll my eyes.

He’d pull me closer.

And someone would inevitably ask how we’d managed to stay together so long.

“Excellent communication,” I’d say.

“Patience,” he’d answer.

“Mostly his.”

“Entirely mine.”

Then he’d kiss me, usually while I was trying to finish a sentence.

Rude.

But effective.

We were good together.

We had our arguments, of course.

He liked planning things.

I liked changing those plans when I found something better.

He was neat.

I believed a chair in the bedroom existed primarily for clothes that weren’t clean enough for the closet but weren’t dirty enough for the laundry.

He called it the chair.

With genuine resentment.

But we laughed a lot.

We travelled whenever we could.

We hosted friends.

We talked about the future.

And I never had to wonder whether he wanted me in his.

He made that very clear.

Which brings me back to the eggs.

Tonight was supposed to be special.

Nothing dramatic.

No anniversary.

No birthday.

No celebration involving balloons or people shouting surprise.

Just dinner.

At home.

Together.

He’d been working long hours lately, and between his schedule and mine, we’d spent more evenings discussing who needed to buy dishwasher tablets than doing anything remotely romantic.

So I’d decided to make an effort.

A proper dinner.

Candles.

Music.

Something that didn’t arrive in a cardboard box.

I’d even bought a bottle of wine he’d mentioned liking.

And I was going to cook.

Which was a significant romantic gesture, considering my usual relationship with cooking involved asking whether the oven really needed to be preheated.

I had a recipe saved on my phone.

A beautiful photograph of chicken in some creamy sauce with herbs and vegetables.

It looked impressive.

The instructions said forty-five minutes.

I estimated an hour and a half, allowing for mistakes, confusion, and the possibility of ordering pizza.

I’d planned to be home by six.

He usually arrived around eight.

Plenty of time.

Except work happened.

Then traffic.

Then the supermarket.

And now I was lying on the ground, looking at six broken eggs.

Technically, I only needed two.

So that wasn’t a disaster.

The milk was another story.

And the chicken –

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

Where was the chicken?

I tried to turn my head.

Pain shot through my skull.

Okay.

No more looking for chicken.

Someone was running toward me.

A woman appeared above my face.

“Oh my God! Are you okay?”

I wanted to say that I was having a minor scheduling issue.

But my mouth wasn’t working properly.

“Don’t move,” she said. “I’m calling an ambulance.”

An ambulance?

That seemed excessive.

Although, to be fair, I couldn’t feel my legs properly, so perhaps she had a point.

I tried lifting my hand.

Nothing.

That was concerning.

Very concerning.

The woman was speaking to someone on the phone.

She asked me my name.

I tried to answer.

I couldn’t.

The sky looked strangely bright.

Snowflakes were falling onto my face.

I could hear traffic.

A car door slamming.

Someone asking what happened.

I wanted to call my fiancé.

Tell him I was going to be late.

Tell him not to eat anything because I’d planned dinner.

Tell him to pick up milk.

Actually, forget the milk.

He could get milk tomorrow.

I just wanted him there.

He’d know what to do.

He always did.

And he’d probably give me that look.

The one he gave me whenever I’d managed to create a problem he hadn’t anticipated.

Then he’d kiss my forehead and tell me everything was going to be fine.

I tried to reach for my phone again.

My fingers didn’t move.

The woman’s voice sounded farther away now.

“Stay with me, okay?”

I wanted to tell her I was trying.

I had dinner to make.

A man to kiss.

A perfectly good bottle of wine waiting to be opened.

I couldn’t just lie here.

Not tonight.

But the sky was disappearing around the edges.

The cold faded.

The voices became quieter.

And my last clear thought was that he was going to come home to an empty kitchen, with absolutely no idea how much trouble I’d gone through to surprise him.

What a fucking disappointment.

Then everything went black.