"Art! Where the hell are you?" Zeanne's voice resounded in my car, and I could almost imagine her seething with anger. Why wouldn't she be when the most important person was running late?
"I'm really sorry. I'm almost there, honey." I was practically sweating buckets even with my car's AC set to max.
"Don't you honey me and get your ass over here! Everyone's waiting! Be here in 15 minutes! We will go through this wedding with or without you." She ended the call without giving me the chance to tell her that I was still 30 minutes away. My dear Zeanne has always been so sweet to me.
"I love you too." I whispered affectionately with a smile, despite knowing that I was no longer talking to anyone. I was confident that they would not go through the wedding without me.
That's just not possible.
Nevertheless, I stepped on the pedal while cursing at myself for allowing the other guys to tempt me into drinking.
After what Zeanne has been through when we were kids, I swore to never drink alcohol for the rest of my life. And last night, I broke that promise for the very first time.
Another one of the many promises that I broke over the years.
That must be why I felt like I was being punished when I woke up this morning in my condo with a really bad hangover from the previous night's bachelor party. And to make matters worse, I discovered that my phone had also been in the same state as I was: out like a light.
I charged it up to 10% and hastily turned it on, only to find 26 missed calls from Zeanne, Katherine, and Dad.
Each.
The colour drained from my face when I finally realized that I only had an hour left before the wedding.
Repeatedly cursing at myself, I quickly showered and put on my tux. I didn't even have the time to think about visiting the salon and prep up. I wouldn't dare unless I wish to have Zeanne shove a hairspray down my throat.
While driving to the venue, I shook my head when I thought about how this single mistake would become a knife against my neck for the rest of our lives. I had a preview of that moment when my phone, which has been attached to the car stereo, started ringing again while displaying Zeanne's pretty face and caller ID.
[godZEElla is calling...]
I chose not to answer the call because I was driving over a hundred and fifty kilometres per hour along the deadliest coastal cliffs of Etheen, the West Coast.
If I had the time to spare, I would have spent a couple of seconds appreciating the very nice ocean view that had a beautiful mixture of blue and orange. The wonderful colours of the ocean were also greatly complimented by the sky that was tainted with pink and indigo. A breathtaking view indeed.
But there was no time to spare.
Not even a single second.
Because Zeanne was just as impatient as the setting sun.
"Have a little patience, darling. I'm on my way." I muttered to myself, hoping that my sincerity and earnest wish to arrive on time would reach Zeanne, who will finally no longer be a Haile today.
I turned another curve, and knowing that I was not that far from my destination, I smiled.
But that smile quickly faded when something black flew straight to my car and covered my windshield. I hastily stepped on the brakes and pulled the handbrake, uttering a silent prayer in my head because I remembered seeing the road-rail straight ahead.
'Dear Lord, take the wheel.'
I was pretty sure that my prayer would have been heard if I had been a good boy.
But I was not.
And I guessed that today was the day for me to receive my punishments.
Because it was not long after I said my prayer that I felt the impact and heard a loud sound of my car crashing against the rail and breaking it before diving straight to the cliff.
The airbag inflated, and I braced myself for the fall.
With a loud splash, muffled by the ocean waves hitting the edge of the cliff, my car sunk into the depths of the deep blue ocean which was probably raging mad at me for not appreciating it earlier.
As the water started seeping into the SUV that I was still in the middle of paying in instalments, I quickly had a brawl with the airbag, which was nothing but a nuisance at the moment. The pyro sensor of the seatbelt that was meant to keep me safe during an accident would be the very reason for my death if I don't manage to release myself from the belt.
"Come on. Damn it. I have a wedding to attend."
I cursed as I struggled to reach for the compartment where Zeanne installed a small axe. For emergency purposes, she said. We even had a huge argument about it because I was afraid that I might find myself at a checkpoint, and the authorities would question why I was carrying a deadly weapon in my car.
She only won the argument by crying and saying that she had a really bad dream about me.
And whenever Zeanne cried, Arthur would shut up.
But I never thought that a time would actually come for me to have a use for that axe aside from opening a coconut during our road trips.
After much effort, I was finally able to open the compartment and obtain the axe with a groan. I hastily cut off the seatbelt before taking my phone and putting it in my back pocket. Then I took a deep breath before I started breaking the window. It was not an easy feat, and as soon as I was able to break it open, water came flooding in.
With all the strength that I could muster, I pushed myself through the window and was able to swim out of the car. But the bottom of the ocean was dark, and the current was really strong, very different from the calm and pretty scenery that I failed to appreciate earlier.
It took a lot of energy to finally find my way up to the surface and a whole lot of concentration to prevent myself from panicking as I started running out of oxygen. My training in the Navy paid off when I found myself successfully kicking through the waters, getting nearer to the surface.
As soon as I got my head out of the water, I was quickly pulled right back in when a huge wave swallowed me and swept me beneath it. Instead of feeling despair, I used that chance to figure out which direction was the shore or the closest thing to land.
But before I could even try swimming in that direction, the waves did the honours of pushing me towards it and slamming me straight into the bottom rocks of the cliff.
My head took a blow, and I groaned in pain as I started losing my consciousness while sinking back into the darkness. I could barely lift a single finger, so I did not really expect myself to be capable of moving my limbs.
And as I was being pulled to the depths of the ocean, I thought about the wedding that I would be missing and the bride that was probably raging with fury by now, completely oblivious that her best man was on the brink of death with their wedding rings in his suit pocket.
'I hope that they can still go through the wedding without the rings.'
My eyes slowly closed as I finally resigned to my fate.
Ready to meet the heart of the ocean.
'And I pray that they live happily ever after…'