Wedding Day

Wedding Day

Rain hit my windshield with such force, I thought the glass would break. But BMW’s are solid cars, my dad says. They don’t break. They don’t crash. They have airbags. Sometimes I wonder if all that is just crock to make me believe that he gives a damn. I know for a fact he doesn’t. This silver baby was a graduation gift. And a birthday gift all in one. I happened to turn eighteen two days before our graduation ceremony.

Layla was valedictorian. How sweet and confident she looked up there—smiling, saying that stupid cliché speech without flinching. Jesus, if it were me, I’d have laughed my head off. And gotten wasted to boot. It’s no coincidence I proposed to her on my birthday. Sure, I was high, and drunk, and my senses were floating somewhere between here and the moon, but still I knew she was the one. I’d always known. Ever since that day I first saw her in that tiny black dress four years ago. She was going to major in art. That’s what she’d said. And she hated me. I swear, I’m not kidding, she hated my guts. She avoided me as if I were some terminal disease, chasing after her, dragging her to hell.

You know why she hated me? Because she thought I was rich and conceited. And a womanizer. I’m not sure I am all those things, but that’s what she thought of me. And she was one of the “good girls” that didn’t hang out with guys like me; rich, spoiled guys with good looks and fast cars. She didn’t want a boyfriend is what she’d said when I asked her out. And in a kind of mean way, too. Sheesh. At least she could have been polite.

We lived in a small townhouse in Brooklyn. Yeah, you guessed right. Ben bought it for us. For our engagement party. Ben is my dad. For some reason, I never took a liking to calling him “dad.” Don’t ask why. Or rather, do ask. It’s because he’s a cold son of a bitch. He just buys me things to make me happy but never spends time with me. I’m his son, and he and my mom bought all the furniture. It was already furnished with sheets and plates and all when we moved in. Lena didn’t even have time to blink, it was so fast. For some weird reason my parents are happy I’m engaged. You’d think that two kids who haven’t even started college yet would be way too young. But not for my father, Benjamin Connors. He thinks it’s going to do me good to settle down with one girl.

I’ve been a womanizer since I was fifteen. I think that’s the reason Lena hated me so much when we met. I guess she thought I’d dump her or something. But I never did. I don’t know why, but there is something about her that pulls me in…I can’t describe it because we’re so different. But think of Yin and Yang, Black and White, Sun and Moon… you get it. We just fit, that’s all.

And I know I drink too much, I party too much, and I love to smoke my weed, and do crazy shit like sail at midnight, dirt-bike for four hours straight, or go on spontaneous road trips at five in the morning.  You know, stuff like that. But Lena doesn’t mind. She just goes with the flow. She’s not some bitchy eighteen-year-old girl who acts thirty just because she got engaged. She doesn’t want kids yet or anything. She just wants to have fun. And we promised, we made a pact—that we’d always stay young. No matter what. We will never be a cliché married couple.

So, I did fall in love although everyone found that impossible. And at such a young age—I couldn’t believe it myself. But as I said, there was something about her that I just don’t know why, appealed to me. It’s not that much her looks. Sure, she was a pretty girl, but there are plenty of gorgeous girls that like me. I could have chosen any girl I wanted—not a studious little green-eyed girl with glasses. But she was the one.

And so, my smugness went out the window the minute we met. It took several pleas on my part to get her to go on a date with me. Her parents didn’t let her go out on dates. But I convinced them. I’ve got some charisma, some good old fashioned charm, and they fell for it. Not only that, after a few months of being together, they let her move in with me, since, in fact, we were engaged.

What I found out about her, is that she’s funny, and sweet, and very smart. So, it wasn’t just physical. I liked her intensity, the conversations we had.

Let me tell you a bit on how we met. She was sitting on the grass, at Johnny Goodman’s eighteenth birthday bash.

I came over to her and said,

“Mind if I sit?”

She looked up at me with a weird intensity.

“Suit yourself,” she said, shrugging.

I fished out a Marlboro from my crumpled pack, and lit up with my Zippo lighter. For once, I had no words to say. I couldn’t use my usual pick-up lines, because I knew she’d find them cheesy and just walk off. It’s not what I wanted. So, I waited for her to speak first.

“Those things will kill you, you know.” She said.

“If I’m not under thirty, it’s fine with me. Once I hit thirty, they can kill me for all I care.” I said.

“So you’re one of those insecure people who are afraid of old age,” she said laughing a bit.

“Old age sucks,” I said. “you get wrinkly and boring. Not to mention, you become heartless.”

“That’s entirely your perspective,” she said. “Old age is not that bad. In fact, it’s quite nice to have such a vast collection of memories. And your heart doesn’t die if you don’t let it die. It’s your own deal. David, right?”

Jesus. What an idiot I am. She doesn’t even know my name. Every girl in school knows my name.

“Yeah. And you’re Layla., Art major wannabe right?” I said.

“Yeah. I do like to paint.”

Then I did something completely unexpected—I asked her on an instadate.

“Hey, I have a Honda near the gate. Would you like to come for a ride with me?” My palms were sweaty believe it or not. Me, David Arnold had sweaty palms. Insane.

“Sure,” she said. Just like that. She caught me by surprise. I didn’t expect goody-goody Layla to want to get on a Honda, but there you have it. she did.

“So, where to?” She asked.

“Surprise,” I said, half smiling.

“Look. If you’re a rapist or a murderer, just know, I have mace.so don’t try anything funny with me.” She said, a serious look on her face.

I had to laugh.

“Me? A rapist? Jeez, Layla, you don’t know me at all. Girls want to rape me, not the other way around.” I said, still laughing.

“You’re so full of yourself. I wonder how there’s room in your body for your conceited brain.” She said rolling her eyes.

Boy, that was harsh.

In any case, we bantered a bit. Once we got to the Moonbeam Gateway Marina, I pointed to a yacht.

“want to hang out in there?” I asked.

“I’m not going to some random person’s yacht,” she said in indigence.

“It’s my dad’s silly.” I said.

So, again, to make a long story short, that night was the most memorable night in my life. Hers too I think. From that night on, she stopped seeing me as everyone else did—I let my guard down with her. I was secure enough to do it. I did not have to be good looking, smug, girl-crazy David anymore. I didn’t have to be popular either. I was just a guy. A simple guy telling her my fears, my expectations, my wants in life, and my insecurities. What I was most afraid of, which turns out, was dying. I was afraid of death. And she understood. She talked to me like she’d known me for years.

And I fell in love with her. I did. I did not expect to get hurt from her. Quite possibly the either way around. But what happened to me, is something that completely broke me.

We dated for four months before I proposed. I so wanted to have a life with her.

So, I told my parents, we got all introduced, bla, bla. I’m not going to get into details, but you get the picture. She and I were meant to be together. And out parents approved. And it’s all that mattered to us. A week later, we got the apartment in Brooklyn. A week after that, it was graduation day. The day I saw her at the podium and listening to her cliché little speech. It wasn’t half bad. I wasn’t bored to tears. Most likely, because it had been Layla up there and not some random dude.

Fast forward to our wedding day. This is the most crucial part of the story; my infatuation with Layla Carson.

It was July. We had decided to get married at my parent’s house in the Hamptons. Our wedding would have been on the beach. She would have worn a beautiful white dress, no makeup, and flowing hair. Barefoot, free. Young. I’d be wearing my tux, barefoot as well. My gaze would have been transfixed on her. I had never noticed she was beautiful. I’d always seen her as plain in school. But lately, especially after that first night on my father’s yacht, there had been nothing plain about her. I loved her to the core. And she changed me. I wasn’t the same person after I met her. I wasn’t so quick to judge; I did speak to non-popular kids at school. I turned in my homework on time. I didn’t make fun of ugly fat girls. I had become a good person.

On our wedding day, I was giddy. I felt eager and I felt a yearning for her. I thought of kissing her, touching her, feeling her naked body. It made me feel so intense, so proud, so different.

And I waited. And my family was there. And her family was there. And the sun was already setting. And the crowd was whispering. And cell phones were calling her in a frenzy, trying to find out where she was.

And me? I just sat there with my bouquet of flowers and my best man, and waited. I thought I was dreaming the moment. I hadn’t even noticed the passage of time. It seemed to have been going forever. It had been only an hour when someone informed her father that she had been involved in an accident on her way here. She died in the ER room, barely making it.

After that day, my life was never the same.

I imagined her white dress filled with blood, her face pale, her body limp. Our future did not exist anymore. Nothing did.

Neither did I.