BITTER , KEANU REEVES

I

I.
I HOPE THIS FUCKING PLANE CRASHES

     One must not keep high hopes for a wedding that one does not want to go to. So, for Laura Michaels, the bar was on the floor.

      Why would she even go though? You might ask.

      You see, Laura Michaels did not trust her gut for it always led to bad decisions.

      Buy that convertible, it told her when she turned twenty-seven and had landed her first real job at a law firm. She shattered her left femur in it two months later after hitting an ice patch, and it was repoed three months later. She knew she would have never been able to keep up with its payments anyway.

   Get that tattoo you've wanted since you were sixteen. She got it when she turned twenty and absolutely hated it. Now, a small mermaid was permanently etched on her outer thigh.

    Go on that date your co-worker has been bugging you about. He's cute. He tasted like fish, and they didn't even eat fish for dinner. He also practically drooled in her mouth, and she couldn't look him in the eye since. She requested a transfer the following week.

    Don't even get her started on the wild, chaotic, and yet exhilarating life she led with the bride, Michelle Conrad.

    The list goes on.

    So when she opened the invitation for the July ceremony in Italy, her gut immediately screamed in protest. She RSVPed and couldn't look back.

    Now it was the morning of her flight, and she had never regretted instilling mistrust in her instincts more. But there was no turning back; she had already spent the past hour battling the masses at JFK and had reached her gate seconds before the stewards closed the door behind her.

    After covering the short distance into the cabin, she let out a small huff of surprise. The small foot of an isle gave way to only one cabin, eight rows with two seats per side. Laura could have sworn she was flying with American.

    She didn't bother to check her ticket; there was only one open seat in the second to last row. Surprise filled her as she managed to fit her carry-on (that was well above regulations) into the overhead bin, and she nearly fell down in her seat nonetheless. She was never very graceful.

    The man next to her, asleep, didn't show many signs of life other than the slight rise and fall of his chest. Laura jealously wished she had some of whatever he was having.

    Nevertheless, she settled in, preparing for the ten hours of boredom scheduled ahead for her. She had a cheesy paperback romance book in her purse that she knew she would abhor, but she read it anyway. Fifteen minutes into the flight and novel, she felt her own eyes droop before she fell asleep with the book still clasped between her fingers.

    A couple hours later, the plane hit either a rough patch of turbulence or one that the small plane was ill-equipped to handle. She expected that latter, but she still woke up when the aircraft jolted. Her head flung up from the man's shoulder, and embarrassment flooded her immediately. "Sorry," she rushed to apologize, "God, I never wanted to be that neighbor to someone on a plane."

    "It's fine," the man chuckled in a voice she recognized but couldn't place. It was deep and subtle. "You didn't drool. Kind of snored a little."