The Reasons Behind Everything

Prologue

My catechist auntie once told me: “40 days after a person’s death is the day when he or she will go up to heaven.” I don’t know if I should believe it. What’s up on your soul during those days? Maybe you’re walking invisibly on the present earth wherein only the people who had third eye can see you, or you’re just like the wind that everyone feels.

                But neither of it happened to me.

                I’m not prepared of leaving my body and become a soul. I never imagined myself how would I die. Yet I should accept my situation.

                The heaven is illegitimately unfair. Why my life did ends so early? It doesn’t allow me to experience senior prom and graduation. For God’s sake, why did this occur in the wrong time?

                Anyway, how did this happen, if you ask. Let me narrate the story.

Late night in the midst of the damp road due to melting of snow, I was driving my minivan on the way home.

                The clock said it was 11:26.

                My jacket smelled the mixture of sweat, smoke, and Tequila, which made my nose immune to the whiff of me. I came from the party, apparently.

                Visions at the party were still in my head—the lights, the music, the people, almost everything. I was in high spirits as I drove. Sometimes I giggle or just smile when I remember how the guys helped together to hung Bob Oliver—with the weight of a million pounds—upside down and tried to pour vodka in his mouth, how my boyfriend Brad Stacy kissed me for the fourth time, and how we all jumped into the pool with our arms tucked together.

                Somehow I wished I could stay there and never go home. It was an underworld at home. Mom’s mouth wouldn’t stop until she had to sleep. My dad, he was in London. Three words, they are divorced.

                February 5, I wouldn’t forget this day.

                Silence had overcome the road. The buildings were devastated. There are only seven opened stores that I’d passed by.

                Oh shit, curfew.

                What excuse am I going to tell now? Mom would definitely kill me. Last night, she slapped me with her work papers. The only reason was that she thought I was pouting at her because I dropped my notebook in a slapdash fashion. Mom was yelling about how I forgot throwing the garbage in the kitchen.

                I hoped mom was asleep when I got home to avoid her rude mouth.

                The stoplight turned red. I had barely exceeded it. So, I was going to wait here even though there are no vehicles or pedestrians crossing.

                By the moment the time strikes 11:30, it green-lighted then I speed up.

                Few meters away from the stoplight, something happened that stoned me.

                The tires squeaked out loud and it slipped. My minivan faced right and rolled over.

                I couldn’t remember what I was thinking during those bloody seconds. All I remember was the sound of my tires, the shriek of a metal, breaking of glass, and my body was in full of pain.

                Suddenly, my mental images turned black.