The 12th Kiss

❁please, don't go.

❁please, don't go.

Half-way through the night, when John had finally managed to fall asleep, a small, scared voice woke him up. There was something warm and soft on his chest. It was Metilda's head.

"Mommy?" Louis sniffled. He was standing at near the door's frame with a stuffed bunny in his right hand while the other gripped the door's edge. "Mommy, where are you?"

John got up carefully, not to wake up Metilda. It seemed like she had a peaceful sleep after ages, judging by the small smile on her lips.

            "Daddy is here, Louis." John got up the bed. He picked up Louis in his arms who was shivering terribly. "What's the matter? Bad dream?"

            Louis buried his head into the stuffed bunny. It had two black buttons for eyes. When Louis was two and half years old, he had chewed off the toy's eyes. Metilda tried getting rid of the bunny but he cried and cried for days without it. Defeated, she had stitched the buttons from John's old coat onto the bunny.

            "Louis, what's wrong? Why are you crying?"

John asked as panic settled in. Louis wasn't one of those kids that cried easily. It took a-lot to make him cry.

"Are you pain? Is it hurting somewhere?"

Wide eyes of green looked at him. "It hurts a-lot, daddy"

            John carried Louis to the kitchen and turned on the lights. He placed Louis on the kitchen counters who was now hugging the bunny tightly to his chest. As far as John remembered, Metilda kept children's Tylenol in the glass cabinet.

            "Where does it hurt, Louis?"

John felt his head for a fever but it was normal.

            Louis pointed to his chest. "In here, daddy. I feel sad."

John stopped rummaging through the cabinets and turned to his son. "Why do you feel sad?" He wasn't good at this sort of things. Metilda, as stereotypical this may be, was always the better one with kids.

"You and mommy were fighting in angry voices. Then daddy, a big evil monster came and took my mommy away. Louis fought with the monsters and told them not to take his mommy away but they still did. I called for you, daddy. I told you to save mommy but daddy, you gone away."

"Nothing like that will happen, Louis. I won't let any evil monster take your mommy away."

"Angel's promise?" John wondered when Louis had caught onto Metilda's habit. Metilda believed in angels, demons, and those sort of mythical beings. She believed that no matter what, even in the direst of circumstances- God sends an angel. May it be in a form of a human or a simple signal, idea, or thought.

An angel's promise, according to what Metilda had told him, is a promise whose safety relies on angels. Human beings aren't capable of keeping promises, an angel's promise is when something or the other will happen to guide you back to your promise.

John had made one such promise to Metilda. On the evening of their wedding, when they sat by the cackling fireplace.

"You're my only one, Mel." John whispered and kissed her forehead. "For forever and always"

"Forever and always." She held out her hand for him to take. "Angel's promise. So I'll know no-matter what happens, we'll always find a way back to each other."

            "Why are you so adamant on those promises? Don't you believe me?"

"I do, John, I do but who has seen the future?"