Running from Leo

CHAPTER 53: The second chance

I was very energetic as a child. Jumping around here and there, playing in the mud, eating mud, peeing and crying... well, it was mostly in mud. I had a nice backyard and I loved playing in it. That was until I grew up to a certain age and my parents sent me to a nice, colourful, pretty building called as preschool. What a strange place it was. The school, I say. I found it very fascinating to see little kids of my age. Some confused just as me, some were busy in their action figures and dolls and had no interest of what was going around them, some lost in their own worlds and some were crying. Okay, a lot were crying. What did you expect? If you throw a child in a room full of other children and away from their mummy and daddy, they do the only thing they know; Cry.

And it was very frustrating for me when I had my seat between two crying kids, one boy and one girl. It made my head pain. Here I was, in a room full of little creatures of my age and sitting between two of them who kept crying and that made my ears pop like a balloon. I had to shut them up. The old woman who introduced herself as our teacher, another strange word, had other crying children to take care of.

"When people are hurt, they get a boo-boo and some even cry when they get one," my six year old brother had said. "So you should always kiss it. It will go away."

Both of them had recieved a boo-boo and they had nobody to kiss it.

I turned to the weeping boy first. Round glasses, booger coming out of his nose, red face, tears streaming down to his round, baby cheeks and something plastic between his teeth.

Ewww. Cooties. Boys have cooties except for my brother because he is a brave boy. He fought them. I will not kiss this boy. He has cooties! The three year old me thought, making an ugly face so I turned to the crying girl.

Her two small pigtail pony looked cute on her, tears on her chubby cheeks, red face, red hair and the three year old Amelia wanted to touch it. She saw me staring at her and her cries got louder. Pink frilly frock with dots and no boo-boos visible. I frowned. Where am I supposed to kiss her if I don't see any boo-boos on her? My hands reached out for her two pigtails and I touched it, giggling. Her cries got even more louder. Shush, crying girl! I'm trying to play with your fire hair. Haha, I have fire in my hands. Mommy said that I should not touch fire but look at me now, mommy! I'm touching fire. Red fire!

She scratched her cheek and my gaze fixed on that in an instant.

So without any hesitation and doubts, I kissed her on her cheek and she stopped crying in an instant.

"There, there." I patted her cheek with my small palm. "It will go away soon."

"Wha... Whayt aale you dooing?" She hiccuped.

"Don't cry. It will go away. Mommy gave me sandweeches to fill my tummy and she told me to share so can I share them with you?"

She rubbed her eyes and sniffed. "Yes... and please don't do that again. Only mummy and daddy can touch my hair and cheek. I didn't like it when you touched them... Whayt is your name?"

"A-M-E-L-I-A, Amelia! What is yours?" I asked with a toothy grin on my face, feeling proud to spell my name.

"M-A-R-I-A, Maleea!" She cheered.

I laughed at her. "You're so dumb! Haha! It's Maria, stupid. Not Maleea."

Fast forward to a couple years, fourteen years to be exact, still strong together, still friends together after that little kiss on her cheek, the sandwiches we shared in my tiffin box, classes we skipped together, the twins we made fun of, the amount of times I tried to get her to join ballet class with me which actually ended up in me quitting it, we planned a sleepover and I never reached. This Agostini shit happened.