So, I'm not giving up on either one of my stories, but I'm supposed to be writing a philosophy paper and this came out instead. It's a one-shot, and you'll have to let me know what you think! I really should go write the philosophy paper…no, I think I'll take a nap instead. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: The characters are not mine.
Their first kiss was a surprise. He was with his friends at a bar, and he looked over to see the most beautiful girl he had ever seen in his twenty-two years of life sitting at a table reading a book. She pushed a piece of blonde hair behind her ear and looked up and caught his eye. Feeling that this was as good as an invitation as any, he walked over to her table.
"Good book?" Idiot, he thought to himself. What kind of opening line is that?
"No," she said. "Not really. Unless you're incredibly fascinated by macroeconomics?" He let out a nervous laugh and shook his head. Extending his hand, he said,
"I'm Sandy. Sandy Cohen." Shyly, she took his hand and gave him a warm smile. He fell in love with her in that moment.
"Kirsten Nichol," she answered.
"Can I sit down? Buy you a drink?" She shook her head, and his heart broke. "Oh…okay…"
"No!" She quickly amended. "You can sit down. The no was to the drink. I'm underage, and besides, I'm supposed to stay sober to make sure my friends get home all right." He let out a silent sigh of relief and took a seat next to her.
"Where are these friends?" He asked and she glanced around the room and let out a soft groan.
"I don't know! I lost them! I'm supposed to make sure they get home okay, and I lose them!" Sandy placed a hand on her arm to calm her down.
"They're big girls, I'm sure that they'll get home okay," he assured her. "What year are you?" He couldn't be sure, but he thought he saw her blush.
"Freshman," she answered softly. He had figured her to be an undergrad, but he hadn't thought that she was that young. "You?" This was asked nervously, and he knew that she was just waiting for him to apologize and leave. She was too young. So she was surprised when he kept talking.
"I'm in law school," he answered. "My first year. Are you from California?"
"Yes, Southern California though. Newport Beach. And yourself?" She was so proper, not like any of the girls from home.
"New York."
"I love New York," she told him smiling. "My father keeps an apartment there." He raised an eyebrow at that.
"Ah, you come from money," he told her laughing a little bit. She wasn't sure if he was mocking her or not, and she replied a little indignantly,
"I would call us more upper-middle class."
He walked her home after that, and when they arrived at the dorms where she lived, he leaned in and gave her a kiss. A sweet kiss, a short kiss. It was their first kiss.
Their third kiss came in the library. They were studying together and arguing about something stupid, when she leaned in and kissed him to shut him up. It was the first time that she initiated the kiss, and he pulled back, silent and surprised.
"I'm sorry," was her immediate reaction.
"No, don't be sorry," he replied. He leaned in and kissed her again. Their fourth kiss. They had been on one pseudo date since that first night in the bar, and this study session, and he was dying to ask her out on a real date. "What do you say to some dinner tomorrow night?"
"I say yes," she said smiling at him. He loved that smile. It could light up a room. He had only known her for two weeks and already he knew that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.
Sandy had never believed in fate before. But he did now. She was the one. Now he just had to convince her of that.
Their seventeenth kiss came as Sandy was unbuttoning her shirt. And their eighteenth kiss came as Kirsten was undoing his belt. He stopped after their nineteenth kiss, and asked breathlessly,
"Are you sure?" He didn't want to do anything that she didn't want to do. He wanted to take things slowly if that was what she wanted. He would do anything for her.
"I'm sure," she told him. "I'm positive." He picked her up in his arms and placed her on his futon. It wasn't the most romantic of all settings for their first time. In his rundown apartment on an old lumpy futon. His next door neighbor was a huge Beatles fan, and was still getting over the death of John Lennon five years later, and through the paper thin walls they could hear the faint sounds of "Like Dreamers Do." As she laid there in his arms, he sang softly to her and knew that there was no where else at no other time that he would feel happier or more whole than he did right then. She giggled as he whispered in her ear,
"You, you came just one dream ago, and now I know that I will love you. Oh I knew when you first said hello, that's how I know, that I will love you."
Their three hundred and thirty-second kiss came when Sandy proposed to her. He was trying to work up enough courage to ask her for some time. They had only been dating for a little over six months, and on her nineteenth birthday, he took her to her favorite restaurant and asked the waiter to stick the ring where the cherry should be on her sundae.
"Oh Sandy," she breathed when she spotted the ring.
"I know what you're going to say, I know that you're going to say that we really haven't known each other that long, and that you are still really young, and that you'd like to wait until after we graduate, and that's fine, we can wait, but this is yours, and you can keep it for as long as you like." It took Kirsten about a half of a second to shake her head, grinning like an idiot and grab both the ring and his hand.
"I want to wear it now," she told him. "I want to wear it forever." He leaned forward and kissed her. He couldn't imagine being any happier, or luckier. He knew that they were still young, and her father hated him, and his mother wasn't so fond of her either, but they didn't care. They loved each other, and that was all that mattered.
Their seventh hundredth kiss came when they said "I do." The minister told Sandy that he could kiss his bride, and Sandy took no time in dipping her and giving her a deep kiss. Kirsten's mother beamed from the front pew, happy that her daughter had found someone that loved her like Sandy loved her. Kirsten had started the day in tears, finding out that her father was boycotting the wedding. Kirsten's mother had asked her daughter if she wanted her to walk her down the aisle, but Kirsten had held firm. She would walk herself down the aisle.
And she had been upset, but when she saw Sandy at the end, she knew that it didn't matter that her father wasn't there, and it didn't matter that he didn't approve, and had told her that she was far too young to be getting married, or that her little sister's dress didn't quite fit and her mother had been up all night trying to fix it, and the band that she wanted couldn't be there, and the caterer had called a week before to tell her that they couldn't have one of the entrées that she had requested and could she pick something else and explain to her guests about the change? None of that mattered.
Because she loved him, and he loved her. And he was waiting for her, smiling nervously, not wanting to make a mistake. He wanted to be perfect for her. He always wanted to be perfect for her.
Their two-thousandth kiss came when Kirsten took the home pregnancy test and found out that she was pregnant. She had worried all day about how to tell Sandy, and even tried to make him some dinner, which she had burned. Finally she had ordered pizza, his favorite, and sat on the chair in their crappy living room twisting her ring around her finger and waiting for him to come home. When the door opened, she felt her heart skip a beat.
"Hey sweetheart, how was class?" He asked crossing the room and giving her a soft kiss. Kirsten was a junior now, newly turned twenty-one. She and Sandy had just celebrated her twenty-first birthday not that long ago.
"Oh, I…didn't go," she said honestly.
"Why not? Are you okay? Are you still not feeling good?" He had held her hair back that morning as she threw up. Actually, he had held her hair back for the past week of mornings. She was surprised that he hadn't put it together yet in his head. Kirsten had. That was why she went to the doctors in the first place. But Sandy was completely oblivious.
"I think you should sit down," she said softly and he did as he was told, panic written clearly across his face.
"What's the matter?" He whispered too afraid to hear the answer.
"I'm pregnant."
"What?"
"I'm pregnant," she repeated.
"Are you sure?"
"Pretty sure." She bit her lip and waited for him to say something. Anything.
"That's…amazing! Kirsten, honey! That's incredible!" He picked her up and spun her around, and she felt as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. And she leaned in and kissed him for kiss number two-thousand and one.
Their three-thousandth kiss was on her forehead. And then he leaned down and placed an identical kiss on their son's head.
"You're so beautiful," he whispered.
"No, I'm not," she shook her head. "I'm a mess. He's beautiful." She looked down at the baby in her arms. Her son. Seth. He was beautiful.
"He looks like you," Sandy said running a finger gently down his son's nose. Kirsten shook her head again. Seth had a head of curly dark hair. "He's beautiful. You are beautiful. And amazing…and…God, Kirsten, I love you so much." And Kirsten looked up at him and noticed the tears falling down his cheeks and reached her free hand up and wiped it away gently. He leaned down and gave her another kiss. "And Seth. Seth Ezekiel Cohen." Sandy couldn't stop repeating it. His son's name. He had a son. With Kirsten. It was unbelievable.
Sandy gave her one more kiss. He couldn't stop kissing her. He couldn't stop looking at his son. He knew that he would die for them. He would kill for them. Both of them.
He was sure that their final kiss would come when they were old and gray, lying in bed next to one another after have lived a full life. In no vision of his did their final kiss come on the side of the road, their BMW wrapped around a tree. Rain was falling, and he couldn't tell what was tears falling down her face and what was just the rain. Twenty years. That was how long he had with her. Twenty years filled with countless kisses. And he loved her as much as that first night, and that first kiss on the sidewalk in front of her building.
"Kirsten," Sandy begged. "Sweetheart, stay with me. Please. Kirsten, oh God. Please, don't leave me." He ran a hand down her cheek.
"Sandy, I love you," she whispered. "Tell the boys that I love them."
"No, honey, no." He leaned in and gave her a kiss. "You can't leave me."
"Sandy…"
"Kirsten. I love you. Please…" The car had come on her side, smashing into the car and pushing them off the road and into a tree. Sandy had barely time to react, but his first thought was of his wife. Her scream still echoed in his ear. He heard the sirens in the distance and prayed that she could hang on until they got there. "They're coming, baby, just hang on. Please…please just hang on." He gave her another kiss and felt her hand reach up and touch his face. She was fading. He was losing her. "God Kirsten. I love you. I love you. I love you." He couldn't say it enough. He couldn't hear it enough.
"I love you too." This wasn't right. There were still thousands of "I love you's" left unsaid. There were still thousands of kisses left to be kissed. She had to see their boys graduate and get married.
He leaned in and gave her one last kiss before the ambulances arrived and worked on getting her out. He thought it was ironic that the radio was still working and as they pulled her out he heard the Beatles "I need You", and was reminded of the first time they had made love, in his crappy apartment.
Please remember how I feel about you
I could never really live without you
So, come on back and see
Just what you mean to me
I need you
I need you…
He leaned down and kissed her again, and this time she didn't kiss back. He took her hand in his, cold and pale, and sunk down in the chair next to her bed. He ran a hand over her face, and brushed the hair away from the bandage on her head.
"Dad? How is she doing?" Sandy turned and saw his sons standing there. They had been with Sandy all three days that Kirsten had been in the hospital. She was resting now. She was going to be fine, they told him. He had thought that he would never get to see her smile again. He thought that he was never going to get to kiss her again.
Sandy had been more terrified than he had ever been in his entire life, but he was sure that she would make it. She had to. There was just no other way around it.
"She's sleeping," Sandy said smiling at the boys. "They're moving her out of the ICU tomorrow."
"Good," Seth said nodding. "That's really good."
"Brought you coffee," Ryan offered holding it out to him.
"Thanks, kid," Sandy said and Seth and Ryan sat down in the chair next to her. "So where was I?"
"You were telling us about your first kiss," Ryan supplied.
"Right," Sandy said smiling. "Our first kiss."
Okay, so like I said it was just an idea that popped into my head, and I was going to have Kirsten die, but in the end I just couldn't do it…so, I hope that you liked it, and please review and tell me what you thought. Thanks!