A kiss upon the cheek

The teacher had something urgent to do at the administration.  After asking the pupils to remain quietly in their seats, she left.  The 7-years-old devils waited silently until one of them checked that the teacher disappeared in the hall.

They were free at last! The girls started chatting like housewives finally having the chance to meet over a tea party. Some of the boys chose to annoy the girls sitting next to them as others decided to throw paper balls at each other.  C and O who were tablemates turned to their friends who sat behind them.  C needed to have a girl talk with her friend, and O wanted to fool around with another boy like him. Girls and boys were allowed to talk to each other only if they were going to fight one another. That was the golden rule back in the primary school and particularly inside that second grade classroom.  No one on earth could dare rebel on that supreme law which was settled long time ago by God knows who.

C had been absorbed backing up her friend against O’s buddy until, suddenly, O embraced her and kissed her left cheek with all his strength.  

Silence…

C had got a mental dysfunction for the next thirty seconds. She tried to make some sense in her head. Her first instinct was to look at her friends. She thanked God that they were all that time arguing, and didn’t witness the crime. Then, she gazed at O. He was still bluntly looking at her. She didn’t know what to do with him. If she yelled at him, or, by any chance, she managed to kill him, she had to explain why. She could never tell to anybody that she was the victim of a rebellious kiss! It would damage her forever. She had to take this memory with her to the grave. No one must know of the incident. Even O himself must forget about his misdeed. She could always persuade him that this never happened if only she managed to act normally and never talked about it. That’s why; she chose to get back to her friends' conversation , leaving O in disarray.

After washing her cheek with soap more than twenty times, C believed that she erased that painful memory. However, kisses aren’t bacteria that one can disinfect. A kiss, especially an innocent one, has its own ways to come back and haunt the one who rejected it (or worse who tried to murder it!).

O is a brave little kid who is 22 years old nowadays . He might have found the love of his life or not. Eventually he will have love because he has never been afraid to chase after it. I hope he wasn’t affected by that little witch’s rejection, and that his heart was healed.

I want him to know that C got her punishment. She never loved anyone because she has always been afraid to live the experience. Never has she acknowledged the love of others nor has she shown her true feelings to them. She has built with time a huge shield.

What C regrets the most, these days, is being a heartless person since her childhood.

What I regret the most is letting that little brat growing inside me all these years.

C was me… That little 7 years old girl with the twisted mind in the story was me.

I have been doomed ever since that incident not to recognize the enchanting melody of love because a kiss always finds her way to revenge.

Chaima Bizani 

Dnipropetrovsk