Et Sidste Kys: The Last Kiss Ch. 04

Gosh, she looked so pretty up close and I felt my heart flutter. She was still looking out at the dance floor when her gaze suddenly drifted in to my direction...I stood stock-still, lost in her brown eyes...and she smiled for no reason that I could determine, she smiled.

--------------------------

"You're looking a lot better today, Jessica." I watched the nurse that had to be a fourth of Jessica's old age, move a half-eaten bowl of soup away from the wheeled tray. "You want to go outside today?"

"To the beach?" Jessica inquired in a scratchy old person kind of voice. She'd lost quite a lot of her original black hair color with age, it'd been replaced with gray and white, and her face was wrinkled and saggy, but I still found her resoundingly beautiful every time I saw her.

"Oh, I'm sorry but you've got to wait until you feel better to go." The nurse told her in a nonchalant tone. Jessica had been asking to go to the beach for at least a week so far, but she needed to recuperate and get stronger before she could go after her bout with pneumonia a month or so ago. "Maybe out in to the yard though later on..."

"Okay." Jessica replied in a dejected voice.

"Oh, look who's here! It's your son!"

"Hi, mom." I saw her one and only son, Michael, walk through the doorway and bend over to kiss Jessica on her forehead.

"Hi, Michael..." She said and kissed him back.

"I brought you some flowers today...right from the yard, just how you like them."

"Oh, thank you." Michael left for a moment to retrieve a vase to put the flowers in and while he was gone, I saw her hand come up feebly and take out one flower that I recognized. She sniffed it and smiled and then put it behind her ear. She did that every time Michael picked flowers for her and when Michael inquired as to why she did it; she told him it made her feel beautiful.

"Hey, mom, I found this old picture of you and Rick at your wedding." Michael set the vase on the table that her half-eaten bowl of soup was on and took out a photo that showed her and her late husband Rick and handed it to her. "How about that?"

"Oh, that was such a long time ago!" Jessica said and laughed a little when she looked at it.

"Not that long ago..." Michael said as he pulled a chair up to the side of her bed. Michael still wasn't completely over his father's death even though it'd been years ago...a heart attack when he was seventy-three years old...tragic, but I saw it coming. I saw many things coming, one of the perks of being a protector. I'd been made Jessica's family protector just a little while after I left the known world. But the job of a protector can only be given, not requested. They made me protector because of my deep will to want to protect Jessica beyond my life. And what comes from Jessica, is my obligation to protect as well. I'd saved her son, Michael, several times from tragedy. There was one time where he was about eight and riding his bike down a steep hill...he liked the steep hill because he could stop pedaling and feel the wind whip through his hair, but anyways, one day, the brakes on his bike failed, just as a large semi was beginning to turn the corner to where Michael was riding his bike. I'd foreseen everything and knew just the right moment to make him hit a rock and send him sprawling in to the soft grassy side of the roadway and make sure that the only injury suffered was that of a skinned knee and cheek...his bike wasn't as lucky though. But the entire incident had landed him in television and he really enjoyed talking in to the camera. The semi's truck driver even felt bad for running over his bike so he bought him a brand new one.

The other few were involving motor vehicles and one with a bank robbery...made him take a different route other than the one he wanted that time, and I'd even saved Rick once on a construction job.

Jessica, for some reason, didn't need my saving. She wasn't reckless, but she also wasn't very careful...she was just extremely lucky as some people are.

Michael stayed for a few hours, talking about his job and some about Rick and how much he missed him. Jessica told him she missed him too, but I could tell she was holding something back as she always had after I'd died. I never knew why she did but I had a feeling it was because she didn't want to tarnish our own memories of being together, even though in her mind, I knew that it felt so very long ago. Michael left finally and the nurse went home for the night, which left Jessica all alone in her house. It was actually the same one that we'd grown up in and I was sure that it held many memories for her that she was unable to let go...she bought it from our parents just before they passed away and stayed there to live with Rick and raise Michael.

"Oh gosh." Jessica groaned out as she tried to move the chair that Michael had thoughtlessly left behind next to her bed. "I'm getting too old..."

I chuckled a little and guided her gently, making sure she wouldn't fall over and she set the chair back over in the corner out of the way and then went back to her bed. She exhaled strongly on lying back down...she just wasn't as young as she used to be...but it rarely slowed her down from tending her garden of flowers out in the yard...she used to spend hours out there with them, pruning and sculpting the soil in just a way that it made every flower grateful that she was taking care of them. But she rarely took from the garden, except for special occasions and every time she came to visit me. She kept it so nearly immaculate that it seemed a shame that it would probably all go to weeds once she moved on.

Speaking of moving on, as a protector, you have a special clock that tells you when a person's time has run out. I know it sounds evil, but imagine if you could pinpoint the exact time you were going to die, down to the last minute and second...I really could've used it when I'd passed away, least then I wouldn't have gone so slowly in doing things. Jessica's time was drawing near, which was why I was with her now. I was excited for her to finally be able to see me after so long of having to go on nothing but pictures of our past. And since I was her protector, she would be able to see me briefly for a few minutes before she passed...just to know what was waiting for her...it'd been the same with the little blond girl in the pink dress, except she'd appeared much earlier because of the painful severity of my death.

I already knew what she was to die of, heart failure, all that pneumonia had made her heart too weak and it was already struggling enough as it were. Just a side effect of growing old. But it would be an absolutely painless passing, unlike mine had been. All I had to do was wait.

>>>Ten minutes<<<

It was dark outside and Jessica was sleeping soundly, I was by her bed watching the clock expectantly. All of a sudden, I heard a crashing sound.

"Mom?" Michael had showed up for some reason. I stood up and saw him run inside her room. "Mom."

"Michael? What're you doing here?" Jessica asked after being awoken.

"I—I don't know why, but I don't feel right."

"Oh, why not? I'm okay." Jessica answered. "I feel fine..."

"I know, Mom, but it's just a feeling." Michael said and bent over to hold his mother's hand.

>>>Eight minutes. I could see her soul's aura beginning to glow faintly, beginning to signal the eventual end.<<<

"Oh, come here." Jessica said and embraced her son to her shoulder. "You've nothing to worry about..."

"Yeah, maybe I just felt bad from something I ate..." Michael said and moved back after Jessica finished embracing him.

"Michael, can you go get me a drink of water? My mouth is feeling a bit dry..."

"Sure, Mom...I'll be back." He rose and left the room.

"Thank you, Michael." Jessica said quietly in a sleepy voice.

>>>Seven minutes.<<<

Jessica laid back and exhaled quietly. I knew what she was thinking; that Michael was scared because of her recent trial of pneumonia...it hadn't been the first time he thought something was wrong. But she never blamed him. It meant he cared about her. He cared about her so much that he'd hired the nurse so she wouldn't have to leave the home she loved and live in a soul-sucking nursing home.

>>>Four minutes. Her soul's aura was growing brighter and brighter with each second that passed. Any minute now she would see me.<<<

Michael came back with a glass of water and Jessica told him to set it on the table and wheel it over to her so she could drink it and not dribble water over her clothes. He complied and wheeled the small table over to her and then stood beside her bed.

"Ben?" All of a sudden, my attention snapped rapt in Jessica's direction. "Ben."

"Who's Ben?" Michael asked, oblivious of what his mother saw.

"What are you doing here?" She asked in a curious voice.

"I'm here for you." I replied and smirked. It'd been so long since she'd seen me.

"Me?" She asked. I nodded.

"Mom, what's going on? Do you feel okay? Do you want me to call an ambulance for you?" Michael was hurriedly looking over his mother, trying to see what was wrong with her.

>>>Three minutes.<<<

"What for?" Jessica inquired and smiled when I smiled.

"It's your time."

"Already? How time flies."

"Mom, what's going on? Please tell me..." Michael was now fearful, afraid and unsure of what was happening.

"Just a minute...I have to tell him." Jessica said, making it obvious that she meant her son, who was now clasping a corner of her bedclothes to him, believing that his mother had gone off the deep end.

"Michael." He didn't seem to hear her at first. "Michael, look at me." He finally looked up at her, tears in his eyes and a truly worried look on his face.

"It's my time. My brother—Ben—he's here for me."

"Mom, you're just seeing things. Your brother died when you were eighteen...he's gone—." Michael tried to tell her that she was hallucinating...seeing figments of her imagination...things that weren't there.

"No, Michael...I know he's here because I can see him."

>>>Two minutes.<<<

"The why can't I see him?" Michael asked.

Jessica looked back over at me, pleading with me to give her an answer so she could prove that I was there...but I didn't have any answers so I just shook my head. The rules were complicated, however there were exceptions...some children could see their protectors when they were very young, but they would not understand or recognize the person later on in life and forget completely about them...but Michael was way past that age. I never intended for Michael to show up in the last few minutes of his mother's life, but now that he was here, it would be up to Jessica to explain it to him.

"I can't tell you why not...but he's here...on my left side." Michael looked dead at me and sniffled like a child, even though he was a grown man. He'd always loved his mother.

"Tell him he can't take you...you're not supposed to go yet." Michael said and tried to glare at me through his teardrops.

"Oh, Michael." Jessica picked up her hand and stroked his chin, much like she used to do when he was a child and sad. "I don't want you to worry about me. I love you so much and always will, no matter what."

"Mommy." Michael said in a voice reminiscent of his childhood. He lowered his head and wept in to her bed while Jessica stroked her hand on the back of his head, trying to ease his sorrow.

>>>One minute. Her soul's aura glowed brighter than the sun on a cloudless day, she was becoming detached, and soon she would be just like me.<<<

"Ben, I'm scared." Jessica said suddenly in almost a whisper.

"Don't be." I told her, giving her a smile, trying to tell her that she had nothing to fear about death.

She would not believe what awaited her in the next life...it was paradise beyond paradise...a place full of infinite possibilities.

"What's going to happen to me?" She asked in a croaking voice that was barely audible.

"It's a secret." I said and put out my hand for her to take.

"Mommy...please." Michael begged and let out a loud gasp and continued sobbing at the side of his mother's bed.

>>>TIME<<<

Jessica's breathing quieted. Her chest stopped in mid-rise. Her heart finished its last beat and fell silent and her muscles relaxed.

Jessica had departed.

"I thought you'd never come." Jessica said in a quiet voice, still looking at Michael who was weeping and clutching his mother's bed.

"I could never leave you..." I answered after a moment of silence. Now I could tell her the real reason why I'd left her that one night in the hotel...

"You never did." She replied and smiled at me, warming my heart...even though it'd long been gone. "Do you think he'll be okay?" Jessica asked, looking at Michael again.

"Oh yes...he'll understand with time." I said. I already knew he'd be sad over his mother's passing, but the daughter of one of her old friends would comfort him at the funeral and eventually, he would spend more time with this woman who would comfort him and soon they'd be getting married...

"Ready?" I asked and looked at her beside me. She gave one last look at Michael and nodded. I took her hand in to mine and we began to rise together...

----------------------

"Jason, why do you always choose those flowers?" A young girl around the age of seven with sandy blond hair asked her brother as he proceeded to pull a flower from its stem. Her brother always kind of seemed odd to her, for the fact that he always chose the one type of flower, even though there were several other types growing in the yard around them. He just chose the same type every time...and gave it to her, like she was supposed to know what to do with it.

"Jason?" She asked again, catching his attention after he'd finished smelling it. He smiled at her and gave her a sort of longing look, as if he was deeply in love with her, and yet, too young to understand the emotions he felt, but that he somehow knew...

"Because—," he said finally and began to lean towards her slightly.

She felt strange about him a little now. From her earliest memories, she could remember going to his room when the big rainstorms came, just so she could lie in his bed with him and be comforted and somehow relieved that he would always protect her after he would put his arm around her. She never felt scared when she was with him, like she knew something very private about his life, but that it was something that he'd never told her before.

She did her fair share of reciprocating in a way that she felt she'd done so many times before and would ask if he would kiss her on her cheek softly every once in a while. It was sort of urge that built up unknowingly until she finally understood it and asked for it, but before that, he never forced himself on her...never asked to kiss her...but always looked at her as if she was something to behold and worship. He would kiss her though in the way she liked to be and it was then that she'd noticed, whenever he hugged her to him, he always breathed in the aroma from the back of her neck and nuzzled it for a brief moment, making her close her eyes, not from shame, but from an curious warm feeling she received when he did so.

Jason also wasn't like other boys his age. When she kissed him back, he would smile sweetly at her...and not try to wipe the kiss away like little boys usually did. He let it stay, as if it were a mark of something special, a memory of something far gone perhaps...

She didn't pull back as he pushed the flower behind her ear and adjusted her soft sandy brown hair so that it would hold in place, "—that's why."

Beverly was beginning to feel the same weird warm feeling in her chest again, just as a strong female voice shouted out to them from the house behind them.

"Beverly! Jason! Come back in to the house!" Both children rose as one and ran back through the yard, but just before they reached the house, Jason hung back a little, watching his sister's sandy brown hair glisten in the strong spring sunshine and then grinned as his mother complimented Beverly on looking beautiful with the flower he'd chosen just for her. The compliment made her blush a little and then, just as Beverly was about to walk through the door, she glanced back at him, feeling the urge to ask him to kiss her again and smiled...

The End