Awoken By A Kiss

Sarah found herself doing her normal Friday night thing, sat with her friends discussing where life was going for them. This evening they were sat round the fire in the lounge of Sarah’s posh West End flat. Littered around their feet were empty Pizza Express boxes and Dairy milk chocolate wrappers. They were already on their sixth bottle of chardonnay and the night was still young. Tonight the conversation was following the usual pattern, single life and marriage, just like it normally did. Sarah and her friends were all single and all awaiting Mr Perfect. She wondered where her life had gone wrong. She was twenty eight, successful in her job as a solicitor, won nearly every case given to her, but still single, and could never seem to find the right guy.1

The conversation took an unexpected turn to something that hadn’t come up before. Megan, Sarah’s closest friend, approached the subject of fate. ‘Who here believes in fate?’ It was a strange subject to bring up, although Sarah didn’t know why. Funnily enough this topic had been cropping up in her head for the past week, ever since the unexpected event on Monday night.2

Everyone in the room said that they did believe in fate one way or another. Hannah, Sarah’s colleague at work, then asked ‘How old were you when you were first kissed and who was it?’ These topics often came up when they had all had a bit too much to drink but this was a new one. Again it reminded Sarah of Monday night.   3

‘I was thirteen, it was in a game of truth or dare, and he was the ugliest guy in school. It was at the annual school disco with everyone witness to it. I never lived it down.’ Megan was always the first to answer these questions, and the answer always seemed to be something she regretted in life. Next was Nell, Sarah’s flatmate, ‘I was fifteen, and it was with the most amazing guy in the world. His name was Sam and I’d liked him for ages. My friend Alice decided to try and set us up and it worked. The first thing he did was kiss me and it was the most magical moment ever.’ All of Nell’s confessions had something to do with Sam. Nell was the most romantic sentimental person Sarah knew, she was just waiting for her fairytale wedding. Next was Hannah, all her confessions were usually weird yet wonderful.  ‘I was sixteen it was with my best friend Martha. It was kind of experimental but she hasn’t spoken to me since.’ Next it was Sarah’s turn, she wasn’t looking forward to this, but it would seem silly if she didn’t. ‘I was eighteen and in a coma the kiss woke me up. His name was Greg and he was an old school friend. He had been coming to visit me every day since finding out from his parents about my accident.’4

Sarah knew she couldn’t stop there; all three had been silenced and were looking at her waiting for her to carry on. She had never told anyone this before, not even Megan. ‘Don’t stop there!’ she said. So Sarah continued.  5

‘Before I was born my mum visited a fortune teller. She told her that three good things and one bad thing would happen to me before I was nineteen. Everyone told her that it was just superstitious rubbish, but my mum always believed it, in fact, up to that day everything she had been told had come true. When I was six my mum told me about the predictions-it made me somehow feel special. 6

The first good thing was surviving the car crash that I was in when I was eleven. My parents and I managed to survive, with little injury. The second good thing was getting into Oxford University after much worry that I wouldn’t. Then in the break between ‘A’ levels and University I had an accident. I was working in a local law firm as a secretary to earn some much needed money. I was upstairs taking some papers to Mr Grant the owner of the firm when I heard my phone ringing downstairs. We were expecting an important call that day about one of the big cases that Mr Grant was handling, so I went running down the stairs. I somehow tripped and went tumbling down the last several steps. I don’t know what happened after that, only what I have been told. I didn’t regain consciousness until one month later. By which time I had missed the start of university, my place at the law firm had been filled by someone else, Mr Grant had won his case, and Greg had come back into my life. I knew Greg from school. We were close friends, and told each other virtually everything and our parents were also close, so we spent a lot of time together. When I was sixteen he and his family moved away and we lost contact. Before I had my accident they had just moved back to the area and I had been meaning to go and visit, but he got to me first.7

I had received a blow to the head, the consultant told my parents that I could suffer brain damage but I proved them all wrong. I just needed a nice long sleep you could say. For that month my parent’s lives stopped, every moment was spent with me or thinking about me. They spent every single moment they could at my bedside. They sat and read to me, talked to me, played me my favourite music, prayed for me. Everything they did was for me, they just wanted me back. They tried everything, in desperation mum went back to the same fortune teller she had seen nineteen years earlier, and was reminded that I still had one good thing to happen to me. That was the thing that kept my mum going throughout the whole ordeal. 8

Greg found out about my accident from his parents and when he heard about the accident he came straight away. He checked with my parents if it would be ok if he came and visited me regularly, he just wanted to do anything he could to help. Apparently he spent every spare minute of his time with me, recounting things that happened during our time at school, talking to me about the things that he knew I liked. He told me everything he had done while he had been away, and what he was planning on doing next, not that I know what he told me. He prayed that I would wake up before it was time for him to leave for medical school. 9

It was Greg who eventually managed to wake me. After four weeks of talking to me and trying to get me to wake up all he had to do was one simple thing. Just that one kiss was all it needed to wake me up. He was kissing me goodbye, as it was his last day at home. That was my first kiss.’ 10

Megan, Hannah and Nell sat in stunned silence, and then suddenly the questions came ‘Why haven’t you told us before?’ ‘What happened after?’ ‘What happened to Greg?’ ‘The kiss…was that the final good thing to happen to you?’11

Sarah had started the story and so now she had to finish it.12

‘After that Greg left to pursue his dream of becoming a doctor and I went to University and studied law. We both got on with our lives. My parents kept me informed about his progress on my visits home, but we both had dreams we wanted to fulfil and they didn’t include each other. Since then I have often asked the same question was it me waking up or was it Greg that was the last good thing to happen to me before I turned nineteen? I sometimes believe that him being at the hospital after not seeing him for so long was fate. That something was trying to tell me that we shouldn’t be parted again. But our lives took us our separate ways again. 13

It’s funny how you started talking about fate tonight. It’s been on my mind all week. On Monday night when I went out for a drink with Steve from work to discuss a case further, there was Greg. My parents had failed to mention to me that he was back home. There was so much for us to catch up on and we spent the whole night talking. When we parted I couldn’t help but think back to the same question that is continually going through my mind, ‘Are we meant to be together, and are we meant to live happily ever after?’ All I know is that I can’t lose him again.’14