Remembered Kisses

"It's been eleven years, Happy Anniversary El."

Mike gave her a soft kiss, holding it for a few seconds.

"You're kisses are so sweet Mike."

"Do you remember our first kiss?"

"The cafeteria, I liked you, you were kind to me, I was wonderfully confused. Nobody had ever shown real affection for me. I felt it in your kiss."

Mike lowered his eyes, a frown on his face. El put her hand on his arm, "Mike put the rest of that day out of your mind. Just remember the kiss, because that was the most important moment of that day… and my life."

Mike smiled at her and nodded almost a little embarrassed. "Do you remember our second kiss?"

"Snowball '84. I was the happiest girl in the world. And before you ask, I remember kisses three and four. We wanted to sneak in a few more kisses in the lobby before going out to my dad's truck."

Mike had a big grin on his face. "That night I was sure I was in love with you. After the fourth kiss…"

"...you asked me to be your girlfriend… and the 5th kiss…"

"Sealed the deal." They both said it at the same time and laughed.

Mike's voice took on a serious tone. "When it looked like you were having trouble telling time, we all thought you were having troubles with numbers, and number concepts. The whole Party, even Max, she really wanted to get to know you, were willing to help you with your math skills so you could go to school with us. Even your dad was on board he wanted you to have a normal life."

El smiled at him, she knew where he was going with this.

"But wow, we seriously didn't know that your brain was struggling with such simple math because it was working at a much higher level than all the rest of us combined. Do you realize that your name is in practically every university textbook from calculus, vectors, to astrophysics, string theory, function and wave domain analysis? When they list the top mathematicians there's Einstein, Srinivasa Ramanujan, and El Wheeler."

"I'm so proud of you I feel a little funny asking you this next question."

El was blushing. "I knew there had to be some kind of connection between our universe and the Upside Down, I'm determined to find it and destroy it or close it down for good. I just needed a foundation in advanced integral calculus to do it."

El stopped talking math she realized she could lose Mike fairly quickly when she started talking about her work. "Ask me the next question Mike." She gave him what she hoped was her prettiest smile.

It worked, because Mike's face broke into a huge grin.

"Do you remember all 18,110 kisses over the last eleven years?"

This time it was her turn to frown. "I have a good head for numbers Mike, but I'll be honest. Friends Don't Lie. I only remember 1253 of them."

Mike burst out laughing. "Ok, I had that coming. I didn't know you had that many memorized but I'm going to help you with the rest."

He reached down on the floor beside the sofa they were sitting on. He handed her an antique box.

Her eyes went wide, "Oh that's beautiful. From your shop?"

Mike nodded, they lived over top his antique shop, their whole apartment was decorated in antiques, El loved them, she liked the rustic look. It nicely contrasted the the high-tech computers she had to work with every day.

"Open it up."

El did so and looked in. She raised her eyes to his. "Are those your journals? They look like the leather bound journals you always use."

He nodded again. "Open one up".

El picked up the first journal and opened it up. She said, "There's a number beside a date and time, #560, and a note.

"Go ahead and read it."

"Every time I kiss El, it feels like a flare going off in my heart. I love this girl so much I think it actually hurts. I can't wait for kiss #561."

"Go ahead read another."

El picked up a different journal and opened to a random spot in it.

"#3233. I had a bad day today. El must have seen it on my face, she dropped what she was doing and came over and kissed me. I did the manly thing and cried on her shoulder. El, if you ever read this, I want you to know how much that kiss meant to me. I love you and I will love you forever.

El looked at him a tear trailing down her cheek, "I remember that one. You recorded every single kiss? 18110?"

"Yeah, I wrote them at night before we turned out the light. Most of the times are accurate. None are contemporaneous. That would have been rude. It's my gift to you El. I wanted you to know that every single kiss, meant something to me. I might not have a note for every one of them, but they all meant something to me. Every single one. A journal for every year we've been together. All of the kisses remembered."

Another tear matching the first rolled down El's cheek. "I don't have anything like this for you Mike, that was beautiful…"

"Actually you do El." Mike pulled out another leather bound journal.

"I start a new journal today. I need a new entry. Can you think of anything I should put in it?"

She nodded, a timid smile on her face. She gave Mike one of the best anniversary presents she could think of.

She kissed him.