On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…
I was standing alone in the halls of our high school. Everything seemed different – bleaker, somehow. The walls were pale and dreary, and the hallways were gloomy without any sunshine streaming through the school's windows.
The school bell rings, and the hallways floods with students. I try to peer over the heads of random students, looking for a familiar pale-skinned, brown-haired beauty.
Henry and Alice suddenly appear at my side, holding hands. My brown furrows, trying to remember when they got back together. Their relationship lately had been nothing but a series of on and off phases.
"Have you guys seen Amy?" I question, starting to feel concern from the lack of appearances by my girlfriend.
"Who's Amy?" Henry replies, raising an eyebrow.
"Very funny Henry." Henry shoots Alice a concern look at my reply, but I barely see it as I am distracted by the flash of familiar brown hair in the crowd. I mutter a goodbye to my friends and dive into the crowd in the direction of the love of my life.
I call out her name. Students surround me in all directions and I start to get disoriented. I call her name again. Finally, I see the back of her head to me left. I follow her through the chaos, all the while calling her name. Finally, I catch up to her somewhere outside the guidance counsellors' office. Calling her name again, I reach out to touch her shoulder, turning her around to face me.
"Mum!?" I gasp, staring into her face with disbelief. It was so familiar, and yet so strange.
"Ben!?" I hear her call faintly.
"Ben!?" Louder this time, more real.
"Ben!?"
Amy's voice wakes me from my dream.
"Ben? Are you okay?" I look up into her eyes and relax. It was just a dream.
"Amy? Yeah… Just a weird dream." As I start to fully wake up, I start to get a nervous feeling in my stomach. "What's wrong? Are you okay? Is it the baby?" Automatically, my hand flies to her stomach and rests on her protruding belly.
"I'm fine. You were just muttering in your sleep." She bites the corner of her lip, and I know there's something more.
"What is it?"
"It's nothing…"
"Amy…" I whisper softly, holding her petite hands in mine.
"Do we have any Snicker's bars? I'm having major cravings."
"I thought you hated peanuts."
"I do. The baby, however, doesn't." she gives me a guilty smile, the one that I could never be angry at.
I smile back and lean over to kiss her gently on the cheek. "I'll go look."
Thirty minutes later I'm standing in the middle of a 24-hour dairy in my pyjama pants and my winter jacket. Amy insisted that I forget about her cravings until the morning, but I knew she probably wouldn't get any sleep if I did. I grab a few extra Snicker's bars off of the shelf, just in case.
The cashier seems used to seeing me at three in the morning – this isn't the first craving Amy has had in the middle of the night, and it won't be the last. I fiddle with my wedding ring as he scans the chocolate bars the places them into a plastic bag. I smile gratefully as he hands me the bad and head off on my way.
As I enter our bedroom in your tiny apartment (sponsored by the Sausage King, aka my father), I find Amy fast asleep on our bed. I smile to myself, once again wondering how I managed to marry the most beautiful woman in the world. I leave the Snicker's bars stacked on the nightstand and cover her with the duvet. I crawl back into my side of the bed and quickly fall back into a light sleep filled with dreams of my beloved.
…four chocolate bars.