Page 11 of One Little Chance
“Oh, I know. I remember you out there during flag football taking on the big boys.”
“Or how I’d always beat you on the track.” I couldn’t help bringing it up. Crimson flush spread from his cheeks to his ears, the way it always did.
He shook his head. “There’s the Sophie smack talk.”Sophie. It was probably an accidental slip but hearing him say it felt like winning a medal.
“What some call smack talk, others call truth,” I said. A car drove past us, slow on the snowy street. “How’s…”Could I ask about Emma? His love life?
He narrowed his eyes, reading me like a favorite book. “You’re feeling nosey, I see?”
“Always.” I gave a big smile.
“That question requires a little liquid assistance.” He reached for his bag. I raised a brow as he pulled out a thermos.Oh, I knew that thermos.
“Your nana is still sending you off with hot cocoa on cold days?” I laughed. “You’re twenty-six—nearly thirty.”
“Only on the days I stop by to bring her lunch or take her to her nail appointments. She’s not driving anymore, you know.” He poured a little cocoa into the lid that also doubled as a cup. He took a sip before offering me one.
Steamy milk chocolate with the perfect hint of peppermint warmed me down to my toes. “Still the best,” I said after taking a sip.
He held the lid in his hands as he said, “Emma and I ended it back in December. Right before Christmas.”Definitely the reason for the sad Christmas caroling.
“How long had you two been…a thing?” I asked, trying to keep the emotion out of my voice. It wasn’t fair for me to feel jealous, but feelings never do play by the rules.
“We’d been together for a couple of years,” he said. “Not eight years. But not nothing.”
“I’m also single,” I offered. “My breakup had been a long time coming, though. Doomed from the start, some may say.”
“Mine was a long time coming, too, I think. I was trying to ignore the signs, thinking I could force it into what I wanted,” he said quietly, reflectively. “I think she felt like I was trying to make her into someone she wasn’t.”
“Who?” I asked. The word out before I could remember to hold it back. I never could hold anything back with him.
He grinned like I already knew the answer. “The girl my dreams come true with. Who wants what I want. Old house, noisy kids, and weekend mornings with syrup and pancakes.”
“Who wouldn’t want those things?”
“She didn’t.” He tapped the thermos thoughtfully. “You didn’t.”
I let out a breath like I’d just been punched in the throat.It wasn’t that simple.
“I’ll be okay. I can survive this fender bender of a breakup after the way my heart was totaled after the car crash of us,” he said this plainly like it was just the facts. As if my eyes weren’t filling with tears.
I blinked them away and looked out the window. “I’m sorry.” Which heartbreak was I sorry for?
He put his eyes on mine and said, “Thank you. Really.” He looked out the windshield thoughtfully. “It’s all taught stubbornly hopeful me that I’ve got to be patient and wait for the right person. The one where our dreams and our desires line up. I can’t force it from sheer force ofwant. When it’s right, it’ll be natural.”
I wasn’t sure what I was allowed to be feeling in this moment—I’d been the one who totaled his heart. Someone who’d taught him that he might want our lives to align, but that desire alone couldn’t make it so.
But what if they aligned now? We were both still parked outside the same dream house, weren’t we?
“Just ’cause I want someone to be the one, doesn’t mean she is, right?”
“Right,” I said it so softly, I wasn’t sure he even heard me.
Later that night, I tore into the cardboard box where I kept my most valuable mementos and artifacts. Sorting through the old postcards from my grandparents and ticket stubs from trips, until my fingers touched the letter I’d read so many times I knew it by heart. It was the letter Jordan sent the autumn of our breakup. It was water stained from my own tear drops.
Dear Sophia,
You drove off a few days ago. It honestly feels like you took my heart right out of my chest with you. I was praying this morning at church and said to God, “It feels like everything is falling apart.” Then, I thought, what I’m feeling can’t compare to how you’re feeling. Everything for you really is falling apart.
