Page 2 of One Little Chance
Jordan was as vital a piece of my childhood as the streets of my neighborhood. His dining room table showed up as often as my own in memories. His dad beamed with pride at my track meets and softball games as often as my own father.
It was difficult when my world—my family—broke apart to understand which pieces were painful memories that cut, and which were safe to hold in my hands.Better to toss them all away, eighteen-year-old me had thought. A bright-eyed freshman in college.I can throw myself into a new life.
Mom laughed at the Silks encore performance booming across the street waking from my thoughts. Her gaze focused on me.
“What’re you thinking about?” she asked me, an eyebrow raised at my quietness.
“Oh…thinking about Christmas Eves from forever ago.” I attempted a small smile.
Exwassuch an inadequate way to describe him. Jordan was the boy who had shown up outside my house when I was fourteen years old on Christmas Eve night, knocking on my door urgently like there was some kind of Christmas emergency.
I ran fuzzy socked to the door, sliding on the hardwood floors. “Jordan.” I giggled as the front door swung open.
He stood tall in the doorway with bright eyes, eagerly holding mistletoe over his head. “I found some mistletoe,” he whispered shakily.
My cheeks flushed. “Mistletoe?”
“I thought…for Christmas…” My always confident Jordan was now nervous at the closeness of my awkward teenage self. Limbs too long, hair too frizzy, but still he looked at me like I was perfect. His eyes were on my lips.
“We should kiss, huh?” I grinned, mustering confidence for the two of us. “Traditions and all?” We’d been circling around a kiss all year. Waiting, nervous, hopeful.
The sky was such a deep blue it was almost black overhead. Frosty air blew in around him.
He nodded, his eyes wide in surprise as if he hadn’t really believed his plan would work. He swallowed, placing his free hand against my lower back. I raised onto the tips of my toes in my fuzzy red socks, and he bent down, his tall athletic self leaning down to meet me.
Two lips met for the first time on a Christmas Eve night. His mouth was cold and tentative, tasting like hot chocolate.
It was perfect.
I touched my lips years later. That kiss was still a mark on me like a tattoo no amount of heartbreak could ever wash away.So much more than just an ex.
Iwatched the sky go dark out the window blinds, the Christmas lights hanging on the houses growing more prominent in the night. I couldn’t stop thinking about Jordan’s red-rimmed eyes. I had no right to know what happened. It had been eight years since we’d last spoken. But, even after all this time, I hadn’t figured out how to stop caring about him.
I’d thought of him countless times—we’d spent far more years together than we’d ever spent apart. I’d wonder how his dream of building homes with his father was going. If he still ran in the mornings like we used to do. If he’d fallen in love with Emma. If he ever missed me.
Now, after seeing him face to face tonight, my mind was spinning. The last time I’d been in the same city, let alone on the same street as Jordan, my life was completely different.
My younger brother, Orlando, and I grew up in a tight-knit family of four: framed photos on the wall, homemade peppermint candy in the kitchen, and picking up relatives at the airport. Mom and Dad had been high school sweethearts, getting married fresh out of college and having me in their early twenties.
I grew up to the sound of them giggling together in the kitchen while my mom made Nonna’s handed-down pasta recipes. My dad asked me, “Doesn’t Mama look beautiful today?” as the scent of garlic and tomato filled the house. A soft, sweet equilibrium to my world.
But then, like a favorite song coming to an end, a hot July night before I left for college, my mom and dad sat Orlando and me down in the living room around our old wooden coffee table.
“We’re getting a divorce,” my dad announced as if proposing a new plan at a business meeting instead of telling his kids thattheir two parents, the four of us, were now broken into separate pieces. Our little world fractured, cracked, broken for good.
My voice was wobbly as I said, “I can’t believe this.”
My parents were at a loss for how to comfort me when they couldn’t even comfort themselves. It was so quiet, so tense, I could still hear the fan overhead and feel the sweat on the back of my neck.
“I can’t believe this,” I repeated to Orlando later that night. My voice was just as broken, the hurt still raw. Neither of us could sleep that night, so we sat together in the hallway between our rooms until the early hours of the morning.
“Really, Sophie?” Orlando whispered gently. His hair was a chestnut color that matched mine with the same freckles across his nose.
“Really.” I tugged at the gray carpet under my legs.
I was shocked. Until I wasn’t. Packing my bags for college suddenly felt like stumbling upon clues in a case—everything was proof of my parent’s marriage coming undone.
Cardboard boxes Mom got me and helped pop open while Dad was away on yet another work trip.
