One Little Chance (Sweet River)

Chapter 1

DECEMBER 24TH, 2022

I t was icy the day before Christmas. My breath came out in little puffs as I yanked my suitcase from the back of the silvery blue Corolla I parked outside my mom’s house. Since my parents’ divorce, she’d changed her last name back to her maiden name, Viletti, and moved into this little house my brother and I lovingly called the Viletti Villa.

She had apologetically admitted over the phone a couple of years ago that she was renting a place a few houses down the street from Jordan— my ex.

Though ex didn’t quite communicate everything Jordan Silk was to me.

He was my childhood crush, my high school sweetheart, my best friend. Like a favorite jacket that fit just right no matter how I grew over the years. The voice I would fall asleep to on the phone when we were apart on family vacations. A face I searched for in the stands during track meets, to remind me that I was a winner no matter the score.

Growing up down the street from him in my family’s old house had been a gift I used to use to my advantage, walking over on the weekends and pushing the boundaries on my curfew until the very last possible second. Now, eight years since our breakup, in Mom’s new house, the proximity to his family’s place made staying at Mom’s house stressful , I bitterly thought as I slammed my car door. I froze at a familiar sound.

Oh no . Christmas carolers. It was December 24. I knew, Jordan’s family, the Silk’s traditions.

Christmas lights blinked to life across this street. I tried to hurry, throwing a couple of bags over my shoulder and grabbing my rolling suitcase to scurry up the driveway. The achingly familiar voices grew closer.

When the heel of my boot hit a patch of ice, my legs slid under me. Ouch . I landed on my behind. Chilly water soaked into my jeans as my face blazed red.

The carolers were far enough away not to witness the fall but close enough that as I hobbled back up, they arrived in front of the driveway just in time to see me awkwardly trying to pull my coat over my soaked bottom.

I doubted Jordan realized this was my mother’s house. Or, in this small town…he totally knew. But she hadn’t dumped him their freshman year of college, cut off all communication, and married someone else. Caroling in front of her was an entirely different situation than caroling in front of me .

As Jordan and his family sang, “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” I froze in place. Would it be rude to turn and bolt? Should I sing along? Who would I look at? Do not look at Jordan’s face. Do not look at Jordan’s face. Though staring at his beefy, quarterback shoulders wasn’t exactly a comfort either.

My mom’s hunter-green front door creaked open before they sang the last few lines. She rushed out across the front porch, clapping for the end of the performance. I gave her something between a smile and a pained wince.

Everyone merrily wished us a Merry Christmas, and Jordan’s eyes latched onto mine. Two puzzle pieces connected. Like our connection was unavoidable. He stepped back in surprise at my presence.

His hazel eyes were puffy, rimmed in red. His shoulders hunched. His sandy hair was a mess. He was hurting. Something had happened.

After all this time, my entire body was reflexively drawn to wrap hurting Jordan in my arms, to soak up his sorrow like a sponge. I bit back the urge to reach out to him because I’d erased those rights out of my life.

He pulled his gaze away quickly, shaking his head as if standing there with tear-stained eyes singing Christmas songs in front of his ex-girlfriend was just too much.

I watched his family walk away, his grandmother rubbing his back as they strolled back home. Noting, with a glimmer of something recklessly close to hope, that his girlfriend of the past couple of years, Emma Brown, was not with him.

The Silks started singing “Oh Holy Night” as they walked further down the street. It used to be me all huddled in my fluffy coat singing along with them, giggling through the cold.

My mom swung her arm around my shoulder clutching my puffy white coat. “Oh, babe, welcome home.”

I cuddled underneath a chunky knit blanket on my mom’s living room couch as she shuffled around the kitchen only separated from the living space by a half kitchen bar. The whole house smelled of Mom’s spaghetti Bolognese.

It had been eight years since I was the one bundled up with Jordan’s family. His mom wrapped her red scarf around my neck to keep me warm as we sang Christmas songs under the glow of the neighborhood’s twinkle lights. I’d been singing along with them from the time I was a little girl in pigtails until I was a senior in high school. It was my Christmas tradition, too. Hearing it outside my mom’s windows as she brewed me a cup of tea felt like turning the pages of a scrapbook I’d kept locked away for years.

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.

Ex was such 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.

I watched 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 that their 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.

Packing clothes I opened on a quiet Christmas morning that my Dad hadn’t even realized Mom bought. He was distracted and moody that whole day.

I tiptoed through the kitchen to steal a few bowls and spoons for my new dorm room, wondering when Mom and Dad stopped giggling in there.

The house was quiet as I packed, I felt myself noticing it for the first time. Quiet was our normal for the past several years, wasn’t it? Mom and Dad’s old jokes were buried under years of distance.

“When did you realize?” Mom asked me over the phone weeks later, when I collapsed into tears demanding to know if Dad had left her for someone else.

How could I miss it? Turned into a frantic, how much could I miss?

N ow, I was back in Sweet River, my hometown, in Mom’s Viletti Villa, sitting on a plush green couch instead of the worn-in red sectional I grew up with. So many things were different, but not everything.

Time taught me that some things don’t change. Visiting home still smelled like Mom simmering something tomato-based on the stove. Tonight was one of those nights as garlic and fresh tomatoes filled the house. And she still hung big wreaths on the windows and red bows on the kitchen cabinets. And it was still my family’s voices that filled my ears on nights like these.

I wished I could go back and whisper in my eighteen-year-old self’s ear, things might’ve shattered, but some pieces would always be yours. But she’d figure it out all in good time.

Mom was humming in the kitchen when Orlando burst through the door Christmas Eve night with a big, lush tree. Mom and I ushered him in, guiding him to a spot to place it. It put the artificial two-footer to shame.

Orlando was a junior in college and home for Christmas break.

“I saw Mom’s tiny one was still around and thought it was time she upgraded!” Orlando said, eyeing the new real eight-foot tree proudly. It made the living room smell like pine.

I’d spent the first few Christmases after my parents split with my ex, Tyler’s family. Each of us in our family tentatively tried something different like walking on unsteady ground. Mom went on a cruise that first year. Orlando went to the snowy mountains with some family friends. Until we finally started spending Christmas with the three of us again—Mom, Orlando, and me. We haven’t looked back since. Repairing our pieces like a fallen ornament, not quite the same as before, but still beautiful and in some ways, even better.

Mom bought the two-foot Christmas tree that first year the three of us celebrated together again. It became our family tree for years. It made us giggle, and we loved how the big ornaments looked on it. Mom was happier, lighter, even better now after the break.

“Tiny Tree still needs a place,” I said as Mom and Orlando fluffed the new tree. I glanced around the room, searching for a spot.

Mom offered, “How about in your room, by the window?”

I smiled at Mom referring to the guest room as my room . In her mind, no matter what happened, Orlando and I were her two kids and wherever she lived was our home. I carried Tiny Tree into the guest room, setting it on the table by the window. I opened the curtains, so it shared its twinkle lights with the neighborhood. I peeked out to see kids running around the neighborhood pink-cheeked, giggling, and high on Christmas.

I was home . I felt like someone had wrapped a blanket around my shoulders after a long time in the cold.