in front of the station in december

Stepping outside into the frigid air, you inhale, and with it your lungs freeze for a split second before picking up heat as your pace increases. It is an early Tuesday morning in December. Senses occupied by the soon-to-be Christmas atmosphere, you make your way to the station. Bicycles ride pass, the department store speakers play Jingle Bells and it makes you remember the winter of your sophomore year. You smile to yourself, lips cracking. Reaching into the left coat pocket for a lip balm, you remember that you left it on the coffee table. Sighing, you continue walking and finally reach the train station. To the right, about a hundred meters away, is a drugstore. Walking towards it, you notice a newspaper stand in front of the florist opposite the drugstore. There are quite a number of people in front of the station that December morning, but your eyes fix on a woman standing in front of the newspaper stand, long dark hair dangling over her shoulders as she reads. You move closer.

Is it her?

Her eyes grow bigger as she flips to the next page and yours follow as you realize that just footsteps away is the girl you last saw 20 years ago before you left for college. She looks surprised when you call out her name in that crowded place. You walk to her quickly, stopping to laugh and say sorry after stepping on someone’s foot, then pull her into an embrace.

How’s life? You haven’t changed a bit. Yeah, it’s very cold today.

She recalls the winter of sophomore year when her brother James wanted to do Secret Santa because their parents wouldn’t buy him the vinyl edition of his favorite album.

There were five of us. It was also brick outside that day.

You both remember how the group decided that if any two got each other as their Secret Santa, they were meant to be. It’s hard to avoid sounding silly when you talk about it now that you’re pushing forty, but everyone believed in it back then, or at least that’s what you believe. Your mind wanders to the first time you saw her. She shared the same math class with you all through middle school, but she came like a Christmas miracle through the front door. She had a wine-red sweater on and her long dark hair up. That was the first time you saw her. Sticking your hand into the huge red sock James had prepared for the Secret Santa draw, you prayed for her name. Those times that felt so slow has passed by and now she’s a mother of two, she says with a slight smile.

It wasn’t your name.

The front door flung open.

I was so surprised when I saw you enter the room again.

She said she was late because she forgot something at school so she had to go back to get it. You felt so dumb when you asked why there were two of her but you still did because minds don’t work best under influence.

It was her name.

She drew a name from the sock and ended the draw. The group then broke into conversation, and as the quiet one you preferred to sit and observe. You saw one of her talking to James and tried to eavesdrop, but you stopped before hearing anything when you felt a tap on your shoulder. Turning around, you decided you were meant to be. You spent the rest of the night talking to her and for the first time in your life, you didn’t bother to figure anything out because everything seemed so clear.

The dimples on her cheeks when she laughed at my jokes was how I knew that there couldn’t be two of her.

  It was the end of the year but the start of something phenomenal. You went for a picnic in the park as soon as the first flower bloomed, laid on the beach when the sun was hot enough to make you race the ice cream dripping onto your fingers, and hiked the trail behind the high school when leaves started to fall. When it returned to brick outside, things were warmer than ever.

High school sweethearts? Sure, we got that a lot but wouldn’t it be better if sweethearts are for forever?

You vowed not to let the end of high school be the end of everything, confident that time and place are just two particles in the cosmos of what you had.

We tried. Both of us.

The lesson is to not make promises when the thought of an ending looms in the back of your mind. Hours turned to days, days into months, and it ended as fast as it started, ignoring how long the slow motions were every time you saw each other. Somehow the distance seemed like it was twice further than reality and picking up the phone felt like lifting something five times your weight. You still think about what happened to this day. Every single day.

I can’t even describe how we started. Who am I to say why we ended, or if it was the end?

Leaving the sentence open, the thought of a second chance looms in the back of your mind. Warmth covers you for a split second before going away as if someone snatched your blanket when the phone in your right pocket reminds you of the meeting you have in ten minutes. It has been a long time since you feel the slightest bit of warmth in December. That jolt of warmth in your cold solitude was enough of a prompt to make you do what have been put off for 20 years.

It’s not a sin to ask for second chances.

It must be a Christmas miracle to see her walking towards the newspaper stand. The little girl on her left and the boy on her right call out their mother’s name and run towards her, leaving her behind. She looks so surprised when you call out her name in that crowded place. She walks to you quickly, stopping to laugh and say sorry after stepping on someone’s foot, then pull you into an embrace. She smiles as she breaks the hug, dimples showing and her eyes gleaming.

Me? I’ve been here the whole time looking for something like us. Would you like to grab some coffee? That’s amazing. Let’s give it another go.