LITR 3731: Creative Writing
Student Fiction Submission 2005

Alissa Tupa 

A Chance?

Lynley had just risen from the couch to take her dishes from lunch into the kitchen when she heard a knock at the door.  It was unusual for anyone to just show up at her house unannounced. Please do not let it be him.  After seeing him last night in the Dos Amigos bar, she was a bag of nerves.  Their breakup had been years ago and it still upset her, but it’s not as if she’d spent years pining away for him.  She’d dated—even been serious with someone, but they eventually broke up. She set her dishes back down on the coffee table and edged her way around the furniture to the front door.

            Why don’t I have a freaking peephole?  She pulled the chain off the door, released the deadbolt, took a deep breath, and pulled the door open.  Yep, it was Matthew alright, looking as handsome as ever.  Despite those gorgeous dimples, she was furious at him for having the audacity to think he can just come over like everything was okay between them.  It’s not that things were bad between them, but after all, he had decided that they were too young to continue with their relationship.  He never asked her if she agreed.  So, what did he want? 

“How did you find where I live?” she snapped.  Oops, she really didn’t mean to sound so rude.  He looked so good.  Almost exactly like he did the last time she saw him, but you could tell he was older now.  He definitely didn’t look like a teenager anymore.  His shoulders had filled out and he had more facial hair.  Why did he have to have a little bit of stubble?  Lynley didn’t know why, but she just thought stubble was the sexiest thing ever. 

            “I called information.  Can I come in?”  he asked casually, obviously unaffected by her tone.

            She stepped aside and opened the door further to allow him to enter.  “What do you want, Matthew?”  Thank goodness she’d gotten up and got ready this morning.  Well, she’d done her hair and makeup and just threw on a t-shirt and shorts.  But, she knew she looked cute in her AC/DC baby tee and cut-offs.

He walked over to her couch and sat down.  He picked up the photo album sitting on the coffee table and began thumbing through it.  Lynley kept all her pictures in that album.  Which means that there were pictures of him and previous boyfriends in there too.  She noticed how he grimaced at one of the pictures of her and another guy and then quickly put the album down.  That gave her a small amount of satisfaction.  It showed that he was a little jealous and that she had not been alone since their breakup.  “I just wanted to check on you.  You seemed upset last night and I was worried that I had something to do with it.”

            She could not believe her ears!  Was he really so full of himself that he thought that after five years she was still hung up on him?  Although it may be true, she didn’t want him to think it.  She had thought she handled herself pretty good last night, but maybe not.  She only saw him for about five minutes since he was on his way out when he spotted her.  She walked over to the loveseat and sat down.  She needed to keep some distance between them.  “I’m fine.  I wasn’t upset.  I’d had a bad day yesterday and a headache, that was it,” she lied. 

            “I just wanted to make sure.  I was also hoping that we could get together while I’m here.” 

            “Why?  You want to rekindle something?  You want to catch up on old times? Why do you want to get together, Matthew?”  She didn’t mean or want to sound so bitter, but she was so hurt by the fact that he had left her all those years ago.

            “I don’t know, Lynley.  I saw you last night and I just wanted to see you again.  I’m sorry about the past and I don’t want to repeat it if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

            “Oh, so you’re moving here?  Or you just want to visit as friends and nothing more?  Or are we old enough now by your specifications?”  She noticed her voice was growing shaky.  Please do not let me start crying.  Please Lord, she prayed. 

            “You know when you remember someone and you remember how much you liked them and stuff, but when you see them it’s not always the way you remembered?  I didn’t know if I was going to try and get in touch with you while I was here, but when I saw you I just…I don’t know.”    

            He was staring down at his hands.  She could tell that he was upset too.  She wasn’t trying to upset him, but she was older now.  She was braver now and she would speak up for herself and let him know what she thought.  “I’m still not clear on what it is that you want with me.”  She also wasn’t sure if she liked the fact that he “didn’t know” if he was going to get in touch with her. 

“Lynley, you know there’s not always work here for me.  That is why I had to leave in the first place.  Look, it’s been five years and this is the first job that’s been in Odessa since then.  I just thought that we could go out to dinner or something.”

            “I don’t think so.  I’ll be honest with you, I was heartbroken when you left and it took me a while to get over you.  Now that I have, I just don’t want to be left in the same situation that I was left in before.”

            “We were younger back then.  You were still going to college and I could not support both of us.  I had nothing.  I couldn’t promise you a life.” 

            “See, that’s just it.  You had promised me a life.  I thought that I was going to go home with you and we were going to move in together. I thought we would get married, but when you left you just said that we’d visit each other soon.  Yeah, we stayed together for a while, but then all of a sudden, you wanted to break up because we were too young.”

            “It was hard,” he pleaded.

            “Nothing is easy, Matthew.  Apparently you just weren’t into trying and I didn’t mean that much to you.”

            “Maybe I didn’t give it a hundred percent, but that doesn’t mean that I did not love you, Lynley.  I did love you, very much.”

            Sitting here talking to him was killing her, she just couldn’t take it anymore.  “Matthew,” she said rising from the couch, “I don’t want to begin anything new or resume where we left off.  It was good seeing you again and now if you’ll excuse me, I have things I need to do today.”  As she was speaking she walked to the front door and flung it open.

            Matthew rose from the couch with a look of disappointment on his face and said nothing until he was on her doorstep.  He turned to look at her, but she would not meet his gaze.  “I’m sorry about the way things ended up.  Maybe you will change your mind.”  She looked up into his face and he gave her a half-smile that showed his irresistible dimples.  Then, slowly, he turned and walked away.

            Lynley closed the door. Where was Air Supply’s Greatest Hits?  With blurry eyes she fumbled through her CDs, found it, popped it into the player, and put “All Out of Love” on repeat.  She always liked to listen to sad music when she was depressed and this was one of those times.  Then, she walked to her bedroom, threw herself on the bed, and began crying.  Why is it the people you love the most can make you the maddest?  She was so mad and so hurt by him leaving her.  How could he still get to her like this? 

            She remembered when he left.  She had arrived at his apartment after he got off work, just like she did everyday.  When she walked in, she could tell something was wrong.  He told her that he had to go back to Houston to work and that he would be leaving the next day.  He was not supposed to be leaving for a few more months, so it was a total shock to her.  They both broke down crying.  The original plan was that when he went back home, she would leave with him and they would move in together.  However, he decided that it would be best if he went home alone and came back to visit her soon.  He felt that it was too soon to move in together and he had thought they would’ve had more time to plan for it.  What could she do?  She loved him so much she would have left the next day on such short notice if he would’ve wanted her to, but apparently, he didn’t.  She spent one last night with him and the next day he packed his things, told her he’d see her soon, kissed her goodbye, and left. 

It was a few months after that day that he had called and told her he didn’t think things would work out between them.  “I think that we are too young and too far apart for this to work.  I mean, we’re only nineteen and I think that we still have a lot of living to do.  I’m not really happy,” he’d said.  She had immediately started crying.  She couldn’t say that she was completely happy either.  It was tough not being able to see and talk to him everyday.  She also couldn’t say that she felt she would be happier without him in her life at all.  She didn’t know what to say.  She couldn’t beg him to stay together.  As soon as they hung up she’d put in Air Supply.  She had listened to it nonstop for about two weeks until Nicole, her best friend, had threatened to break it into a million pieces.  Until today, she hadn’t touched it.  When they broke up, she felt as if she’d lost her soul mate and nobody seemed to understand.  Her parents had loved Matthew and so did all of her friends, as far as they were concerned he was a great guy.  But, everyone seemed to agree that they were young and that maybe it was for the best. 

            Lynley finally finished crying some time later and got up to wash her face and reapply the makeup she knew she had cried off. 

* * *

            Matthew sat in his car with his head resting on the steering wheel feeling like crap.  He could see the hurt in her eyes and it made him feel like a jerk that he was the cause of it.  He knew she still loved him.  It was written on her face when he ran into her last night.  He still loved her too.  He could tell Lynley had been about to cry and to be honest, he kind of felt like crying too.  He raised his head and started the engine.  One of George Strait’s love songs was playing on the radio and Matthew quickly changed it to another station.  He loved George, but he couldn’t listen to this now.

As he backed out of her driveway his mind was racing.  How could he get her to forgive him and to trust him again?  He knew he didn’t handle things well when he left before, but until this job came up, he didn’t know what to do to correct it.  When he saw her last night, he knew he had to try.  He didn’t want to be without her anymore and he had to figure something out to win her back.

revision account

I changed pretty much everything that the class said I should change.  It was said that their breakup didn’t match the beginning because he seemed like jerk at first.  So, I tried to explain their breakup from the beginning.  I just hope that I did not repeat the breakup too much.  I included how her parents and friends felt about him because someone in class had wondered how they felt.  I also tried to add more action and detail during the dialogue.  Also, I tried to add more details about his looks.   I think that the class really helped me see what was wrong with my story and I hope that I clarified things that were confusing.