Chance Encounters

Tommy could barely contain his laughter as he attempted to hide the devilish grin on his face with his hands. And Alex’s face, in his discomfort, had turned bright red. Neither had realized that Jackson’s parents didn’t know who Caroline was.

Caroline desperately wanted out of that room. “If you’ll excuse me, I really need to use the restroom.” She jerked open the door, practically busting it off its hinges on her way out.

Caroline ran around the corner and threw the bathroom door open with an exasperated breath. She flung open a stall door and quickly locked it behind her. She sat on top of the seat, buried her face in her hands and gasped for air. Tears spilled over her fingers as she berated herself. What was she doing there? His parents didn’t even know who she was! She didn’t belong there. She wasn’t his best friend, or the girl he was dating, or anything to him. How could she have been so stupid?

“Oh my God,” she said out loud as the most awful of realizations slammed down on top of her.

What if Jackson didn’t want her there?

Caroline realized at that moment she had to go back to San Francisco. Her ego had allowed her to simply assume that Jackson could never get over her the same way she couldn’t get over him. She had convinced herself that he still wanted her, when she didn’t know that to be the truth at all.

She wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands and pulled herself together. She exhaled and walked out of the bathroom toward the nurse’s station. “Excuse me?” Caroline spoke to the middle-aged woman behind the counter.

“Yes?” the nurse asked, her eyes weary. “Can I help you?”

“Do you have a pad of paper and a pen I can borrow? I’ll give it right back as soon as I’m done.”

The nurse smiled. “Of course. Here you go.” She handed her a legal-sized notepad and a pen with yellow smiley faces.

Caroline walked over to the empty seats along the wall across from the nurses’ station and sat down to write Jackson a letter, just like he had once done for her all those months ago. Tears fell onto the paper, but she never stopped. Her heart spilled into her words. Everything came out on that page.

When she was done writing, she handed the notepad back to the nurse and asked if she could trouble her for an envelope. The nurse handed her one and Caroline carefully wrote “Jackson” on it with a small heart at the end. “Thank you so much,” she said to the nurse before she returned the pen and walked toward Jackson’s room.

Alex waited outside the door for her return. “I’m sorry about that, Caroline. You okay?”

Caroline forced a smile. “I will be. Random question for you…”

“Shoot,” Alex said.

“The ring his mom is wearing—the one with the heart—where’s it from?”

“Oh, the separated heart?”

Caroline nodded.

“It’s cool, right? It’s been in his family for generations. I think it was his great, great, great grandfather who made the first one. I think the story goes, if I’m remembering it right, that his grandfather kept trying to make his girlfriend a heart design, but he couldn’t get the two halves to match up perfectly. No matter what he did, the right half was always longer than the left half. And he was never happy with the top of the heart where the halves came together. He couldn’t weld the pieces just right and it always got like this big clump at the top.

“So one day, he took the latest heart he had made, where the top didn’t quite come together and the right side hung lower than the left, and gave it to her anyway. He told her that it was better than a regular heart because it was separated and separated hearts were stronger than hearts that weren’t. Apparently she thought it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen and asked if he could make a ring with it. And the design has been in their family ever since.”

Caroline’s face softened, picturing the scene in her mind. “That’s a great story.”

Alex smiled. “I think so, too. Why do you ask?”

“I was just wondering,” Caroline evaded.

“Wait, did Jackson make one for you?” Alex asked with wide eyes. Caroline looked at him without answering. “He did, didn’t he?” Alex asked again as Caroline reached for the chain buried under her shirt.

“He sent me the heart for my birthday. But I added the chain,” she admitted.

“Wow,” Alex responded. “That’s a big deal.”

“It is?” she questioned.

“Yeah,” he told her. “It’s tradition that each one of the Parks men put the heart on something, but they don’t ever give it to just any girl. It’s usually the girl they want to marry. And it doesn’t have to be a ring, but I think that’s what they all normally do. I know that all the women in his family have similar rings.”

Caroline caressed the charm. She basked in the warmth she felt inside with the charm’s newfound meaning.

“Jackson had to make that for you, you know? That’s part of the tradition, too. If any Parks man wants to give the design to someone, they have to forge it themselves.”