CHANCE | ✔

3| Callista

Dead people receive more flowers than the living, for regret is stronger than gratitude. 
— Anne Frank 

Litost 
(n.) a state of agony and torment created by the sudden sight of one's own misery 

Monday — September 4, 2023 

Streaks of dawn break through the slight gap between the curtains in my room. It has been hours since the party yet I haven't gotten a wink of sleep. 

The culprit behind my current insomnia: Chance. 

The second I hit the bed and realized I was in the solitude of my room with no one but myself and my mind, Chance bulldozed his way through the barricades of my mind and refused to stop cluttering every thought encased within until I gave him my complete and undivided attention. 

I don't get why he reacted the way he did. Things between us had ended on good terms; we'd never gotten into a fight unless you count the petty 7 and 13-year-old squabbles. 

Before my parents divorced, the three of us used to live in a pleasant three-storied house in an upper-middle-class society. AKA this house. 

Chance moved in next door a couple of years later, roughly around the time when I turned six. 

I was out playing by the makeshift garden my mother had created because there wasn't enough room for an actual one. I wasn't feeling well the previous night but I was fine the next day, but my father insisted I take the day off just in case. 

Which was why I was talking to the lone silver-colored blossom drowning in the cluster of dark green leaves. 

My lips unwittingly curl into a smile at the memory. 

That was the day I met Chance. 

My father wasn't exactly millionaire-rich back then but we had more than enough to sustain us and monthly visits to lavish resorts for a three-day break weren't limited. 

He worked in a well-known tech firm at a high post. Everything I wanted, within reason, I got without having to worry, which was why I never really knew a life of struggle until my mom decided to pack up and leave with another man. 

Three years ago. 

My life was the dictionary definition of perfection up until I discovered that my father had been cheating on my mom and that my mom too had been cheating on my father. 

Not so perfect after all. 

I'd seen them fighting a few times over the years but I never gave it much thought because sometimes, couples fight. I didn't think of it as anything other than normal because soon after, they'd be back to being the picture description of a happy married couple. 

Mother. 

I miss her so much. 

Her warm embrace, her comforting smiles, her unwavering and unconditional love — everything. 

If I'd known that she wouldn't make it to my high school graduation, that she wouldn't be able to watch me fuss over college applications, that she wouldn't be able to wrap me in a bone-crushing hug when I'd tell her I finally got a job, that she wouldn't have the chance to witness the best and worst parts of my life, I would have cherished the moments I had with her a little more. 

I would have hugged her when she was crying in her room after she'd gotten into yet another fight with my father instead of locking myself up in my room and screaming at the universe for giving me such unbearable parents.