One Small Chance: a novella (a Love Story from Portugal) Read Free Page A

way. By then, Simon had lost all chance of following the ambulance.
    What a day, indeed.
    He went through the small apartment and flicked the lights on. After a long shower and changing into jeans and a t-shirt, he peeked inside the refrigerator. One Greek yogurt and some bottled water. Nothing else had magically appeared since morning. Take-out for dinner again.
    How many times had he second-guessed his decision to move to Lisbon? He couldn’t speak Portuguese, not anything beyond obrigado and bom dia , and there was only so much he could do with thank you and good morning. Thanks to the translation app on his smartphone and the great number of natives who spoke English, he was doing all right so far. But he’d only been in the city for a few days, and that wasn’t enough to make an educated prediction for the rest of this stay.
    He was not an impulsive man; quite the opposite. Decisions came after a lot of thought and introspection, and he always weighed all the pros and cons of every choice. Life-altering decisions, like moving to another country, required added pondering and praying, of which he had done plenty. The prevailing feeling had always been the same: a calm and tender peace. And now here he was, doing something so out of character with his nature that doubts crept up almost on a daily basis.
    His father had questioned his true motives, even though he knew the real reason behind Simon’s decision. Simon had steered all conversation away from the topic effectively squashing any discussion about it. Taking this job in Lisbon was something he had to do and that was the end of it. In any case, it was too late to go back, both geographically and professionally. He had signed a contract with The British Academy in Lisbon and he was committed for one term.
    He looked through his wallet before leaving, making sure he had enough small bills. Once on the street, Simon paused and ran a hand through his hair. The evening was clear and warm and the sounds and lights of the city filtered out to him. There was a different vitality in Lisbon, something always going on, not so unlike London, but with its own atmosphere and flavor. In a way, it was familiar to him, not only the city but his perspective on it.
    A perspective which was not his own, of course. How many times had he read Amélie’s letters and her account of day trips and favorite places in Lisbon? How many times had he thought of coming over and spending the day with her at those same places?
    Maybe he was crazy, looking for a girl whose real name he didn’t even know. But the idea of finding out who she was had been gnawing at him for over a year, growing a little more with each letter, until he couldn’t ignore it any longer.
    At first, he’d brushed it off, reasoning it was his approaching birthday, the big 3-0, that had him sentimental and considering something so insane. But his birthday came and went and the feeling persisted until he prayed about it. The prayers brought peaceful answers he hadn’t expected.
    So he’d tried to discover the name of the school she attended when they first started exchanging letters, but his ninth-grade teacher had since passed away. Simon had looked through the stacks of envelopes searching for an address that wasn’t a post office box and somehow those were missing as well. Dad had been quiet at first, as he brought over the boxes Simon had left behind when he left for his mission and then university. But it wasn’t too hard to guess what he was doing, was it?
    How could he not try to find her? How could he pretend she wasn’t his best friend?
    After this afternoon’s events, he couldn’t shake the growing conviction that he had indeed met Amélie, if only for a few minutes. Why else would the girl have the letter he had written as Elliot?
    Once back at the apartment, Simon pulled the small metal table into the middle of the balcony and gave it a quick wipe down. He transferred half the food to a plate and stuck