Page 122 of One More Chance
Levi,
Another therapy love letter. I’ve written a few at this point and I've tried reading them out loud with the therapist. You have no idea how awful it feels, listening to your own voice as you broadcast your feelings to someone who you’ve paid to listen to you. But hey, here goes.
I’ve been sitting with these thoughts for awhile now, unsure how to put them into words. I’ve realized through therapy that I don’t need the perfect ones. I just need the honest ones.
When everything shattered between us, I thought I had shattered, too. There were days I could barely breathe, and nights I wanted to scream but didn’t have the strength. Between work and the kids, I simply felt like an empty shell and I’ll be honest, there were moments I didn’t know if I could ever look at you again without feeling the pain of what you did. But the day you walked in and asked if we could start over, if we could try again, something stirred in me. It felt like hope, and it scared me.
While you were working tirelessly to show up for me, to prove yourself, I sought refuge with a community online. I found a group of women and men who had walked through the same storm and I listened to both sides. I spent sleepless nights reading through their D-Day stories, sitting with their pain and then I found a forum that talked about being whole after infidelity. I let you prove that you had changed. Working together in tandem to heal each other and understand that the needs of our relationship would change greatly.
For the first time, I didn’t feel alone. I read stories of devastation, but also of strength, resilience, and hope. I started to realize that I didn’t have to let what happened define me. I’ve learned I’m stronger than I ever gave myself credit for. I’ve learned I’m allowed to hurt and to heal. I’m not broken and I can rebuild myself on my own. Or, if I choose to, with you.
You’ve shown up, Levi. You didn’t disappear into shame or excuses. You didn’t just say the right things. God Levi, you did the hard things for my benefit and I am so grateful for that. You let me cry without rushing me. You let me rage without trying to fix it. You held space for my pain. Every time I’ve needed reassurance, even when I’ve asked a hundred times, you’ve offered it without hesitation or judgement because you know exactly what you did to me. I can see it in the shame that lights your eyes, and the way your tone breaks.
So, here’s where I stand: I am proud of myself and I am proud of you. We are both choosing, every day, to lean in when it would be easier to run. You once broke my heart and now you’re part of the reason it’s healing. This isn’t a letter of forgiveness, or of forgetting. It’s not a bow tied around a broken story. It’s a chapter, a real, honest, messy, brave chapter in something that still might be worth saving.
I’m strong on my own. I’ve proven that in my own ways but as I sit here, I realize too that I believe I can be strong with you too.
– Sloane
Chapter 40
10 years Later
It’s been years since everything happened: Angie, the affair, my rebirth, the pandemic. The world has twisted into an unrecognizable thing, even when compared to my previous life. Some days I wondered if we, those of us who'd been reborn, had anything to do with that.
Charlie and I would discuss that at length, when it was just the two of us sipping whiskey on the back deck late into the night, certain we were the only ones awake. We hadn't met any others like us, but we both assumed they had to be out there… for good or for ill.
Over the past decade, society worldwide had slowly begun to segregate into two factions: the vaccinated versus the unvaccinated. We watched as businesses began to deny entry to the unvaxed, as countries made vaccines mandatory, and as more and more basic human rights were stripped from the unvaccinated.
In the USA, we'd been given the right to choose for ourselves. But even then, it felt like a hollow choice, as pressure was being applied to join the vaxed. As a family, we had chosen to vaccinate. The prosseemed to outweigh the cons, and the virus showed no signs of slowing down.
Going to get the vaccine was a surreal experience. The lines stretched for dozens of blocks outside of the stadium, where people huddled together against stark white tents that littered the football field.
Nurses with N95 masks called out names and led us to the Darken Pharmaceutical Representative, who read us the potential risks. We accepted with trepidation, reminding ourselves how swiftly the virus took Sloane's parents away from us, and told ourselves we were never looking back.
As the years progressed, things became more stable, but it was clear that there was a line between the two ideologies. The corporations in charge tried to appease both sides. I kept a watchful eye on Angie's father's businesses, all of which seemed to be profiting off of the misery from the changing times, and I ensured Master Builders Inc. stayed far away from his companies.
Despite all that depressing shitstorm raging in the background, today was a joyous day for me; I was helping Violet pack for her first day of college. Boxes littered our driveway as I shoved them into our company truck, reminding myself that she could visit home given the school was only an hour away.
She'll do fine. She's a big girl.
Violet had received several acceptance letters before she decided on this university: a school chosen for its vaccination requirement and its scholarship sponsorships for students who had impeccable academic backgrounds. Students like her. She had excelled in all of her classes growing up, often causing me to joke with Sloane whether I was really her father.
Thank fucking god she has her mother's brains.
At Sloane's suggestion, we helped Violet choose noncontemporary hobbies that not only interested her, but would help her stand out as an ideal candidate for a prestigious college: painting, sculpting, jiujitsu, fencing, equestrianism, archery. She managed to snag a full ride with dorms included.
That morning, Violet seemed subdued as she greeted me with dark circles under her red rimmed eyes. I assumed it was homesickness kicking in already, and imagined she didn't get much sleep last night; the last night before going off to college.
I didn't pry. I knew my baby girl would talk to me when and if she needed to.
She was quiet on the hour drive up, staring out the window, lost in thought. I tried a few conversation starters, light ones about campus life, her classes, the weather… but she responded absently, and eventually we drove in silence.
Once we arrived though, I caught a spark in her eyes as we found her dorm building and checked her in. The campus buzzed with parents and students, a swarm of goodbyes and last-minute hugs.
Somehow, I managed to haul an extra table up three flights of stairs for her, a “non-negotiable,” she said for her art. My back protested with every step, years of construction and farm work catching up with me, but I didn’t let her see that.
Sloane's joke about all delts kicked in as I laid the table down in the exact spot she wanted.
