Page 18 of One More Chance
I couldn't tell her that, though. So instead I said, “Ever since I realized how desperately I need to earn your trust back.”
I could hear her scoff through the phone. I could almost see her pull back to stare at the screen from the audacity of my words. I knew itwas bold, but it was honest. I needed her to know how much I meant what I'd said.
“I am not saying yes.” Her voice was low, as if she didn’t want the kids to hear. “But I’m not saying no, either. The kids… they need you. They miss you. I might be willing to let you stay the nights I'm working.Might.” Her voice sounded stern.
I closed my eyes and held back the swell of emotion rising in my chest. “Then I’ll wait,” I whispered. “I’ll do whatever you need me to. If it’s a rental, fine. If it’s the guest room, fine. I’ll sleep in the garage if that’s what it takes.”
“You don’t get to charm your way back in,” she warned. In her stern tone she used with the kids she said, “If you come back, which is still a very bigif… it will be undermyrules. One wrong move, and you’re gone. For good.”
“Understood,” I said. “I’ll be good.” I had to stop myself from saying 'agood boy.'
I started to wonder if the New Me had come back as a masochist. Good God, I fucking loved listening to her reprimand me and I was grateful in this moment that she had stood up for herself. She had answered the phone and that alone felt like a crack of light through the darkness of my soul.
She said, “I’ll talk to the kids. And I’ll think about it.”
“Thank you, Sloane.”
She didn’t say a word of thanks. No goodbye. The line went dead, leaving only silence behind.
I sat there, my chest tight with each painful breath, as I replayed our conversation over and over and over. I would celebrate every victory, no matter how small, as I battled my way back. And this?
This was my first win.
Chapter 8
That night I stayed in a hotel room. The frigid air cut through the thin sheets as I lay awake, replaying not just the events of the day but… everything that had happened in my previous life. How the Old Me had tried to build himself back up, but never succeeded. The divorce. The twelve years of regret and anguish that ended in a car crash. I died when I was a few years short of fifty, and the struggles of the Old Me felt so distant and irrelevant now. My life had taken some unexpected turns. Brutally painful ones, honestly.
After the divorce and after the world had started to crawl back from the virus, I had fought to remain relevant in the building world despite having to start from scratch. I'd worked myself to exhaustion, to the point where the drive to stay important was an obsession, despite the fact that those accomplishments didn’t bring me peace. How could they? How could anything bring me peace after all that happened?
Liam got incarcerated. Violet, my baby girl… she had disappeared. Both of their absences left gaping holes so vast and incomprehensible that neither Sloane nor I knew how to recover.
A few years after our divorce had been finalized, Sloane remarried someone from her work. She'd found a guy who worshipped her, fawned over her, doted on her. It ate me alive knowing how much of a perfect match they were. How much he helped her heal. How he loved her in ways I didn't know how. He did all of the things I could never do right. It sickened me, but I couldn’t be angry at him much less at Sloane. All that anger, all that bitterness… faded into more pity, loathing, and regret.
It took countless therapy sessions filled with harsh truths to untangle the knots of my narcissism and to finally understand the scars I'd left on Sloane. The worst part was how long it had taken me to realize that I was the one who had fucked everything up by not being a real father, or even a good partner. I'd spent years working on myself before I'd made any meaningful breakthrough. And by then? It was far too late. By the time I'd started trying to pick up the pieces of the life I had shattered, there was nothing left to repair.
Then Sloane’s husband committed suicide and her world crumbled all over again. The fragile threads of her life unraveled in front of me, and I wanted so desperately to help keep her together. What little grace I had been granted in her eyes, I grasped at with desperation.
In this new chaos, I was the one who was closest to her, and I couldn’t let her go. I focused on her, on her hurt and on the pieces of her that were breaking again. In her devastation, I saw an opening, a chance to inch closer. I wanted to be the one to help her heal this time.
I'd known it was selfish; to enjoy being needed by her. But I hadn't felt important to her in such a long time, I could not help myself. I was grateful for that time we had spent together.It felt like some god out there had actually listened to my decade of groveling and given me a second chance to be near her again.
For a year before the car crash, she leaned on me. I was dutifully there for her. I became the stable rock she needed, using every bit of the therapy I’d done over the years to support her. She clung to me, and there was a twisted satisfaction in it. I was there for her and, in a way, it felt like redemption.
Maybe it was my narcissism snaking back in, but I believed I was the only one who truly understood her heart. We suffered through the shattering of everything we had built, lost so much we had both cherished and we'd survived it. I convinced myself that no one else could see her the way I did. That my familiarity with her pain gave me the tools I needed to help her heal. I thought that maybe, just maybe, I could rewrite our story with a happy ending.
After everything, after all that had happened and the rising affection growing between us, I finally texted her one day. Simple and straightforward.
Hey, can I visit for lunch tomorrow? We need to talk about a few things. About us maybe?
Sure Levi. I'll be waiting.
When she agreed, my stomach flipped. It was like a flicker of light, a beacon that I had a chance to be part of her life again.
I'd stopped by a jeweler. A knot of anxiety tightened in my chest as the sales rep led me through the selection. As she showed me a variety of glittering jewelry, the pit in my stomach deepened. When she finally pulled out the ring, a 2-carat emerald cut, it felt like a symbol of every damn thing I still hoped for:a second chance for reconciliation and a future with Sloane.
The drive up to her house was surreal. Joy buzzed in me so fiercely that I must have lost myself in it… must have also lost sight of the road. I'd been so focused on the idea of starting over, of making things right, that I didn't see the nightmare red truck barreling through the red light until it was too late. The impact was instant. A violent, blinding flash of metal.
Then nothing.
