Page 58 of One More Chance
My stomach dropped. I looked again at the label, my eyes zoning in on the name printed across it.Sloane Shaw.
The kitchen blurred for a moment, and the ground tilted. I braced myself with a hand on the counter, trying to stop the sudden pounding in my chest. The bottle in my hand weighed a hundred pounds.
Oh fuck Sloane.
Anxiety coiled in my chest, a steel band tightening with each breath. Fuck, she'd never told me. Not about this. Not about the panic attacks. Not about needing medication just to function.
While I’d been busy chasing my guilt and playing the role of the man trying to fix what he broke, she had been surviving in her way. Quietly. Secretly.
Damn it Sloane.
I scanned the warnings. Dosage. Then down to the bottom where a line caught my eye.
'Not recommended for individuals who are pregnant or may become pregnant.'
I stood there, the hum of the refrigerator suddenly deafening, and for a second, I forgot how to breathe. My eyes locked on the sentence like it was written in fire. My pulse roared in my ears, my heart stopped as I read it again and again.
Finally my brain scrambled, latching onto panic and possibility. Was she…? Had she… been taking this while unknowingly pregnant? The implications twisted like a screw.
How long had she been on this? Was this why she couldn’t sleep? Why she looked so tired all the time? The dark circles, the sudden long showers, the silences?
How many times had I missed this? Misread her? Assumed she was just “moody” or “withholding,” when really she’d been hurting?
Guilt suffocated me. She had been trying to tell me how much she was drowning. Worse, I convinced myself that things were getting better. I had ignored the years of negligence for a few good days, some shared laughter, and two nights of intimacy thinking it could undo the war still raging inside her.
I let my own selfish hope drown out the truth: she was still struggling and she had been for a long time.
Who knows how long she had been fighting panic attacks alone. Her nights of taking medication hidden behind a creamer bottle, hidden from me because I hadn’t been a person she could trust.
Fuck me. I really am fucking worthless.
I hadn’t been a safe place for her to bring her pain and she had to stop now knowing she was pregnant.
I made a silent vow to myself as I placed the bottle back exactly where I found it with a trembling hand. I didn’t want her to know I’d seen it. Not yet.
Sloane, I will do better. I promise to be your safe place.
I made a plan to talk to her about it. I had to think of a way to explain how I wasn't snooping, and that I wanted to support her regardless of what she was going through. Therapy could be a good start. Right. Therapy.
Regardless of how hurt I felt for her, I knew this meant holding the truth of who she’d become in my absence and that I needed to learn how to stand beside her in it. If things went well, maybe I would earn the right to be the person she could leave her prescription bottle in plain sight of.
The walk out of the kitchen felt heavy. But clarity, I was learning, always came with that type of weight.
Later that morning, I met with the agent for the rental as we did our final walkthrough. The move out was easy. I gathered my clothes and threw a handful of things into my one suitcase. I made sure to snap some photos that I'd left the place in good standing, everything neat, no damage aside from the broken mirror. The agent promised me my deposit back, and I knew I 'd played my part in fulfilling the terms.
After the walkthrough, I planned in my truck. Worried for Sloane, I placed an order for N95 masks using the company card. Alongwith them, I added boxes of emergency medical supplies, toilet paper, gloves, antiseptics, and a few pregnancy items I knew she would need, like a body pillow and ginger chews.
Staring at the list, it felt excessive. Maybe even paranoid. But the last thing I wanted was to be caught unprepared when it came to Sloane and the kids. I knew that the pandemic was going to be awful, but I wasn’t sure how different things were going to be with me in the picture this time. This was the beginning of a dark time, and I wanted to be the one who had thought ahead for once.
For the first time in a long while, I wasn’t acting on impulse or guilt. I was acting to protect something. Even if I didn’t know whether I still had the right to do so.
Coming home that night, a quiet sense of peace settled into my bones, as if the weight I’d been carrying for so long was finally lifting. While I subtly moved more of my things into the guest room, I felt a stab pang of uncertainty. I didn’t want to assume I had the right to stay in the master with her. Not yet.
The bed in the guest room was cold, but I welcomed it. It was a reminder that, right now, I had to earn my place beside Sloane back.
The next few days, Sloane barely moved from the couch. She took time off from work to rest, the blanket tucked up to her chin, her cheeks flushed with the fatigue only early pregnancy could bring. She tried to reassure me it was just the usual nausea and exhaustion, but I could see it wearing on her; she was pale, her eyes dulled at the edges.
I brought over peppermint tea and the ginger candies she liked, kneeling beside her as Rufus settled by her feet with a huff.
