Page 40 of One More Chance
After a minute, she said, “The kids notice, you know. That you’re trying. Violet asked me if you were ‘back-back.’ I didn’t know what to say.”
My chest clenched at that. “You tell them whatever you think is best, Sloane. I know we're trying our hardest not to involve them in our issues, but I won't stop being a parent for them regardless of how this turns out.”
"That's oddly mature of you," she said.
"Thanks. Always trying to impress."
That earned the barest flicker of a smile before she continued, “You know what really scares me, Levi?” She looked down at her hands for a moment, then back at me. “It’s not that you cheated. I mean, goddamn, that was hell. But what scares me more is how easy it was for you to forget us while you were doing it. Like we… stopped existing to you.”
Her words sliced into me with surgical precision. Not out of cruelty, I knew, but out of the harsh honest truth of her pain. Tears swelled in my eyes as I struggled to find the right words.
“I didn’t forget you,” I said in a rasp. “I buried you. I buried us. I buried everything good about my life under whatever lie I needed, just so I could fool myself into feeling justified.”
She didn’t flinch. She sat silent and listened.
“I see it now," I said, "how I made you invisible in your own home. How I walked around like I was the victim, because life didn’t feel worth living anymore. And you… you were working such long shifts, always taking care of the kids, doing your best to hold it all together while I tore it all apart.”
She blinked and I knew she was also fighting back tears as she said, “I used to pray you’d notice. That you’d look up one day and see how tired I was… but when you finally looked up, it wasn’t at me. It was at her.”
A brittle and aching silence sat between us on the couch for a time.
“I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness,” I eventually said. “But I’ll earn your trust back, even if it takes the rest of my life. Even if you never love me the same way again. I still want to be someone worth loving. Someone the kids can look up to. Someone you can rely on.”
Sloane let out a shaky breath, tucking her knees up and wrapping her arms around them as if she were holding herself together. “You broke me, Levi. You shattered me to pieces and I don’t know if I can be fixed.”
“I know,” I whispered, almost whimpering.
“But you're not leaving me to hold those pieces alone and… that's something."
What I said next came with such force, such intensity, it caused her to jump. "Sloane, I willneverleave your side again. Not until you tell me to go."
Her eyes met mine. They were wet, but unwavering. I knew the fragile honesty we'd shared had done more to bridge the chasm between us than any amount of groveling, gifting, or apologizing either had or could.
Her lips parted, like she wanted to say something, but nothing came. Then, with a timidness that was uncharacteristic of my wife, she reached out and brushed her fingertips across my hand. Our fingers interlocked, warm and tentative.
That was the second time she'd touched me that day. The simple feel of her delicate fingers intertwined with my own spiraled my mind to an unimaginable height, where I lost all sense of place and time. We held hands on that couch for either five minutes or five hundred years; I could not say for certain.
Sloane withdrew her hand and, for the briefest moment, my heart ceased at the loss of her touch. But then she slid her fingertips up my arm, slow and deliberate, tracing the curve of my shoulder.
I didn’t move. My breathing was shallow, my mouth dry, my pulse pounding. I feared a single word might sever this delicate thread binding us together, so silence reigned between us.
Her fingers slid from my shoulder, to my neck, and then lower. When she flattened her palm over my chest, I feared the thundering beat of my heart was enough to bruise her. I placed my hand over hers, pressing it against me to anchor her touch to my skin.
I felt like a drowning man breaking the water's surface, gasping a desperate breath of air.
She looked at me, her gorgeous eyes searching mine, unsure but willing. I leaned in to brush my lips over hers with graceful care, with tender gentleness, as if she were made of the most delicate filigree.
"Levi, wait. Please." Her voice was small, timid.
I felt her quickening pulse under my fingers, and the way she shifted away told me she wasn’t sure of where this was going. Or where it should go.
“Sloane,” I whispered, “I don’t want to do anything unless you’re sure.”
She said nothing with her lips, but her eyes were full of questioning uncertainty.
“I mean it,” I said. “No blurred lines, no pressure, no risking that you’ll change your mind halfway through. No regrets. If this is just a moment, then let it pass. If it’s comfort, I’ll be here for that and nothing more. But I refuse to take what you’re not ready to give." I hesitated, waiting for her to process, then added far more awkwardly than I'd intended, “Also, I don’t have a condom… if you wanted to use one.”
She arched a shocked brow. The corner of her mouth twitched like she wasn’t sure whether to laugh or roll her eyes. “I don’t want to use a condom. But thank you for checking?”
