Page 96 of One More Chance
I hate you for that.
Yet I still love you.
That’s the part I can’t wrap my head around. That love and rage can live together in my chest like warring beasts, both tearing me open. You’re the father of my children. You make Violet laugh until she snorts. You make Liam feel safe enough to talk. You know how I take my coffee and that I can’t fall asleep without the fan on. You’re my person, even when you failed me in the worst way.
And yet, I don’t know if I can ever fully let my guard down with you again.
When you say you want to rebuild, I believe you want to try. I do. I’ve seen the changes. The presence. The effort. And it scares me how badly I want to believe this version of you is the one I get to keep. But I’m afraid. Afraid that if I let myself love you again completely, I’ll be opening a door to another fall I won’t recover from.
You’ve made it clear that my comfort, my peace, my safety? They matter to you. Whether it was setting up the GPS tracker on your phone, giving me full access to your emails, or doing whatever I felt was necessary to rebuild the trust you shattered, you did it and I want to thank you because I see the effort. I see the remorse. I seeyou.
So I’m here. Writing this. This means something, doesn’t it?
I’m not writing to forgive you. Not yet. But I’m writing because I need you to understand the storm you dropped me into. I need you to hold it without trying to fix it or justify it or minimize it. Just… hold it with me.
Because despite it all, I want to see if there’s still something left in the ashes worth growing.
– Sloane
Chapter 33
Society was unraveling by this point, chaos flourishing in a world of climate emergencies, global pandemics and government-imposed lockdowns. It wasn’t healing, it was rotting like meat left out in the sun. The virus moved through every street, every town, every cracked corner of humanity. The elderly died first, many alone and forgotten. Nurses zipped them into body bags in silence while politicians spat blame across podiums, their words as hollow as the churches now locked and echoing. No one took accountability. Everyone bled.
But inside our walls, there was a fragile illusion of control that I’d carved out with scraped knuckles and obsession. Grocery trips had become surgical missions. I’d strip at the door, bleach containers, scrub fruit like I could scour death off the skin.
Sloane’s work had shifted to curbside handoffs. No one entered the clinic unless they were family and even then it was kept limited, though not managed well. People wept in their cars as their pets slipped away without them.
And the kids, those amazing fucking kids, they adjusted like children always do. School through screens. Laughter through static.
We were surviving until the call.
It came from an unknown number. I was sitting behind Violet during her virtual class, half-listening as her teacher enthusiastically outlined next semester’s options. Apparently private schools were their own strange ecosystems, full of jargon, expectations, and things like "block scheduling," which sounded more like a prison term than a fourth-grade curriculum. I nodded politely, pretending to follow, while my mind wandered toward what I would cook for dinner.
Then the phone buzzed again and again. Its vibrations against my leg grew insistent, no longer just a mild inconvenience but a pulse of dread. I fished it out, silencing it once more with a thumb swipe, but it buzzed again almost immediately. Relentless.
My chest tightened. That low, dull certainty started to settle in my gut and I knew that something was wrong. Deeply wrong.
When Sloane’s name lit up, I was already standing, picking up the call expecting to hear her. “Sloane what’s wrong?” Shock hit me when it wasn’t her voice that answered.
Charlie said, “You finally picked up.” He was breathless, as if he'd been in a marathon.
My pulse stuttered. “Charlie? What’s going on?”
His voice cracked. “Sloane. She was attacked. Paramedics are with her now. We are on the way to the hospital.”
The air left my lungs.
“She might lose the baby,” he added, barely audible.
A noise tore out of my chest, something between a growl and a scream as I shoved through the hallway toward the kitchen. “What thefuckhappened?”
“Angie,” he said, and the name landed like a curse. “She showed up at the clinic. She told the front desk she had an appointment and was insistent she wait in the lobby. When Sloane came around the corner, Angie went straight for her. No hesitation…”
“I swear to fucking God- ” I stopped myself, turned sharply as Liam appeared, alarmed. “Watch your sister. Don’t ask questions. I have to go.”
He nodded, eyes wide. My son. Always steady. I hated the fear I planted in him now.
Climbing in my truck, I barked into the phone. “Which hospital?”
