Page 54 of Once Upon A Second Chance

For a long moment after, we just lay there—limbs tangled and damp with sweat as our breathing steadies. Bijou whines from behind the bedroom door. Penny laughs softly against my chest.

I brush a damp curl from her forehead, kissing the spot it leaves bare. "You okay?"

She nods without lifting her head, tracing lazy circles on my shoulder. "I really have missed you so much. I’d almost forgotten just how much."

The words are light but something catches in them—a sadness that tightens in my chest like an old bruise. I sit up slightly, cradling her face in my hands so she'll lookat me.

"I'm not going anywhere," I say quietly.

She closes her eyes for a long beat before opening them again. They're clear now—none of that stormy fear from earlier—but there's something fragile there, too.

"I believe you," she says finally.

I want to believe it—to believe she trusts me again—but there's still so much between us: years of hurt and doubt and things unsaid.

Bijou barks sharply from the other room—a tiny white exclamation point—and Penny smiles wryly as she sits up.

"Guess we should let him out before he chews through the door."

I watch as she pulls on clothes that leave me feeling half-naked: loose pajama pants; an old concert tee I've never seen before; hair twisted into a messy knot on top of her head like a crown made just for this moment—the two of us creating a future together again after so many years.

I realize this is exactlywhat I’ve been missing.

The clinic smells like it always does—antiseptic, hand sanitizer, and whatever sad attempt at coffee is burning in the break room—but today, there’s something else underneath it.

Tension.

Not the fallout-from-Rebecca tension, or the office-politics kind. This is different. Sharper.

Penny walks through the hallway like she’s waiting for something to jump out of the walls.

I see it in the way she flinches when someone laughs too loudly near the nurse’s station.

The way her eyes flick toward the windows every time the blinds rattle in the breeze.

The way she startles when I call her name—even though I say it softly.

Hypervigilance.

I’ve seen it in patients before. Combat vets, assault survivors, nurses who’ve been through too many traumas in a row without a break.

But I’ve never seen it in Penny.

Not like this.

She drops a chart at her workstation and nearly jumps out of her skin when the printer behind her coughs to life. Her laugh is brittle when she notices me watching.

“Guess I’m a little on edge.”

“You want to take a break?” I ask gently. “You could go sit in the back, take a minute.”

She shakes her head too fast. “I’m fine.”

She’s not.

But I don’t push.

Instead, I shadow her through the morning. Quietly. Casually. The way you might walk beside someone who’s afraid of the dark—not to rush them, not to fix it. Just to be there.