Page 95 of Once Upon A Second Chance

I sit back, stunned, the magnitude of it sinking in.

It’s not just petty anymore.

It’scriminal.

Lena closes the laptop slowly, savoring the moment like a fine glass of wine. “So," she says brightly. "You want to post it, or should I?”

For a heartbeat, I don’t say anything. The righteous fury crackles under my skin like dry grass catching fire. Not the helpless, directionless anger of earlier—but something sharper. Focused. Alive.

I meet her eyes and grin, wide and dangerous.

"Let’s post this shit," I say, voice low and steady, "and watch her burn."

Lena grins back like she’s been waiting all her life to hear me say it.

She starts typing.

And for the first time in days, I feel like we’re not just surviving this.

We’re getting ahead of this now—and we will own the narrative.

The whole town is on fireby the time I get to work.

Not literally, though judging by the frantic buzz around the clinic, it wouldn’t surprise me if someone had to pull Darlene off the town Facebook group before she started swinging.

The front desk is buzzing louder than the phones. Patients who usually sit quietly flipping through old magazines are whispering behind cupped hands, glancing up from their phones with looks of gleeful disbelief.

Even the nurses are barely pretending to work. Lena walks past me with a stack of charts tucked under one arm and a sly, satisfied grin like she’s carrying live ammunition.

I catch snippets of conversation floating through the hallway as I make my way to my next appointment.

"—turns out she was running one of those 'sell this miracle tea and earn a Lexus' scams— "

"—and did you see the bankruptcy filings? Straight-up fraud— "

"—poor Dr. Hogan, can you imagine being married tothat—?"

I duck into my patient’s room, smiling brightly like the building isn’t buzzing like a kicked beehive.

Mr. Davidson, a regular of mine recovering from a torn ACL, is grinning like Christmas came early. "Heard you and Dr. Hogan took down the Queen Bee herself," he says as I help him set up on the therapy bike.

"I didn’t do anything but make coffee and mind my business," I say smoothly, ignoring the way my ears burn. "Now let’s focus on getting you back to the golf course, okay?"

We finish the session without any more gossip, but I can feel it clinging to the air around me—the electric, triumphant sense that the town isn’t just gossiping about Richard anymore.

They’re rallying behind him.

Behindus.

As Mr. Davidson leaves, I hand him a sheet illustrating a few stretches to do at home and walk him toward the door. He gives me a conspiratorial wink. “Good job protecting your man, Penny.”

I laugh under my breath and shake my head, about to turn back toward the nurse's station when a shadow falls across the hallway.

I glance up.

Richard.

He’s standing there in his scrubs, hands tucked into his pockets, watching me like he’s seeing something he never thought he’d get to have.