Page 16 of Once Upon A Second Chance (Once Upon A Time…To Happily Ever After #2)

Chapter Thirteen

Richard

The quiet is worse than the noise.

Three days. No Travis. No Rebecca. No surprise visits, no slanderous social media posts, no whispered accusations in the hallway at work. Penny calls it progress.

I call it a setup.

Because silence like this isn’t peace. It’s a held breath before the scream.

I’ve been looking over my shoulder like I’m waiting for something to snap.

Penny tries to be hopeful—tells me maybe the worst is over, that maybe Rebecca’s pride got injured or she just got bored, and Travis finally crawled back into whatever grease-stained hole he slithered out of.

But she flinches when a delivery truck idles too long outside the clinic.

She still scans the parking lot before walking to her car.

We’re managing. Barely. Our shifts line up, our evenings are slow and full of bad TV and the occasional kiss that makes my hands shake.

I can feel it building—something deep in my chest that’s equal parts fury and helplessness. I want to protect her. Want to fix everything. But how do you fight something you can’t see?

That’s the thing about ghosts.

They only show up when they know you’ve let your guard down.

I’m not even inside the pharmacy when it starts.

The automatic doors open and I hear her—Rebecca—before I see her. Her voice echoes off the glossy tile floor and cheap seasonal displays.

“—I just kept it to myself all those years because I thought if I said it out loud, it would make it real—”

I stop cold.

Every instinct in my body locks down.

The place is half-full.

Two women from the PTA whisper behind the greeting card rack. An elderly man squints toward the commotion, blinking beneath fluorescent lights.

And in the middle of the chaos, standing at the prescription counter with red-rimmed eyes and smudged mascara like she’s been practicing this scene for days—

Rebecca.

“My therapist said keeping secrets like that only prolongs the trauma,” she sobs to no one in particular. “But how could I say anything when he was a doctor? Who would believe me? He was so careful about it. So charming in public...”

She doesn’t have to say my name.

Everyone’s already looking at me.

One of the pharmacists—Karen, I think—shoots me a wide-eyed glance over the counter, her hands frozen mid-scan over a bottle of Zyrtec.

The PTA moms look horrified.

Someone’s filming.

I want to speak. God, I want to say something.

But anything I say—anything—only fuels the fire. If I yell, I’m the angry ex. If I scoff, I’m dismissive. If I stay silent, it looks like guilt.

Rebecca doesn’t even glance at me.

She turns her back and leans dramatically on the counter, burying her face in her hands like the very air is too much to bear.

“I just didn’t know how to leave,” she cries, her voice cracking at all the right points. “Even now I’m scared...”

Bullshit.

You left me by text while I was in surgery and then filed court paperwork before I made it home.

You followed me across the country.

You came here.

But logic means nothing in the face of a well-placed public breakdown. People don’t care about facts. They care about the story. The drama. The possibility.

And I’ve already got one strike against me from that malpractice suit.

I turn on my heel and walk out.

Because if I stay another second, I’ll give them exactly what they want.

I don’t go home right away. I drive.

Out past the edges of Mount Juliet. Past the lake. Past the turnoffs that lead to farms and tree lines and all the quiet places Penny likes when the world feels loud.

Eventually I pull over in a gravel lot behind an abandoned diner and sit in the truck with my head against the steering wheel.

I’ve been a lot of things in my life.

Arrogant. Ambitious. Cold. Stupid.

But never abusive.

And the idea that people might actually believe I was—that they might look at Penny and wonder what kind of man she’s with—it makes my hands shake harder than any surgery ever has.

Rebecca’s never going to stop.

She doesn’t want me back.

She wants me ruined.

And the worst part?

It might be working.

I don’t knock.

I almost do, standing on Penny’s porch like some kid with a confession and no good words to wrap it in. But then the porch light flickers on before I raise a hand, and the door swings open like she was already waiting.

She takes one look at me—hair a mess, shirt wrinkled, tension wound so tight across my shoulders it probably shows in my walk—and steps aside.

“You heard,” I say.

She closes the door gently behind me. “It’s a small town.”

“I didn’t say anything. I just walked out.”

“I know.”

“And I didn’t—” My throat tightens. “I would never—”

“I know, Richard.”

I finally look at her.

She’s not afraid.

Not uncertain.

Not asking for explanations I don’t know how to give.

She just opens her arms, and I go to her like I always have—like I always will.

“I never believed her,” she murmurs against my shoulder. “Not for a second.”

I exhale for the first time since the pharmacy.

“Come on,” she says, taking my hand and guiding me into the kitchen. “You need something warm. And I need to make use of the fact that I found my mom’s hot chocolate recipe in the back of my junk drawer this morning.”

“You sure it wasn’t just a packet of Swiss Miss?”

She throws me a look over her shoulder. “Excuse you. This is real, from-scratch, emotional-support-level hot chocolate. There’s cinnamon and everything. Surely you remember.”

The kitchen smells like cocoa and a little like her perfume, and suddenly the weight in my chest doesn’t feel so sharp.

She hums as she works, pulling out a saucepan, heating milk. She doesn’t ask about the pharmacy again. Doesn’t push.

Just makes the drink with quiet care, as if this is what she’s done all along—found ways to soothe wounds too deep to bandage.

When she hands me the mug, I take a sip and nearly groan. “Holy hell. This tastes like childhood and forgiveness.”

She smirks. “Told you. It’s the cinnamon.”

We settle on the couch, mugs in hand, Bijou curled up at Penny’s feet like a glorified foot warmer.

After a few minutes, she says, “Do you remember sophomore year? When you tried to impress that pre-med advisor and pulled four all-nighters in a row?”

I groan. “Don’t remind me.”

“You fell asleep in a seminar. On me. And then drooled on my shoulder.”

“That was strategic. A bonding tactic.”

“You were snoring like a dying lawnmower.”

“I was charmingly exhausted.”

She laughs, soft and easy. “You were trying so hard to be perfect back then.”

I shrug. “I didn’t know any other way.”

She grows quiet, and I can feel the shift. The way the memories settle differently now, with age and loss between them.

“I know you probably didn’t hear,” she says. “But my mom died three years ago.”

I blink. “What?”

She nods slowly. “Ovarian cancer. She didn’t catch it early. By the time she did, it had metastasized and moved quickly.”

“Penny…”

“I was with her at the end. It was peaceful. But... yeah.”

I set my mug down and reach for her hand, my thumb brushing over her knuckles. “I wish I’d known.”

She gives me a small smile. “I figured you'd find out eventually. But tonight seemed like a good night for ghosts.”

My chest tightens. “I’m sorry. She was good to me. She made the best grilled cheese on the planet.”

“Because she used half a stick of butter per sandwich.”

“Well, it worked.”

There’s a silence, but it’s not awkward. It’s full.

“Remember my mom got cancer when we were in college? Right before winter break. You were the only one who didn’t say something useless.”

She blinks. “I don’t even remember what I said.”

“You didn’t say anything. You just sat on the stairs with me at that stupid campus chapel and let me be mad about it.”

Her hand tightens in mine.

“She got through it, though. After a really tough year of treatments, she finally turned the corner and came out on top of it. I had hoped it might change her; soften her. But it didn’t.

Sometimes I think it made her even more bitter and judgmental, if that’s even possible.

” I say after a moment. “They still live in New York. We talk sometimes, but… it’s different now.

Especially since I left and came back here.

I doubt they’ll forgive me for leaving their ‘high society’ life style.

And Rebecca, of course. They thought she was just perfect for me. ”

She nods. “It’s always harder to connect with our parents after they think we’ve disappointed them; or made bad decisions for ourselves.”

I look at her then—really look—and I realize how far we’ve come from who we used to be.

And how much of us still remembers.

I brush a thumb across her cheek. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For still being here.”

She leans into me, her forehead resting lightly against mine. “Always.”

We sit like that until the cocoa’s cold, and the world feels a little softer around the edges again.