His Second Chance, My Final Goodbye

After being left at the altar by his idealized first love three times, Spencer Sterling finally ended up in bed with me.

We married because I was pregnant, and he doted on me through every day of it.

Until the eighth month, when his mind wandered behind the wheel and the car plowed up over the median.

I lost the baby, and they amputated both my legs just to keep me alive.

At my bedside, he looked at me with cold eyes.

"It turns out Selma Cobb had pre-wedding anxiety. The doctor said all she needed was to push through it one more time and she'd have beaten it."

"If you hadn't crawled into my bed, she wouldn't be dead."

He had decided I was the one who'd taken advantage of him in a weak moment.

I was thrown out of the house, and I died under an overpass, dragging what was left of my broken body.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back in the moment he'd been jilted and lifted me onto the bed.

I caught his mouth before it reached mine. "Sorry. There's someone I like."

…

He acted as if he hadn't heard a word, and didn't stop.

Hard muscle pressed down across my legs, and the agony of the crash from my past life slammed into me all at once.

"Don't touch me!" I shoved him off with everything I had.

Spencer wasn't braced for it and stumbled back a few steps.

He froze for a beat, then let out a low laugh.

"What are you so nervous about? You don't actually think I'm into you, do you?"

He bent down, unhurried, and picked his shirt up off the floor, doing up the buttons while he looked me over.

"We're both adults. Had too much to drink, things got out of hand. That's all."

"Relax. It's only ever been Selma for me. I came to you because I think of you as a buddy."

I was dragging in air, cold sweat beading on my forehead.

Spencer didn't notice. He gave a sly little smile.

"Still, good thing you pushed me off."

"Even with Selma running out on the wedding, I shouldn't do anything to wrong her."

In my past life, the crash had cost me my legs and left me with severe trauma on top of it.

Now my hands wouldn't stop shaking.

"So sleeping with me was just about getting your urges out of your system? And that doesn't wrong me at all?"

He hesitated, then that same flippant look came back over his face.

"We've known each other more than ten years. You think I don't know you?"

"You're tough. Thick-skinned. What is there to be scared of?"

My breath caught.

That year in high school, he said I was out of shape and needed to train, and dragged me onto the basketball team.

To keep from spoiling it for him, I forced my way past the asthma I'd had for years.

And now that was his excuse to use me however he liked whenever he needed to let off steam.

"Then what about Selma?"

I pressed him, wanting an answer to everything I'd swallowed in my past life.

The smile dropped off his face, and he turned deadly serious.

"Don't put yourself in the same sentence as Selma. She isn't that kind of cheap girl."

I gave a bitter laugh. In the end, this conversation had handed me the one answer I least wanted to hear.

"Spencer Sterling, you make me sick."

I pushed through the door and dialed Selma's number.

"Your fiancé's at the hotel. Come get him, before you go accusing me of taking advantage of him."

I made my unsteady way back to the apartment Spencer and I had shared for five years.

The throw pillow on the couch was the one he'd shoved at me while he stayed up helping me finish my thesis.

"Don't push yourself if you're worn out. Even if you don't graduate, I can find you a spot at the company."

"And if anyone gives you grief, show them this pillow. Tell them you're mine."

I couldn't catch the rest of what he said back then. I only knew the pillow had cartoon versions of the two of us printed on it.

The two little figures looked like a couple, a heart-shaped bubble floating between them.

I thought following him to New York for college would mean we'd finally end up together.

But before either of us could say the words out loud, he met Selma.

After that, my love for him was something I could never say, and could never bring myself to walk away from.

I packed everything up in one go and called the landlord to break the lease. On the other end of the line, he hesitated before speaking.