Page 30 of No Second Chances

And in the early light of the morning, I snuck out to breathe. And to get coffee. But they’d been recalled. Deploying for the first time. Only after I made Linc swear to bring my brother home did I go back into my room to see the dog tag.

Linc, leaving a piece of himself for me, gave me everything I ever needed or wanted. I wrote him, giving him the only thing I could, but it had to be right. Letter after letter, I wrote my feelings down until I got it perfect. Some were long enough to be books, and I threw them away. Others were too short or not the one. And then one day when I least expected it, the words came, and I finally had everything I wanted to say, exactly the way it needed to be said. I sent him the ring my grandmother gave me before she died, and I made him a promise I’d keep for the rest of my life.

Dear Linc,

I’ll wait for you. That’s my promise. When you come home and you’re ready, we’ll build that life. The one you talked about when you thought I was sleeping.

It’ll only ever be you.

Kennedy

I wore his dog tag around my neck every day, clenching it in my hand until I knew every rise and indent in the metal that spelled out every detail of Linc’s life. I knew the stamp of metal spelling his name, his birthdate, even his blood type. Every flaw and scratch in the surface and every groove from where it had been polished down. I clutched it while I prayed every single day for his safety, and I cried while holding it against my heart after the explosion that killed Danny. The one that ultimately tore Linc out of my life.

Linc’s dog tag never left my neck. I wore it the day I sat in the back pew during Danny’s funeral, waiting for him to come to me. I wore it when I knocked on his parents’ door and got told he wouldn’t see me. I kept it on even after Linc refused to talk to me for years. What started as a way to stay close to him became something more.

The piece of metal that always hung around my neck became the lifeline that reminded me of everything I’d struggled for in my life. The silent promise of a future that I never got to have. The future I’d give anything to get back. And even as I tried to move on, eventually dating Royal, then agreeing to marry him, I never took Linc’s dog tag off my neck.

Until the day Royal ripped it from my body and beat me with the metal chain I’d been so proud of. He hit me over and over again until he destroyed every piece of my confidence. I’d never forget the chain cutting into my skin like I was his property and not the woman he claimed to love.

He used it like a whip, not caring that it sliced into my skin, flinging blood onto the walls. Then, while he was gasping for air and the hits became erratic, the dog tag dropped from the chain in the silence, plopping into a pool of my blood. Shining, like a silver medallion in the sea of my torment, it became the only thing I could see. The only reason I kept pulling gasps of broken air deep into my lungs, struggling to breathe at all.

Linc’s smile, the way he held me in his arms after I told him he didn’t have to stay. The memory of the man I loved more than anything before or after him, kept me alive on the worst night of my life.

Like a bomb going off, Royal dropped the chain and fell to his knees, begging and pleading for me to be okay. But I was gone. Too far gone to answer him. To give him anything anymore. Through the pain, my eyes never left that dog tag. The promise of a future, the hope that we’d have a family together, it’s the only thing that kept me alive.

And when I could move, I ran. I should have gone to my parents or my brother, but I didn’t. Instead, I went to the hospital in another county, to be seen by doctors who didn’t grow up with my family, and I reported my incident as a mugging by someone I never saw. Then Parker picked me up from the hospital, insisting I stay with her after what happened with Nox, and I never went back to Royal.

Idly, I reach for the delicate silver chain that now holds Linc’s dog tag, and I hold it in my hand while I keep my eyes on the window and count the minutes ticking by.

Finally, I pick up the machete that sits at my feet and get ready for the drive to Linc’s house. I think about walking, but I don’t want to show up covered in sweat and out of breath like I know will happen if I walk. No doubt I’ll hear something that will frighten me, and I’ll end up running from my fuckin’ shadow the entire way.

Yes, I know I look ridiculous in a pair of rainbow sloth pajamas, with my feet buried in a pair of bright-purple Muck boots and a foot-long machete in my hand. But I also know there won’t be a chance in hell of Linc turning me away. So I slide my phone into my bra strap and I walk out of my house with a merciless smile on my face. Locking my door is the last thing I do before getting into my car and pulling out of my driveway.

I don’t care that the clock on my dash says that it is after one in the morning. I also don’t care that there is a possibility that Linc is asleep. He’ll wake up, one way or another.

I should be nervous. There should be butterflies in my stomach or anxiety filling my veins. But I’m going to Linc, and everything in my world finally feels right.

Metal screeches and my car flies across the road, my head snapping against the glass in the next instant.

I don’t even remember seeing lights headed in my direction, but the unmistakable snap of the airbag deploying and slapping me in the face says that I hit something.

My car finally comes to a shuddering stop, landing against a tree off the side of the road, and I groan as I try to move and can’t.

“What the fuck?” My eyes throb, which is weird. How can my eyes be throbbing?

When I shift in my seat, trying to unlatch my seat belt, I cry out at the blazing agony that crawls from my ear down to my fingertips on the left side of my body.

“Hello?” a young voice calls from the other side of the car. “A-are you okay? My boyfriend is calling 9-1-1 right now. He didn’t even see you.”

I may not be able to see her, but I can hear the fear and tears in her words while I try to reassure her. The only thing that comes out is a gurgle of pain, and I realize after the fact that I must have blood or something leaking down my face.

“Henley!” the girl screams at the top of her lungs. “There’s something wrong with her. You gotta help her.”

I move my hand, trying to reassure her, but I barely twitch a muscle. And even that tiny little movement causes an excruciating shard of pain to shoot through my body and into my chest.

I keep my eyes open. Help is coming. Birch isn’t huge. I can already hear sirens in the distance. Either that, or the pain is causing me to hallucinate.

“I’m here,” an all-too-familiar voice says from my side. “I’m here, Kennedy, and I need you to hold on.”

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