The Second Time Around

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: One Year Later

Selene stood in her new office.

She'd left social media. Deleted her i********: account. Let it all go.

Instead, she was working with Dr. Patel to create a couple's therapy program based on the Family Connections model.

"A Second Chance Initiative," they called it.

It was designed to help couples who were on the verge of divorce. To show them that it wasn't too late. To teach them that vulnerability was strength, not weakness.

The program was already booked eighteen months out.

"People are hungry for this," Dr. Patel said. "They're tired of performing their lives. They want permission to be real."

Selene gave them that permission.

She told her story, all of it. The death, the awakening, the choice to stay. She told couples about Alexander, about how she'd almost lost him because she was too busy looking at her phone to look at his face.

And couples came. Hundreds of couples. Thousands of couples. And they learned.

Alexander had made some changes of his own.

He'd stepped back from day-to-day operations of his company, promoting an COO to handle most of the work. He still went to the office he'd never not go to the office, but it was no longer his entire life.

He had dinner with his family. Every single night. No phones. No work. Just them.

He started coaching Ethan's school soccer team, even though he'd never played soccer in his life. He attended every one of Lily's school events. He held Selene's hand in public without feeling like he was performing for anyone.

And he'd bought a writing journal. Every night, he wrote down one reason he loved his wife. Sometimes they were profound. Sometimes they were simple: Today I saw her laugh at something Lily said, and the sun came out from behind the clouds.