Second Chances

Brian’s throat was sore. His mouth and tongue were dry and tasted like the floor of a barn. His eyelids were heavy and glued shut. It took close to forever to pry them open, but when he did, he was rewarded by the sight of Jennifer, fast asleep in a chair next to his bed.

From the looks of the hospital room, from the number of empty coffee cups scattered around the room, she appeared to have moved in. How long had she been here?

He tried to moisten his lips to speak, but when he opened his mouth, he made barely more than a dry-sounding rattle.

Nevertheless, Jennifer sat up, instantly alert. “Hey,” she said, her lips curving up into one of her truly fabulous smiles.

She poured some water from a pitcher into a waiting cup, and held it out for him, positioning the straw so that it reached his lips.

The water was almost as refreshing as her smile, and he sighed deeply with contentment---then realized that deep sighs, in fact, deep breaths of any kind, were no longer in his repertoire.

“Hurts, huh?” Jennifer’s eyes were dark with concern as he stifled a groan.

“Yeah,” he managed to rasp.

“You’re going to be ok.” She took his hand. “You woke up just in time to watch them move you out of the ICU.”

“Great.”

Jennifer looked down at him sadly. “Jenn’s gone, you know.”

Brian looked into Jennifer’s eyes. “Not all of her. Not the best part.”

She gave another of those slow, wonderful smiles. “We’ve been driving the police crazy, you and I.”

He laughed, and discovered that laughing was something else he shouldn’t do a great deal of for a while.

“I told them the truth,” she continued after he’d recovered slightly, “but they haven’t exactly taken the time-travel part of the story and embraced it. They remain stumped by the blood on the sheets. They’ve done DNA testing, and it’s obviously my blood, but they can’t figure where it came from….I told them about Jenn being shot, but every time I mention her, they send another shrink in to evaluate me. And the bullet they took out of you----it’s unlike anything they’ve ever seen before. But whenever I tell them it came from a gun that was made five years in the future, they get really tense.”

Brian bit his lip. “Don’t make me laugh!”

“Enough of the other guests saw Dixon’s hired gun running out of the hotel. I think the police suspect we were being held hostage by him, and that the trauma created this odd delusion we share about time travelers.”

“That’s as good an explanation as any. I don’t care what they think,” Brian told her. “I’m just glad it’s over.”

Jennifer nodded. Her eyes were soft as she touched his hair, as her thumb stroked his cheek.

“So,” he said a bit breathlessly, “you’re off to Harvard.”

Something shifted in her eyes. “I am.”

Silence. Brian broke it by clearing his throat. “I guess I’m wondering if you’re going to let me slip away again. What’s it gonna be, Jenny? Are you going to spend the next five years pining away for me the way you did the first time around?”

His words didn’t get the smile he expected. In fact, she took them dead seriously, not as the rather lame joke he’d intended.

“I think,” she said slowly, “I’m the only woman in the world who can learn from mistakes that I haven’t even made yet.” She paused, and Brian nearly drowned in the midnight darkness of her eyes. “Brian, will you marry me and live with me the rest of your life?”

Brian laughed, then grimaced in pain. Of all the things he’d suspected she’d say, that wasn’t one of them. Marry her. She wanted him to marry her. Was it possible……?

Brian searched her eyes and found what he was looking for. Yes. She loved him. It wasn’t like Jenn’s love---fueled by years of disappointment and frustration and pain. Instead it was new and fresh, like his own love for her, accompanied by wonder and delight and that ever-burning heat of desire. His eyes filled with tears. “Jenny…..”

She leaned over and kissed him gently. “I love you, Brian,” she told him, almost as an afterthought. “You have no idea how much.”

Brian smiled. “Yes, I do. And yes, I’ll marry you.”

He knew that she loved him just from looking into her eyes. But he sure did like to hear the words.

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