Lost to You (Take This Regret 0.5)(22)
Author: A.L. Jackson

“Then what did you mean?” It was an accusation.

I searched for an explanation, how to describe what I felt. I couldn’t find the words because I didn’t know myself.

A wounded cry worked its way free from Elizabeth, and she squeezed her eyes shut and turned her face down and to the side, hugging herself tighter.

My chest constricted with the need to comfort her, to take her in my arms and just hug her, and tell her we’d work it out, but touching her was what had caused all of this to begin with.

“Elizabeth…I—” I didn’t know exactly what to say. Wasn’t it obvious? I was dying to have her. Didn’t she get that? I always had.

But when she looked back up, I understood it all.

The world dropped from beneath me, and I stumbled back the last few steps until my back was plastered against her door.

My best friend.

Elizabeth’s chin quivered, and one side of her mouth was drawn in as if she were chewing on the inside of her lip. But her eyes…it was there.

What had I done?

I met her gaze, searching for a mistake, for some way to take it all back to the place where it was just me and Elizabeth, where we were friends and we laughed and we dealt with all the rest of this shit on the inside.

But I’d crossed the line, and Elizabeth could no longer hold it back.

“Christian,” she pled, chancing a tortured step forward. “Tell me what that was.”

I shook my head and swallowed, wishing for an easy escape. I had no idea how to handle this. Because Elizabeth wanted a promise, and I couldn’t give her that. “I don’t know…I’m sorry, Elizabeth, but I don’t know.”

She slowly shook her head. “I’m not sure I can do this anymore.”

“Don’t let this mess up our friendship… I can’t lose that, Elizabeth.”

Disbelief drew her brows together, wove with the sadness in her eyes.

“You don’t want to mess up our friendship?” She shook her head. “Just go, Christian.”

“Elizabeth…”

“Please. It’s really late.” Deliberating, she twisted her fingers together. “I think I need some time.”

Swallowing, I stepped away from the door so I could pull it open. I hesitated, but could find nothing to say that would make this any better. All I could think was how much I hated myself for ruining the one truly good thing I had in my life.

With my back to her, I paused, whispered, “I really am sorry, Elizabeth,” before I walked out and quietly clicked it shut behind me.

Chapter Seven

Elizabeth

The sharp click of the door behind me nearly brought me to my knees. I clutched my stomach, struggling to hold in the pain. But it was too intense.

“Oh, God,” I whimpered, holding my palm over my mouth. But I couldn’t stop the sob from breaking free. It came as an offensive echo around the room.

I wanted to stop it, but it was too late. The damage was already done.

I’d stumbled. Fallen.

Considering how I felt, I should have known better than to let Christian through my door. At the party, I’d been hit with the magnitude of how deep my affections ran. Wrapped up in how bad that realization stung, it’d left me vulnerable. The knock on my door had jarred my hopes, flamed the fear, and stoked my need.

I’d hesitated, quieted my breaths, self-preservation kicking in. I silently willed him to walk away while my heart begged him to stay.

My rational side had little chance. The second knock beckoned me forward, and I peered through the peephole at the man who held me in the palm of his hand. Fingers shaking, I unlocked the door. Insecurity slowed my movements as I cracked the door to stare out at Christian.

Lines of anger twisted his face, and I’d stopped short, confused and sad and relieved. It left me unable to comprehend the conflict he incited in me.

He pushed through, and the room filled with his presence, the air so heavy that I should have seen it as a warning and not as the comfort that came plundering through my senses.

When his warm lips had caressed my neck, it’d almost been too much, and I’d been seconds from surrendering. A panicked voice inside me cried out to stop, to defend my heart, because I was already in far too deep, and I managed to rip myself from the grip I was falling victim to.

I spun around with an accusation perched on my lips and stopped dead. And I knew there was no surfacing from the flood that was Christian, because he was looking at me as if he felt the same.

Now my body shook and tingled with his residual. Desire coursed and mingled with misery.

And I would have given myself to him, offered what I guarded and protected, because to me, it was never a game. It was devotion—an act of adoration—something I’d been so foolish to waste before.

It wouldn’t have been wasted on Christian. Yet it still would have destroyed me.

I shook my head as I made my way back to the stove, my movements jerky as I flipped off the burner. I shoved the burning pot back to an empty burner, feeling so angry. So angry.

His words slashed me straight to the core, crushed and cut. They were all the confirmation I needed to know how easily he could devastate me.

Low, mocking laughter tumbled from my mouth.

He already had…because I’d let him.

And I had no idea what I was supposed to do now.

~

Sleep came in sporadic bouts. I tossed through the daze that tormented the night. Never had I felt so alone. New York had once been my fairy tale. Now it felt like a place to escape. Lazy light seeped through the small window, and I rolled to my stomach, trying to press the memories of the night before from my mind.

I didn’t want to remember.

I didn’t want to feel.

I’d been ignoring my phone all morning. It’d rung at least five times. When it rang again, I gave up and stretched out to retrieve it from the floor. It wasn’t the number I was expecting, not another apology I knew was sincere, but could do nothing to make up for the fact that Christian didn’t feel what I wanted him to.

No. Instead, it was my older sister.

Still lying in bed, I accepted the call. I tried to clear the roughness from my voice. “Hey, Sarah.”

“Are you okay?” she immediately asked.

Apparently, I hadn’t done a very good job.

“Yeah, I just woke up.”

“Oh…sorry for waking you…but…” Excitement bled through her concern for me. I pictured her bouncing as she stood next to the phone in the small kitchen of the home she’d purchased with her new husband just the year before. “I have some really good news.”