If Forever Comes (Take This Regret #2)(19)
Author: A.L. Jackson

“Damn it, Elizabeth,” she said as she leaned in close over the table, her voice firm. “I know I don’t. I’m not pretending that I do. But whether I understand or not doesn’t change the fact that it’s time.”

Her words slashed through me, cutting me to the core.

To my left, Mom gently touched my arm, sadness woven through her expression.

“Your sister is right, Elizabeth. I know you don’t want to hear it, but we all love you too much to stand aside and watch you fade away. I’m not willing to sit here and allow this to go on any longer without saying something.” She glanced at the bones jutting from my arms, let them wander over my protruding collarbones. “Have you looked in the mirror lately? Have you seen what you’ve allowed this to do to you?”

Allowed this to do to me?

Anger tightened the knots in my stomach.

My mom, of all people, should understand.

I shoved my chair back from the table and jumped up.

“I didn’t ask for this,” I spat at the table, my gaze discordant as it bounced between the women who sat there staring up at me in shock. “I didn’t ask for this to happen and I sure as hell didn’t ask for your opinions or your advice.” I gripped at my aching chest. “Just leave me alone,” I pleaded. “Please, all of you, just leave me alone.”

Then I turned and fled the tortured confines of the restaurant, rushing past people who dropped silverware to their plates as they gaped at me. I ran out into the warm afternoon sun. I lifted my face to it, searching for the breath that always seemed just out of reach, as if the capacity of my lungs had been cut in half, fragmented, and I could never fully take in what was needed to live.

Because I was dying.

“Elizabeth,” rushed from Natalie in blatant relief as she came running out behind me. She stood there, hesitant as she took me in. Finally, she said, “Come on. Let me take you home.”

Distraught, I nodded through my tears and followed her across the lot. She kept her hand on my elbow as she led me to the passenger door. She unlocked it and held it open for me.

We said nothing as she drove the short distance back to my house. She came to a stop at the bottom of the driveway. I could feel the intensity of her gaze burning into the side of my face while I fisted the straps of my purse in my hands, staring down at my knuckles turning white as I did everything I could not to fall apart.

“I’m so sorry, Liz.” Her voice was quiet. “Please…” She choked over her own tears. “Please don’t think we planned that, because we didn’t. Everyone is just worried about you.”

I looked over at the regret swimming though her glistening eyes. The two of us just sat there, watching the other cry, not knowing how to make sense of this mess, because neither of us wanted to be a part of it.

She cleared her throat and shook her head. “But what Sarah said, maybe it was wrong the way she did it, I don’t know. But what she said was true. It’s time,” she stressed.

Maybe the problem was I didn’t know what my life looked like on the other side of this. I’d always believed Christian was at the end, and now, I couldn’t see him anywhere. How did I move on from that? From the hopes that had been shattered?

“I don’t even remember how to breathe, Natalie,” I admitted softly, dropping my face toward my lap as I clutched my purse straps a little tighter. “How can I go on when I’ve forgotten how to live?”

Peeking up at her, I saw her chewing on her quivering lip, obviously unsure of how to poise her words. She inclined her head and asked in all seriousness, “Do you still love him?”

A suggestion of Christian ghosted across my skin, memories of my life that meant the most to me, love and joy and everything. Sadness welled up and I swallowed it down.

“I don’t know,” I whispered.

More tears trailed down her face, maybe in direct empathy to mine. Her attention traveled out the windshield where she stared at the empty street. We sat in the excruciating silence.

“Then maybe you need to remember how to live without him, Elizabeth, because you can’t continue on this way.” There was no accusation in the statement, just her own pain, her words filled with a sharp sense of surrender.

I felt them deep, because I somehow knew she meant that surrender for me, that it was time I moved on. Even if it was without Christian.

I glanced at the clock. It was only thirty minutes before I was supposed to pick my daughter up from school. Her sweet face flickered in my mind, my devotion to her unending, and I knew, most of all, my daughter needed me.

“I will try,” I promised my cousin, my friend, but inside I was reeling because who I really needed to convince was myself.

Over the console, she reached for me, wrapping me up in a fierce embrace before she pulled away and earnestly held my face, her own all splotchy and red.

“You will make it through this,” she said. “You know that, don’t you?”

I shook my head in her hold. Because I still didn’t know if I really would. “I need to go and pick up Lizzie,” I mumbled because I’d had all of this conversation that I could handle.

I’d said I would try, and that was all I could give.

She nodded once and I climbed from her car.

Chapter 8

Late May, Four Months Earlier

From behind, Christian grabbed for me. Needy hands slid over my hips to my front. He anchored both of them across my protruding stomach in the same second he buried his face in my neck.

I leaned back into him, unable to stop the small giggle that flitted from my mouth.

He squeezed me a little, the warmth of him spreading out to touch every fiber of my being. “I’m going to miss you,” he grumbled hoarsely near my ear before he burrowed through my hair to kiss my neck, sending a thrill of nerves racing through my body.

I moaned my agreement.

“Would you two knock it off!” Natalie yelled from where she tossed a bunch of bags into her trunk. She was parked on the street at the end of my driveway. “You’re worse than two teenagers who have ten minutes to make out before their parents get home.” She slammed her trunk shut. “You’ll see each other tomorrow.”

“I’m not quite ready to let her go yet,” Christian mumbled mostly to me.

Natalie propped an annoyed hand on her hip. “We have stuff we have to take care of for the wedding before her shower today.”

Christian rocked us in a slow sway, his body flattened against mine, every inch of him plastered to me.