If Forever Comes (Take This Regret #2)(37)
Author: A.L. Jackson

I swallowed hard, curled in tighter on myself, couldn’t stand the sound of his voice landing against my ears. In my mind, I begged for him to just go. I couldn’t do this with him.

But he just stood there. I could feel his eyes burning a hole into me. Subdued footsteps began to slowly move across the room, and he came around to my side of the bed.

Cold gripped me as he approached.

This was the man I thought I was going to love for all my life.

Even under the piles of blankets, I still felt frozen from the inside out. My pulse stuttered as I searched for the breath I could never seem to find.

A too-warm hand pressed to my ice-cold cheek. I tried not to cringe, but I couldn’t stop the anxiety from seizing me, from yanking at my heart and sinking like a rock to the pit of my stomach.

I gagged when he ran his thumb under my eye, his breath spreading over my face.

“Baby, you have to get up. You’ve been in this bed for six weeks. We need you.”

I flinched and jerked my face away.

Frustration left him in a weighted huff, his voice tight. “Damn it, Elizabeth, you have to get out of this bed. We can’t do this any longer.”

“Please, just leave me alone,” I begged, turning my face the other direction.

“I’m not going to leave you alone any longer. I’ve let you lie here and lie here, and nothing is going to change until you make a change. I know you’re hurting, but you have to do something different than this.”

Until I make a change?

A fresh charge of anger needled into my senses, pricking as pain in the deepest places of my soul. “Just leave me alone.” The words were hard, hoarse as they scraped up my dry throat.

He shot off the edge of the bed, and I buried my face deeper in my pillow and pulled the blanket over my head, praying for him to leave. I just wanted to sleep. Still, I could feel him pacing, could almost see him tugging at his hair as he stormed around our room.

I jumped when he tore the blanket from my face, and I jerked around to stare up at the man who I wasn’t sure I recognized any longer. He was raging, his jaw clenched as he glared down at me as if I made him sick.

Or maybe it was the other way around.

And I felt it, something well in the air that made it harder to breathe than it already was.

“Elizabeth, baby, it’s time.”

Flashes of them ripping my little girl from my arms slammed me, Christian making me, telling me it was time.

It’s time.

It clattered around in the bowels of my brain. Memories. That day. What he forced me to do.

A roil of too many emotions boiled in my blood. Burst free.

I pushed to my hands and knees. The effort took just about all I had. My head sagged between my arms, and I struggled to lift it as I leveled my eyes on Christian.

“Just leave me alone.” All the bitterness I’d been feeling manifested on my tongue. “Just leave me alone! You have no idea what I’m going through.”

“How can you say that?” he shot back. A deep line dented his brow. “You think I don’t understand what you’re feeling?” he demanded in sheer disbelief.

Incredulous laughter shot from my mouth in a contemptuous scoff. “What do you mean, how can I say that?” I pushed from my hands, sitting all the way up on my knees. “I was the one who carried her, Christian.” I jabbed my finger to my chest. “I was the one who loved her and cared for her. She died inside of me, and I had to give birth to her.” I lifted my chin. “So yeah, I can say that…you have no idea what I’m feeling. None.”

His entire face twisted in contention. “You think she meant less to me than to you? You think my heart isn’t broken over this?”

“You wouldn’t even touch her.” It dripped from my mouth as a sneer.

He blanched, like I’d just slapped him across the face.

Maybe I wanted to. I had to admit I did. I wanted to hit him, to pound whatever feeble excuse he had out of him. To demand to know how he could reject her that way. Our baby girl. The child we’d created. All those excruciating hours I’d held and rocked her, that I’d shown her all the love I possibly could before I wouldn’t be allowed to anymore, he never even looked at her.

All that time I’d tried to love her for the both of us.

If it was possible, it’d broken me a little more.

Then he let them take her before I was ready to let her go. I begged him for one more hour. Just one more hour and he couldn’t even give me that.

His entire body shook, and he blinked as if he couldn’t believe what I’d said. “You think because I didn’t hold her, I didn’t love her?” His raised, caustic voice bounced against the walls.

Mine was low, but held all the sting. “I know you didn’t.”

Agony contorted his face.

“Just go.” This time I choked, a sob breaking free because I couldn’t understand what was coming from me, but I couldn’t stop it. I was so hurt, so hurt. “I don’t want you here.”

He dropped his head and shook it, harsh and severe, as if he were grappling to make sense of what I had said. When he raised his attention back to me, fury flamed in his eyes.

“That’s what you want?” he shouted as he flung his hand out in my direction.

Raging, he stormed to the closet and tore the door open. It slammed back against the wall. Christian fumbled around inside and threw a suitcase into the middle of the bedroom floor. It tumbled, the lid flopping open as it settled. He began ripping shirts from their hangers and throwing them inside. He stalked back out, fisting a handful of shirts out in front of him.

“Is this what you want, Elizabeth? You want me to leave? You think I don’t understand what you’re feeling? You think you’re the only one who has to go through this? You think you’re the only person who’s hurting? Then fine, do it alone.”

I was gasping, crying, because his words flew out at me in a constant assault. I couldn’t stop the slaughter, the way they took hold and destroyed the last piece of me.

He jerked the bottom dresser drawer open, pulled all his jeans out and shoved them into the suitcase. He glanced up at me as he ripped the zipper closed.

“I thought better of you than this, Elizabeth, but I was wrong. You are the most selfish person I’ve ever met.”

I felt sick, an ache I couldn’t understand gutting me. Still the words trembled from my mouth. “I hate you.” I said it through choked tears.

I’d told him it before. This was the first time he looked like he believed it.