If Forever Comes (Take This Regret #2)(38)
Author: A.L. Jackson

It was the first time I thought maybe I meant it.

He leveled his gaze on me as he hefted the suitcase up by the handle. “Yeah, that’s pretty obvious.”

He started across the floor. Pausing in the doorway, he looked at me from over his shoulder. His throat bobbed heavily as he swallowed.

“Think whatever you want, Elizabeth, but I loved her. I loved her with all my life.”

I watched him go, and I didn’t try to stop him.

Instead, I wept, clutching my blanket to my face as I crumbled. My ears stung as I listened to him talking, his voice giving instructions to Lizzie. I couldn’t make them out. They were muffled as I buried myself deeper in the refuge of the bed. I begged for the darkness that sleep would bring.

All I wanted was to go there.

All I wanted was to escape.

Present Day

I desperately sucked at the stifled air. It hurt as it expanded in my lungs. Everything still hurt so badly. I missed her. That hollow void ached for her, and I knew it always would. I pressed the blanket to my face. Confused tears fell when I realized I found some kind of comfort in it. It was small, but just like the urge to fill the void had flickered this morning, it was there.

I rubbed the satiny edge of the blanket against my cheek, the one that Claire had once held Christian in. Memories of him ignited in every one of my senses.

Affection sparked. I pushed it down, stamped it out. Forgiving him, moving on from this, seemed impossible.

It just hurt too much.

That day, Christian had gone, and he’d taken Lizzie with him. At the time, I’d been relieved, relieved that my little girl had been led out my door because I didn’t have the strength to be the parent she needed me to be. Afterward, I’d slept for three straight days. I had never fully awakened until I’d been roused by Matthew sitting on the side of my bed, running his hand through my matted hair as he coaxed me from sleep. He said Christian had asked him to come check on me.

Christian had facilitated it then, Lizzie coming over to spend time with me. Through Matthew, he’d said Lizzie needed to see me. It was like I was being granted visitation, because I wasn’t competent to take care of my own daughter. Knowing Lizzie would be coming home had been the only thing that had finally forced me out of bed.

We slowly slipped into a routine. Lizzie would be at my house for a couple of days and then she’d spend a couple at Christian’s, though when school had started again, she began spending more time at my place. Still, Christian had insisted he come and pick her up each morning for school.

For my daughter, I’d done my best to be up as much as I could when she was here, though half the time, I felt only partially conscious. The rest of the time, I slept away.

Guilt throbbed within me. For all these months, I’d felt a sense of relief while Lizzie was gone, relieved because I could just succumb.

I realized this morning, in the vacant emptiness of my room, that I was no longer relieved.

I missed her, and she needed me.

I will try.

Lifting my face to the ceiling, where the single bulb glared, I inhaled deeply as tears continued to stream from my eyes.

And for the first time in weeks, I wanted something other than to sleep.

I wanted to breathe.

Chapter 15

Present Day, Early October

On Friday morning, I pulled into Elizabeth’s driveway to pick Lizzie up for school and put the car in park. Still gripping the steering wheel, I stared at nothing through the windshield. Agitation curled through my consciousness. My leg bounced. God, I was about to lose it.

After what Lizzie had revealed to me Monday night, a sense of desperation had taken over. I’d been backed against a wall. Pinned as I watched the clock spin away. I was running out of time. I knew it. Felt it. If I didn’t do something, I was really going to lose Elizabeth. The woman I would love for all my life. The woman who belonged to me, even if she no longer knew how to give herself to me.

Tuesday night, after I knew Lizzie would be in bed, I came here. I paced outside Elizabeth’s door like some kind of obsessed stalker. But I was obsessed, obsessed with taking back my family. I couldn’t let them slip away. That realization had given me the nerve to ring the doorbell. I knew she was standing on the other side of the door. I knew she was there, willing me to leave. And I just stood there. Waiting. Waiting for her. The way I’d been waiting for her all these months.

The longest time passed before the door had finally swung open. Her attention had been trained on the ground, her hair falling all around her as she’d hidden her face from me.

I’d stooped down and peered up at her, trying to capture her gaze, to finally make her see. I needed her to look, to remember.

I’d whispered her name. Elizabeth. In her name was everything I felt, the devotion to her that would forever consume my life, the wounds that still ached, and the striking need to feel her touch that would never leave me.

In it was all of my love.

God, how much did I love the broken woman who’d stood in front of me?

For one second, she’d given in and had met my gaze with a shakiness that wouldn’t seem to let her go.

Wide, intense eyes stared at me from across her threshold. It was the shortest blip of time, but in it, we’d been frozen, as if the lives we were supposed to be living played in fast forward between us. Or maybe it was on rewind.

Just as soon as she opened her eyes to me, they’d slammed closed, shut it off, blocked me out. She flinched back, as if looking at me caused her physical pain.

Who knew one expression could cut me so deep?

Still, I’d pressed on, pushed her. “We need to talk,” I’d said, stretching out a hand that so desperately wanted to touch her. But I’d held it back, knew I could only ask her for so much.

“I can’t.” Her voice was laced in agony. Apparently even that was asking her for too much.

But those two words had lacked all the venom that had filled the last real interaction we’d had, even if the result of them had still been brutal. Elizabeth, once again, shut down my efforts.

Every spoken word since I first left her house had been uttered with zero emotion, just plans made between us for our daughter. Nothing more.

This had been more.

“Please,” I’d said with my heart feeling as if the life was being squeezed out of it. “I can’t let us go, Elizabeth. Talk to me. Tell me.”

She’d shaken her head, whispered, “I’m so sorry.” Tears clogged the words, and she stumbled over a pained, “I can’t.” Then she stepped back and closed her door.