Lost to You (Take This Regret 0.5)(24)
Author: A.L. Jackson

I sighed and rolled to my back, staring at the ceiling. I’d calmed, the fog in my mind cleared. Talking with my sister, getting it out, had worked as some kind of soothing balm. “I’m not even mad at him. I’m just mad at myself. It’s my fault for trying to make him into something he’s not.”

The hardest part was, I saw the kind of man who could love me buried inside him, waiting to be discovered, and for a fleeting moment, I’d seen it staring back at me.

I sensed her shaking her head. “You’re kind of amazing, Liz.” Her words were filled with sincerity and comfort. “Most girls would be putting all the blame on the guy.”

“Thanks for listening, Sarah. I’m sorry I made this about me. I really am happy for you and Greg. I can’t wait to be an aunt.”

“Hey, I’m here for you whenever you need me. I know it has to be hard for you over there by yourself. And it’s Thanksgiving next week. It sucks you’re going to miss it. You’re still coming home for Christmas, aren’t you?”

I couldn’t afford to make the trip back twice, and there was no way I’d miss Christmas. “Yeah, I’m coming home.”

“Okay, good. Hang in there, Liz. It’ll all work out the way it’s supposed to.”

I had to believe that. “Thanks, Sarah.”

“Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

I felt a little better when I ended the call with my sister. Settled. Resolved. It was easy to admit it now, what I’d been feeling the last couple of months. The way my stomach would twist when I looked at Christian, the way it hurt when he was away, and how much I couldn’t wait until I saw him again. It was patent in the devastation I’d felt seeing him with another girl last night at the party. Palpable in the way I’d succumbed to his touch when he kissed me.

I was in love with Christian. Completely.

There was nothing I could do about it, no way to take it back. It was there, strong, interwoven and beating with my heart.

I had to end this. The only thing I could do was guard the last part of myself I had, because it would be so easy for me to give it to him now. Last night, I’d come so close. I would have laid everything else aside while I let him consume me, let him take it all.

He’d use me. Destroy me. Not because he wanted to, but just because that’s who he was.

Flopping onto my stomach, I buried my face in my pillow as if it could block out the depression this realization caused. Last night had cost me my best friend. But I had to be wise enough to know he wasn’t just my friend. He never had been. This had always been there, lying in wait, an ambush set to take us over. Being around him was no longer an option.

My heart broke for myself because I’d fallen for someone like him, broke for Christian because I knew there was a huge part of him who was truly kind.

The part of him who really needed a friend.

But I couldn’t be her anymore.

Chapter Eight

Christian

I lay alone in my bed while morning threatened at my window. Four days had passed since I talked to her. Each one seemed to add a new element to the sadness that had taken me over. I was miserable. There was no other way to describe it. Empty, vacant, that void I’d tried to fill with Elizabeth’s body now a hollow pang. It was as if Elizabeth had punched me deep in the recesses of my chest, her hands as frantic as mine had been as she searched and struggled. Ultimately, when she found nothing that I could give except disappointment, she ripped her life from me and left this gaping hole. And I was the one who’d challenged her to do it.

I tugged my pillow over my face as if it could block out everything I didn’t want to see.

“Fuck,” I groaned. I tore it from my face and tossed it to the floor. There was nothing that could cover it up or blot it out.

In the cloudy dimness of the room, I sat up and rubbed the pain pressing at my bare chest.

I knew this would happen. I’d take the one pure thing in my life and crush it.

The expression Elizabeth had bore Friday night flooded my mind.

In a futile defense, I squeezed my eyes closed against the memory, but there was nothing I could do to elude it. The image was like a parasite that had glommed on, dug in, feasting on the ignorance of its host.

It was slowly killing me.

It didn’t take long for me to realize something inside me had shattered when I shattered her.

Fear wasn’t an emotion I knew well, but I’d never felt it stronger than in that moment when Elizabeth had backed me into a corner with that expression on her face. Floundering, my body sought retreat as she silently begged, and I was hit with a fear that had nailed me to her door—fear that she had the capacity to look at me that way, fear that I wanted to touch her so badly, fear that she’d never let me again, fear screaming at me to run.

I’d given into the last.

I opened the door and shut her out because I didn’t have the strength to handle what was happening between us. I was eighteen. I didn’t want this. Wasn’t ready for it.

But now… I raised my face and released a remorseful breath into the stuffy apartment air.

I missed her.

Nothing else seemed to matter but that single truth.

She held so much control over me, and I never even realized it. I mean, yeah, she was my best friend, but losing her shouldn’t have hurt this much.

Saturday morning I left a bunch of messages, trying to make amends, hoping to convince her we could somehow go back to the way we’d been, but each time I was forced to listen to the sweetness of her voice through her recorded message.

That afternoon, she’d finally called me back. Relief tore through me like a welcomed tempest when my phone had lit up with her number, until her tone seeped through the line, despondent and withdrawn.

“I can’t see you anymore, Christian,” she’d said through a barely audible whisper. I opened my mouth to argue, to convince her that night was just a mistake, and to find some way to take it back.

Her voice had cracked, and she cut me off with a quiet, “Please. I need you to do this for me.”

Yeah, I was a fool, but I wasn’t stupid. Even if I tried to convince her otherwise, we both knew that night wasn’t a simple misstep. We weren’t just two friends messing around, hands and tongue and skin that never should have been. Because I’d never felt anything close to what I felt when I kissed her.

She’d hung up the phone without a parting word.

Out of respect, I left her alone. Because I did care about her, even if I was too much a coward to tell her.