Take This Regret (Take This Regret #1)(68)
Author: A.L. Jackson

I closed my eyes. No, Christian did this, I thought, unconsciously clenching a fist as I tried to stand up under the guilt eating me from the inside out.

“What?” Matthew stepped forward and put his hands on my shoulders. He shook me lightly, forcing me to look at him. “What are you talking about, Elizabeth?”

“He’s gone,” I said again, felt myself sway. Matthew caught my waist, held me up, and helped me inside.

I sat silently on their couch all evening, huddled under a blanket. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t explain. Matthew left the house in a whirlwind of indignation and returned two hours later, weary. He took his bal cap from his head and ran his hand over his face and through his short hair as he looked down upon me in both compassion and disappointment.

I turned away, knew where he’d been.

Natalie took his hand and led him down the hal . From their bedroom came hushed voices as they whispered my secrets. I hid my head under the blanket and covered my ears like a four-year-old child. I didn’t want to hear, to know what he’d said, the excuses he’d made, to listen to the part that I knew was my fault.

Stil Lizzie wouldn’t speak, wouldn’t eat. She sat at the opposite end of the couch, clinging to the neck of her dol , and cried in her sleep.

They say cowards run in the face of danger or pain.

I supposed that’s what I was, what I’d become, too fearful to love, too fearful to be loved, too afraid to live—so I ran.

The week passed in a blur of darkness worse than I had ever known. I’d tried to go back to work on Tuesday.

Anita had sent me home. She said to come back when I’d resolved whatever it was I was dealing with.

I spent long days at the beach lost in guilt, anger, and remorse, and I spent the even longer nights torturing myself with his messages. Like a masochist, I pressed his broken voice to my ear and listened to him again and again.

Sometimes he begged me to call him and said he didn’t understand what he had done, but he was sorry for whatever it was. He told me too many times that he loved me.

As time went on, the messages became fil ed with anger and accusations, demanding to know how I could do this to him, do this to our daughter. He implored with me that if I wouldn’t all ow him to speak to Lizzie then to at least have the decency to tel her how much he loved and missed her, that he was thinking of her every second of every day.

Other messages were fil ed with silence, though the pain of his presence was thick enough to speak for him.

Each day, I stood aside and watched my little girl suffer, the one person I was supposed to love the most, the one I was to protect and care for. I told myself that I was doing this to protect her, and then had to ask myself when I’d become such a selfish liar. She had withdrawn inside herself. She still wouldn’t speak and could barely eat—didn’t cry except in her restless sleep. Her eyes were sunken, their sweet intensity deadened, her vibrant spirit snuffed out and trampled under. Her teacher had call ed ful of concern, saying Lizzie wasn’t acting like herself, and that she was worried.

I’d given her some pathetic excuse that we’d just had a hard week and promised that Lizzie would be fine.

Friday I pulled up to Matthew and Natalie’s house at five just as I had every day of the week. Sitting in the car at their curb, I tried to compose myself and pul myself together. I felt cold, chill ed to the bone from the day spent with my feet submerged in the cold autumn water of the Pacific Ocean. I closed my eyes and held the steering wheel, wil ing away the sickness in my stomach, the ache in my heart, the fog clouding my mind, but there was nothing that could chase them away.

Sensing movement, I looked up to see Matthew had emerged from the house with Lizzie in his arms. Her face was buried in his neck, and he held her protectively while he glared over her shoulder at me. He’d attempted to talk to me all week but each time I had shut him down. I told him I didn’t want to talk about it—I already knew what he would say.

I rose from the car to meet them, but Matthew pushed by me, gently placed Lizzie into the backseat of my car, and buckled her into her booster seat. He kissed her head and told her he loved her. She said nothing, stared ahead with vacant eyes. He paused for a moment, and then placed his palm on her forehead as if he were checking for a fever. He mumbled something before he stood and shut her door.

For a moment, he stared at me. His expression told me everything I needed to know. He was furious with me—blamed me.

I straightened my shoulders and lifted my chin defensively.

He shook his head at my reaction and started up his He shook his head at my reaction and started up his sidewalk without a parting word. Halfway to his door, he paused and shifted before he turned around with his eyes narrowed.

“Don’t you think you’ve let this go on long enough, Elizabeth?”

I shook my head and scrunched my brow, pretending I didn’t know exactly what he was talking about.

Matthew scrubbed his face, agitated as he forced the air from his lungs. It was as if he had to regain control before he could even look at me.

“You have to put an end to this, Elizabeth.” He pointed at Lizzie sitting in the back of the car. “She’s miserable.” He punctuated both words with an angry jab of his finger though they sounded sad and desperate.

“You don’t even know what happened . . . what he did to me!”

He laughed in an almost incredulous way. Coming from Matthew’s mouth it still sounded a lot like sympathy.

“What? You two slept together? Did you real y not see it coming, Elizabeth? Because the rest of us sure as hel did.” His voice softened, and he took a step forward. “I get it, Liz . . . why you’re upset. The timing was wrong, and he should’ve waited . . . he knows he should have . . . but you know as wel as I do it was going to happen, and it’s not right to make Lizzie pay for it.”

I flinched and stepped back against my car, both embarrassed that Christian had told him outright and confused that it hadn’t angered Matthew.

My throat constricted as I, once again, used my daughter as a way to justify my fear. “He’s just going to end up hurting Lizzie.”

Matthew snorted in disbelief and took another step forward, lowering his head to look me in the eye. “I think it’s about time you questioned just who you’re protecting, because it sure as hel isn’t that little girl.”

“I thought you were on my side.” Tears wel ed in my eyes, hurt because I’d believed Matthew would always stand by me but more so, because I knew he was right.