Take This Regret (3 page)

Christian pressed his back against the wal and took a deep breath. He wasn’t prepared for this. He’d never thought it would go this far.

Reluctantly, he forced himself out of the apartment, shutting and locking the door behind him before he left, hating the voice inside his head that kept tel ing him this was for the best.

Reeling from the betrayal, Elizabeth ran down the three flights of stairs and away from the man she had thought would always stand by her side. She felt as if she’d been mortal y wounded by his words. Christian knew that wasn’t an option for her. How could he even have suggested it?

In the harshness of his words, she’d searched the depths of his blue eyes for the man she thought she knew but must have never real y known. The man she thought she knew would never have been so cruel. She knew as she told him goodbye that her voice had shaken with heartbreak, but her choice was unwavering. There was nothing more important than the child growing inside her.

When he’d cal ed out to her just before she’d left, she’d prayed he had changed his mind. Above al , she loved him and didn’t want to live without him, but second to that, she was scared. She didn’t want to raise a child by herself, but she realized she would have to do just that when she heard no softness in his voice, but more words to inflict pain.

Tears fel endlessly as she walked the half mile from Christian’s apartment to her own. Her stomach was in knots and protesting each step she took.

She refused to look behind her as she pressed forward, her feet heavy with heartbreak, the weight causing her to stumble.

Halfway home the pain in her stomach intensified, and she vomited into some shrubs planted under the window of a storefront. This only caused her to cry harder and the cramps to worsen, which resulted in three more episodes before she made it to the single flight of stairs leading to her apartment door. She clung to the railing, holding herself up as she vomited once more over the side.

By then she was weeping, unable to control the shaking that had taken over her body. She made it to the landing of her apartment, and with trembling hands, let herself into the only place she came close to being able to afford.

She felt cold, her body convulsing as she pul ed her clothes from her body and stepped into a shower that should have been hot enough to scald. Even then, she found no warmth, and she curled in upon herself on the tiled shower floor, hoping for comfort. She only quivered and shook more. She felt as if she was frozen from the inside out, and nothing could thaw the chil that had settled deep in her bones. She wrapped herself in a towel and sank to her bathroom floor, heaving again into the toilet.

Elizabeth was scared.

She’d never felt so terrible before. She ached. The worst part was she couldn’t discern the source of the pain

—whether it was from something truly wrong with her or from the trauma of having her life shattered around her.

Most of al she worried about her baby. She didn’t know many things about pregnancy, but nothing about this felt normal to her. So when her stomach recoiled again and nothing came up, she was sure she needed help.

She pul ed herself up to stand, steadied herself with a hand against the wal when she swayed with dizziness, and prayed she could make it to her phone.

She wanted Christian so badly, and her first instinct

was to dial his number, but she forced herself to dial seven different digits than the ones she so desperately wanted.

Christian was no longer hers, no longer one she could rely on, and there was only one other person in this city that she trusted.

His voice was scratchy and hoarse with sleep when he answered, “Hel o?” More time had passed than Elizabeth had realized. It was nearing midnight.

“Matthew . . .” she rasped, his name barely audible. The desperation in her voice pul ed him from his haze, and he shot straight up in bed.

“Elizabeth?” Matthew became frantic. “What’s wrong?

Are you okay?”

At least three seconds passed before she wheezed out a shaky, “No.”

Matthew pul ed on pants, and stuffed his arms into the first button up he could find while keeping the phone pressed between his ear and shoulder. He tried unsuccessful y to sound calm. “Elizabeth, sweetheart, tel me what’s wrong.” He was already out the door and starting his car before she could answer that she was sick.

Matthew was at her apartment and up the short flight of stairs before five minutes had passed, where he found his friend curled up on her bed, shivering under a pile of blankets.

“Elizabeth?” He rushed to her side, pul ing the covers back to expose just her head, her blond hair darkened to a near brown from the profuse sweat pouring down her forehead.

He reached out to push her hair away so he could see her face, shocked by the paleness of her skin and the swol en redness of her eyes.

Matthew wanted to ask her a mil ion questions, but she was passing in and out of consciousness, and it was clear she needed more help than he could give. He pushed her covers to the floor except for the one he’d wrapped her in before bringing her into his arms. Her smal body was heavier than he anticipated, completely limp, and he struggled to maneuver her down the stairway and to his car.

He contemplated dialing 911, but the hospital was so close, he was certain he would get her to the emergency room before an ambulance could arrive.

Within minutes, Matthew was pul ing around the circular drive under the bright red glow of the sign that read,

“Emergency Room.”

He entered through the automatic doors, yel ing for help. With a flurry of activity, several orderlies pul ed Elizabeth from his arms and placed her on a gurney.

The nurse led Matthew to a smal curtained area where Elizabeth lay unconscious. He felt overwhelmed as the nurse hammered him with questions he could not answer.

“Date of birth?”

“Is she on any medications?”

“Does she have any al ergies?”

“When did the symptoms start?”

Shaking his head that had begun to pound from the immense amount of stress, he stated he didn’t know.

He slumped into a hard, plastic chair pushed against the far corner of the wal and watched as they began to poke and prod at his friend. He felt helpless, having no idea what he was supposed to do.

Should he cal someone?

Christian?

Elizabeth’s mother?

No. She had cal ed him, and that in itself gave him a clue. She needed him, and so he chose to be there for her, even if it meant waiting around and having no idea what was going on.

As he sat silently in the corner and watched the nurses and a doctor work over Elizabeth, he thought about how she’d come into his life. He’d met her the year before at the smal diner where they worked on the weekends. They were alike in many ways. They both lived in a city neither could afford, attending a col ege they’d dreamed of most of their young lives, living off scholarships, grants, and mounting student loans they’d both be paying for wel into their thirties. The tips they made on a Saturday shift barely covered food and necessities for the week. But neither of them looked at those things as negatives in their lives.

Instead, they embraced the opportunity and ran with it, and they’d become fast friends.

Matthew obviously knew how beautiful Elizabeth was.

He wasn’t blind, but he’d never viewed her that way and didn’t harbor unrequited feelings. He loved her as a friend.

Truly.

That didn’t mean he liked her boyfriend. To Matthew, Christian was a spoiled rich kid who was doing nothing more than slumming while he played at col ege. He was certain Christian would break Elizabeth’s heart.

Matthew winced for Elizabeth when they inserted a long, thick needle into her forearm before attaching an IV

bag to the line.

For what seemed an eternity, Matthew sat and watched Elizabeth sleep while the color slowly came back to her face as the bag dripped its contents into her veins.

Real y, little more than an hour had passed when the very young doctor who had examined her returned, chart in hand.

He extended his free hand across the smal space to Matthew. “Dr. Lopez.”

Matthew nodded and shook his hand. “Matthew Stevens.”

“Al of her test results are back . . . severely dehydrated

. . . anemic . . . pregnancy . . . too much stress . . .” Matthew tried to focus on what the doctor was saying, but real y

heard nothing more than pregnancy.

Matthew felt lightheaded with the implications this would have for his friend. Slowly everything fel into place, the late night phone cal to him when it should have been to someone else, the swol en eyes. The doctor’s words about too much stress triggering shock seeped in.

Matthew curled his fists, sickened that someone could treat his friend so poorly—anyone that poorly. Matthew’s first instinct was to go straight to Christian Davison’s apartment and tear him apart. Instead, he moved to sit on the edge of Elizabeth’s bed and ran his hand through his friend’s matted hair, silently promising her he would always take care of her.

May 2005

Christian stood in front of the ful -length mirror, studying himself in the long, black gown, seeing nothing more than a pathetic excuse for a man staring back at him.

He should have felt
proud
. Receiving his bachelors at Columbia with top honors should be a
proud
day. His mother and father had just left his apartment to await him in the car but not before his father had proclaimed how
proud
his only son had made him this day.

But Christian didn’t feel
proud
—he felt ashamed.

He’d seen her about three weeks ago in line at the store, though she hadn’t seen him. He had gathered the few items he needed, deodorant, shampoo, and toothpaste, and hastily had made his way back up to the registers.

He’d scanned for the shortest line when he saw the wavy locks of blond hair he knew so wel . He’d felt an immediate pul , the need to go to her, but had frozen when she turned to the side, exposing the large protuberance in her abdomen.

Like a coward, he’d hidden himself, watching her with an almost morbid curiosity from behind a row of shelves.

He felt sick, observing the woman he stil loved, but had betrayed, strain to reach the items in the cart—diapers, blankets, and smal things he didn’t recognize. She was preparing for her baby to be born.

It frightened him that she now seemed thinner than he remembered, her skin sal ow and chalky, gaunt, as if the growing mass in her front had stolen al the life from the rest of her body.

Even then, she was stil the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

But, like he already knew himself to be, he remained the coward and did nothing but watch as she paid for her things and walked out the door.

It was the only time he’d seen her since they’d fought at his apartment. She’d never returned to class, had never cal ed or sought him out, had never changed her mind.

He had made no real effort of his own since that first day when he’d gone to her place, only cal ing once and hanging up when a man had answered her phone. He could have tried harder—should have tried harder—but he’d taken the easy way out. He’d convinced himself that he didn’t ache for her, pretended that his sleepless nights had nothing to do with his worry for her. He told himself she’d moved on, that she didn’t need him, that she’d found her own way. Even if she had, he knew it stil didn’t absolve his responsibility for the child.

So as his guilt had grown, he’d done more and more to drown it out, spending long days in class and even longer nights with his head spinning from the amount of alcohol he’d consumed, then waking to unfamiliar women in unfamiliar beds.

No, today was not a
proud
day.

Christian grabbed his cap and trudged downstairs to join his parents in their waiting car.