The Regret Series Complete Collection Box Set: Lost to You, Take This Regret, and if Forever Comes (69 page)

There was a soft knock at the door. It opened so slowly, and I looked up just as my mother emerged. Tears stained her cheeks, her vivid blue eyes dimmed with the same agony that held my heart. She stood there, biting at her bottom lip as another round of tears streamed down her face. Her attention locked onto Elizabeth, who rocked the child, unwilling to let her go.

She approached, almost cautious, and eased down to sit on the edge of the bed. With her palm, she touched Elizabeth’s face and drew it up to meet her own.

God, I had to look away. What was held in Elizabeth’s expression tore me apart. She was shattered. Swollen, dark bags hung beneath her eyes. Those eyes were red, glassy, dazed, as if she couldn’t make sense of this any more than I could. In all of it was agony.

Mom brushed her hair back and kissed her forehead. “You brave, wonderful girl,” she said as she held Elizabeth by the chin, sitting back as her head drifted to the side. She never broke connection with the grief flowing from Elizabeth’s gaze.

Finally she turned her attention to Lillie and, with her palm, cupped her tiny head. “Look at her…she’s beautiful.” Sorrow clotted her words, and she ran her thumb along the span of her forehead. “I know you don’t need me to tell you this, but don’t let anyone try to convince you this child is anything less than your daughter.”

Mom unfolded an old blanket that she pulled from a bag and draped it across our child. “This belongs to her.”

Elizabeth choked over a sob.

I averted my gaze to the ceiling. God, this was excruciating. Brutal.

Then she rose, touched her little hand, then placed another kiss to Elizabeth’s head, let it linger like an embrace.

She turned and kissed me in almost the same way as she’d done Elizabeth, with actions that were full of understanding, with sympathy that I wasn’t sure I could bear.

Then she quietly slipped out of the room.

Elizabeth’s sister, Sarah, came in with the same result. Just more fucking sorrow heaped into this room that was becoming harder and harder to bear.

I yanked at my hair, feeling like I was seconds from losing my mind. I couldn’t do this. Couldn’t. I didn’t want to. I wanted my daughter. I wanted Elizabeth to become my wife. I wanted to make this right.

And Elizabeth just held her, rocked her and kissed her and fucking talked to her.

Finally I couldn’t take it any longer. “I’ll be right back,” I said.

I stumbled down the hall and found my way into the men’s restroom that was just as fucking unbearably cold as the rest of the rooms of this godforsaken place. In its reprieve, I grabbed for the counter to hold myself up as I looked in the mirror. I was haggard. Black hair stuck up in every direction and dark circles sat prominent beneath my dismal eyes.

Anger shook me, and I clung to the edge of the counter as I bent at the waist.

How could this have happened? How? Today, Elizabeth was supposed to become my wife, and instead, we were here.

My head pounded with the pain, with the constant flashes of the life we were supposed to lead.

I turned as if I’d find escape, but just faced a wall. I dropped my forearms to it and rested my forehead against it, holding myself up as it all came crashing down.

“Fuck,” I cried. My fist slammed into the hard, cold tile just beside my head. Pain splintered my bones, but it didn’t come close to touching the pain that ravaged me in places I didn’t know existed.

Ruined.

Destroyed.

Never had I believed anything could hurt this bad.

Hopelessness came barreling into my consciousness where it firmly took root.

I gasped for air.

But there was none to be found.

I forced myself to the sink and splashed cold water on my face. I couldn’t do this. I knew Elizabeth needed me. I staggered back out into the hall.

Matthew leaned up against the wall outside of Elizabeth’s room. His steady gaze met mine as I approached him. I dropped
my eyes. Too many emotions tumbled through me, welling up and threatening to burst free.

He straightened as I approached, then pulled me in for a hug, just a clap on the back before something seemed to hit him, and his arms constricted around my shoulders. He hugged me hard.

“I’m sorry, Christian.” He stepped back and looked to the far wall, rushed the back of his hand beneath one eye as he sniffled. “Fuck…I can’t believe this happened. I don’t even know what to say to you right now.”

My chest tightened. I wondered if it’d always been this hard to breathe. “You don’t need to say anything.”

He turned to me with a nod, as if he perfectly grasped my meaning. Then he fixed his attention on me. “Elizabeth’s Mom went back to our house to be with Lizzie, so Natalie could come over here. We were able to keep Lizzie satisfied last night, but she knows something’s up. I can tell she’s scared. She’s starting to ask a bunch of questions and is whining. She’s just not acting like herself. Do you want me or Natalie to talk to her?”

I shook my head as I stared at the gleaming white floor. “No. They’re supposed to release Elizabeth a little later. Let me get her home and then I’ll come and get Lizzie, okay? I want to be the one to tell her.”

“Okay…I’ll just let her know you’ll be there to get her in a little while.”

“I appreciate you looking out for her.”

“Of course, Christian. Whatever you guys need…anything…just let us know.” He ran a shaky hand over his head and down his neck. “I’m going to get back to the house, relieve Elizabeth’s mom for a little while so she can come back over here.”

“Thank you,” I said sincerely.

“Please…Christian…please…don’t let them take her.” She was frantic, flailing.

I pinned her arms down, spoke close to her face. “Baby, it’s time…you have to let her go.”

“No!” She struggled against me, her cries like fucking torment beating against my ears.

My spirit thrashed, clashed with hers as she begged.

“You have to let her go,” I said again, the words cracking as I forced them from my mouth.

Elizabeth wept, lifting her back off the bed as she bucked against me, her anguished face lifted toward the ceiling. Tears streaked from the creases of her eyes and slipped down to disappear in her hair. “No…please, Christian, don’t let them take her.”

“You have to, Elizabeth.”

“Please,” she whimpered. But this time, it was in surrender. Her body went limp and she slumped back onto the bed, but the tears from her eyes fell unending, her hands balled up in fists as my hands shackled her wrists.

I swallowed down the misery and slowly released the hold I had on her wrists. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered. It sounded like my own concession.

Elizabeth withdrew, turned her face from me, her eyes pinched shut. I tried to wrap her in my arms, but she rolled to her side with her back to me.

I stood there, staring down at her as she drew ragged breaths into her lungs.

I’d promised her anything. Had promised her everything.

But I was left with nothing to give.

Six hours later, I drove around the slumbering neighborhood. Night had fallen, the dull street lamps flooding muted light along the road. An hour before, Lizzie had fallen asleep in her booster in the backseat of my car. When I’d stood in the doorway to Matthew and Natalie’s, looking down at my little black-haired girl, it was as if she’d already known. She looked up at me, stricken, grief swimming in the depths of her young eyes. I’d gathered her in my arms and took her to the park where I told her everything in as little detail as I could, though the images had raged, vivid violence playing out in my mind.

Now I drove, listening to my daughter’s uneasy breaths emanating from the backseat. I went in circles. Aimless.

I guess I didn’t go home because I knew things would never be the same.

Dr. Montieth had taken me aside and promised me there was nothing I could have done, there was nothing I could have changed that would have led to a different outcome other than the one we’d been given.

But I couldn’t stop my mind from going there, from wandering, from wondering, from blaming. There had to have been something that could have changed this course. If I’d have just been gentler, more cautious, made her rest.

The rational side of me knew it wasn’t my fault, but my heart just wanted to protect her.

Exhaustion began to set in. The fog that had blurred my thoughts was now blurring my eyes. I wound back around, inching by the front of the little house we shared before I pulled into the driveway. One dull light glowed from within, the house quiet, sadness radiating from the walls.

Carefully I gathered Lizzie from the backseat and cradled her in my arms. I trudged up the walkway. At the door, I shifted
Lizzie to the side, fiddled with the knob and unlatched it. The door creaked as it slowly swung open.

My mother jerked up from where she sat on the couch, perching on the side. Her expression caught mine. Bleak. Broken. Just like the rest of us. Tears wet her cheeks, and she seemed almost frantic as she wiped them away, as if she didn’t want me to find her that way. For a moment, I just looked at her, before she tilted her head to the side as if to say she understood, when I was sure there wasn’t a single person in this world who could possibly understand what I was feeling. I nodded though, turned and mounted the stairs with Lizzie sleeping in my arms.

I didn’t take her to her bed. I passed it by and carried her into our darkened room.

From where she lay on her side on the bed, Elizabeth’s silhouette seemed to fill up the entire space, her grief stealing all the air from the room.

Quietly I edged forward and placed our daughter in the middle of our bed. The two faced each other, lost in sleep, their breaths short and ragged. I tucked the covers up under their chins. Elizabeth shifted. Her arm wound around Lizzie’s waist and she tugged her near.

I just stood there in the shadows, in the blackness that consumed the walls, the blackness that consumed my heart. It echoed back the void. The loss.

I backed into the wall, slid down to the floor and pulled my knees to my aching chest.

The whirlwind had subsided. The storm cleared. And all that was left was the devastation that laid in its wake.

Present Day

I’d let her down. Even if there was nothing I could have done to stop it, it didn’t change the fact that I wasn’t able to save my Elizabeth from the pain. I couldn’t. I’d been just as helpless as she was, and that was what I’d never wanted to be.

And I missed my baby girl. I missed her so much because the love I had for her was real.

I didn’t think a single second would pass in my life without me regretting not holding her. For being too much of a coward to hold my daughter in my arms. That decision would forever haunt me.

Elizabeth couldn’t even look at me after it happened. Somewhere inside me, I understood that it really wasn’t me, but that seeing me was an echo of what we had lost.

That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. It didn’t mean there wasn’t anger and issues that neither Elizabeth nor I had been strong enough to deal with.

Never once had we talked. We’d just let bitterness and resentment grow. Until that day when no words had been spared. When they’d been said when they shouldn’t have. I didn’t mean it. I’d lashed out when Elizabeth had cut me to the core, her words so brutal she may as well have kicked me in the stomach.

I turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on my face, grasped the counter and hung my head between my shoulders.

The hairs at my nape rose in awareness, an awareness taking hold as her calm slipped into the room. Slowly I turned my attention to the bathroom door where Lizzie stood in the doorway, peering in at me as she clung to the knob.

She blinked through knowing eyes. “Are you sad, Daddy?”

I trembled a smile as I took in the little girl who was my light.

Swallowing hard, I spoke, the words strangled as I forced them around the lump wedged in my throat. “Yeah, baby, Daddy is very, very sad.”

She edged forward, cautious as she stole into the bathroom. She came up behind me and wrapped her arms around the back of my legs.

Slowly I turned around and leaned down to gather her in my arms, slid down to the floor and pulled her onto my lap.

Lizzie buried her head in my chest, and she choked, a sob winding from her palpitating chest. She expelled it in the collar of my shirt.

With the connection, with her sorrow, I let it go, let my unshed grief fill my eyes as I clung to my daughter. Rocking her, I lifted my face to the ceiling, felt the wetness seep onto my cheeks.

Little fingers burrowed into my sides. “I’m so sad, too, Daddy.”

On a heavy exhale, I ran my fingers through her hair and laid my cheek on top of her head. “I’m so sorry, baby girl. I’m so sorry you have to go through this with us. I love you so much…don’t ever forget how much I love you.”

She held me even tighter. “I just want you to come home.”

“I know, princess, I do, too.”

That’s all I wanted.

I just wanted to go home.

Chapter Thirteen

Elizabeth

Present Day, Early October

I tugged down the sleeves of my sweater and fisted the ends in my hands. Wrapping my arms around my knees, I drew them to my chest. My eyes fluttered closed as I turned my face to the warmth of the sun that sat high in the sky. A cool breeze gusted in, stirring up my hair and rustling through the leaves of the citrus trees that I had loved so much when I purchased this house.

From my perch on the patio chair that I’d dragged out into the middle of my backyard, I hugged my knees closer to my chest.

What had compelled me to come out here, I really didn’t know. But it seemed as if I hadn’t felt the sun in so long. The last four months, I’d been consumed by darkness. A prisoner to the shadows that screamed my despair.

Today I woke to an empty house, but I was unable to force myself back into the refuge of sleep. Lizzie had spent last night with Christian. I usually slept away the mornings she was gone, and I wouldn’t rise until it was time to pick her up from school.

Today, when my eyes had flitted open, I was struck with all the pain that continually devoured me, the wounds within throbbing anew as each new morning seemed to cut them wide open.