If Forever Comes (19 page)

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.

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.