And once again, I’d be alone.
I’d trusted him implicitly right up until the moment he’d driven me away, and I knew I could expect nothing different this time.
Forcing myself down the hal , I slid my palm across the wal for support. I closed Lizzie’s door with a soft click and felt something splintering inside as old wounds ripped wide open. I could barely stand under the deluge of memories, the burden I’d carried, every internal injury meted out at Christian’s wil .
Everything spun as I clutched the railing and slowly Everything spun as I clutched the railing and slowly took each step downstairs. My head throbbed with the pulsing and pounding of blood in my ears. It turned my stomach and soured my mouth.
I raced across the family room and purged my guilt and hangover into the downstairs toilet as I berated myself for being such a fool to have given in.
I shouldn’t have expected anything different or anything better.
On unsteady feet, I stood and held onto the basin as I splashed cold water on my face and rinsed my mouth. I tied my matted, tangled hair back with a band before I hunted through the medicine cabinet for a bottle of ibuprofen.
Shaking, I placed four tablets in my mouth and cupped my hands under the running faucet to chase them down.
Tears stung my eyes as I looked back up into the mirror and wiped my mouth with a towel, unsure if I’d survive this time.
I lumbered out and was met with the remnants of the night before—two empty wine bottles, two glasses left half ful , Christian’s shirt discarded on the floor.
Bending down, I picked the shirt up and closed my eyes as I pressed it to my mouth, to my nose, inhaling the sweet of the man who would never stop breaking my heart.
I stiffened when I felt his presence, and then heard the heavy release of air that sounded something like relief from across the room. His movements were subdued as he moved across the kitchen floor.
I flinched when he wrapped his arms around me from behind, buried his nose in my neck, and whispered, “Good morning.” It felt like a caress on my skin.
I whimpered, my mouth trembling as I made a decision before it was much, much too late, forcing out a barely audible don’t touch me. The old pain was fresh, tormenting my weakness, insulting the mistake I’d made in al owing him into my home and back into my life, mocking how easily I’d handed over my heart.
He stiffened but didn’t back away. I felt him shake, swal ow, understand. “Please, Elizabeth, don’t do this.” My hair brushed across his bare chest as I slowly shook my head. For the briefest moment, my desire confused my resolve, the continuous fire that roiled between us, a reminder of just how badly this was going to hurt.
But I would be strong enough to end this now before he completely destroyed Lizzie and me, while Lizzie stil had a chance to recover. In time she would heal, though I knew I would not. No amount of time could undo the devastation I felt as I turned on him and wrenched myself from his grip, spitting venomous words as I inched back toward him and slammed his shirt against his chest.
“I want you out of my house . . . out of our lives.” He seemed to sway, to lose his balance. His face contorted in agony as he first looked at the wadded up shirt fisted in his hand and then back at me. Is that what I’d looked like when he’d cast me aside? Is that what the shock of heartbreak looked like? Could he ever feel the way he had made me feel? Could he ever understand?
His expression shifted and set in determination as he clenched his jaw. “No.” He shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere, Elizabeth.”
I closed my eyes, refusing to see the commitment on his face as I wheezed the words get out.
I opened my eyes, dragging to the forefront the memories of what he had done. I remembered the cal used expression on his face when he’d told me to choose him or my daughter. I remembered how it had felt to be alone, sick, and scared; remembered what it felt like to fight for my child’s life.
I’d given up my goals, not because of my daughter, but because he had been too much of a coward to stand up for what was right, because he had refused to take responsibility for his family. I clung to long suppressed secrets of shame. I’d hidden from my family just how bad off Lizzie and I had gotten. When I’d already asked my family for far too much, I’d gone hungry because I couldn’t afford to feed both of us. The time Lizzie and I had been evicted from our smal apartment and I’d driven through the night, feeling too ashamed to tel my mother and Matthew that I’d failed again, and I’d stil ended up at Matthew’s house at four in the morning. It was then that Matthew and Natalie had taken us in to live with them. I held fast to the memories of their sacrifice—a sacrifice Christian hadn’t been man enough to make.
I stalked forward, backed him into the next room, and let everything boil over. “Get out!”
This time he pled, reached for me, and attempted to restrain me in his arms. “No, Elizabeth. I won’t leave you, not this time. I love you . . . oh, my God, please don’t do this.”
I fought against him and twisted out of his grip, refusing to al ow him to convince me of anything different than what he’d shown me the night before—remembered the five-minute exchange on my bedroom floor where he’d reminded me just how little I actual y meant to him and let that anger bleed free.
“I hate you.”
He jumped back, releasing me as if he’d been stung.
I didn’t stop, but spewed my anger. “How dare you come in here and turn my life upside down . . . lead me on .
. . make me believe you’d changed. I trusted you, and the second I was vulnerable, you took advantage of it!” His eyes were wide with shock when they flew up to meet the tortured fury in my own. “What?” he demanded in a low voice as he took two steps forward. “Is that what you think last night was?” His eyes narrowed, and I cowered as he took another step that had me backed against the wal .
“Don’t you dare stand there and act like you didn’t want it every bit as much as I wanted it, Elizabeth . . . pretend that this”—he gestured wildly between us—“wasn’t already happening. Yeah, things got a little out of control last night, but it doesn’t change anything.” He was right. Nothing had changed. He was just the same. He would promise his heart until it no longer suited him. He would take what he wanted and toss aside what he didn’t.
He will never stay.
Defeated, I slid down the wal and buried my head in my hands, unable to stop the rush of emotion. He will never stay. I felt myself breaking apart as tears poured unchecked down my face and the reality of my foolishness sank in and became real, and I whispered again, “I hate you.”
Christian leaned down, his nose nearly touching mine, his voice fire. “You’re a liar.” He glared down at me with heartbroken rage and pointed up toward Lizzie’s room. “I love you, Elizabeth, but you need to know . . . I wil fight for her.”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I put back up the wal s he had torn down, wouldn’t listen to what he said. I lost myself in self-pity, in my mistakes, in his betrayal. In my mind, I saw him as the selfish boy who had ripped me apart.
He will never stay.
My tortured cries did nothing to drown out the echo of Christian’s feet as he walked away, taking with him the last piece of my heart. The front door grated on its hinges as it opened, taunted, He’s leaving you.
I couldn’t have imagined anything could have hurt worse than what had just transpired, that there could be anything more painful than cutting Christian from my life.
But I should have known better, known that it would only compound.
I fought for resolve, for a way to stay strong when Lizzie suddenly appeared on the stairs, panic in the clamor of her feet and in the flood of hysteria from her mouth.
“No! Daddy, don’t go!”
Christian turned in the doorway as if in slow motion. Al color drained from his face as he dropped to his knees to catch Lizzie in his arms. She clung to his neck and cried again, barely coherent as she begged, “Don’t leave me, Daddy! Pl
ease don’t leave me!”
The nausea from before made a resurgence as I lay limply against the wal , disconnected, and watched my daughter fal apart while Christian tried to hold her together.
He rocked her, whispered against her head, and promised, “It’l be okay. It’l be okay.” He pul ed back, faked a smile. “I’l come back, sweetheart. It might take a little while, but I promise I’l come back.”
Lizzie held him tighter. “Please stay with me, Daddy.” He choked over her plea and hugged her to his chest.
Over her shoulder, he begged me with his eyes.
I looked away.
He will never stay.
I had to end it now for her sake—and mine.
“I can’t right now, princess. Mommy and Daddy just need a little time apart.” His eyes flitted over her face as he tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “Try not to be sad and just remember that, no matter what, Daddy loves you.” Then he stood and walked out the door.
With the click of the latch, a sob erupted from Lizzie,
and she rushed to the window. She pressed her face against the glass, her voice smal and broken. “Daddy.” It escalated with each breath as she repeatedly cal ed for him, “Daddy . . . Daddy . . . Daddy!” When he backed his car from the driveway and his tires squealed on the road, she slid to the floor where her cries became muddled and distorted, an echo of my own heartbreak sounding out from my baby girl who rocked herself in a bal on the floor.
For a fleeting moment, I thought I might die, that my heart would falter in my chest, seize as the ultimate punishment for what I had done.
I’d broken the two people I loved the most. I’d destroyed my daughter, destroyed Christian, had ruined what I knew Christian and I could have had—what I knew somewhere beneath the fear that we had already built—
broke my own heart.
Christian was right. I didn’t hate him. I hated myself.
Lizzie stared at the untouched plate of food in front of her.
She hadn’t said a word the entire day but had lain on the floor for uncountable minutes or hours as I’d done the same, unresponsive from the impact. Sometime during the day, she’d moved to her room and had shut the door and shut me out. I’d given her space because I’d needed it too. I had cal ed her downstairs when I’d realized the sun had set more than an hour ago and she hadn’t eaten al day.
“Lizzie, baby, you need to eat,” I said, my voice cracking from the hoarseness of my voice, and pushed her plate closer to her. Please.
My request was met with silence, no reaction, as if I hadn’t spoken at al .
I turned away to hide the tears that gathered in my eyes. I blinked and they fel . I wiped them with the back of my hand.
My cel phone rang from inside my purse on the kitchen counter.
I closed my eyes, but not before they had instinctively sought out the clock on the wal .
Seven fifteen.
The night was long and lonely, fil ed with restlessness—too many thoughts and too much hurt. Christian chased me down in my dreams, haunted, hunted, woke me as he shook me, and demanded to know why.
I’d left Lizzie’s door wide open, hoping she’d cal out for me, need me. Instead, the same quiet distress as my own had seeped from her room. She’d tossed, turned, and whimpered through her burdened sleep. In the early morning, I found her awake, sitting up in bed glassy-eyed and staring at nothing while she rocked the dol Christian had given her in her arms.
I cal ed in to work, barely able to form a coherent sentence as I told Anita I wasn’t feeling wel . She laughed and teased that I must have had too much fun on Saturday night to stil be suffering the effects on Monday morning. I mumbled a weak something like that before I hung up the phone and hung my head, having no idea how to deal with what I felt inside.
My gut twisted in guilt when I dropped my daughter at school, stil mute, her face expressionless—numb.
But I left her as I couldn’t stand to stay to face what I’d done.
Our beach was nearly deserted on a Monday morning in November. I sat at the edge of the water with my arms wrapped around my knees. The wind stung my face as it licked at my tears. I clutched my phone as it buzzed, the wind and waves drowning out the sounds erupting from my throat as I wept when his name lit up the screen again and again.
I pul ed up in front of Matthew and Natalie’s house at five. The door opened a second later, and Matthew stepped out. Pressure seemed to drain from him when he saw me before it changed, and the corners of his eyes creased in worry masked with anger. He met me halfway down the walkway, demanding to know what was wrong with Lizzie, why she wouldn’t speak, and why I hadn’t returned their cal s al afternoon.
I stared at him and whispered, “Christian’s gone.” I felt another piece of myself wedge itself free when I admitted it aloud.
Christian is gone—because of me.
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 al 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 cal 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 al 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 stil 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 cal 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 pul ed 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, chil 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 al 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.