If Forever Comes (7 page)

She felt miserable, and it caused me physical
pain to see it.

That pain contorted my face with sympathy when
I hooked my index finger under her chin and drew her face toward
me.

Shit.

She looked awful…and beautiful.

How was that even possible?

I swept the cloth over the moisture gathered
on her brow. Elizabeth whimpered, and her eyes fell closed as she
allowed me to take care of her. I dabbed the cloth gently at the
chapped skin of her lips.

“I hate that you’re going through this,” I
murmured as I flipped the cloth around and ran it over the back of
her neck.

For a moment she sagged, a moment’s reprieve,
before another roll of nausea hit her. She pitched forward. She
strained, every muscle in her body stretched thin, her stomach
constricting as she gagged. Nothing came up except for the agonized
moan that tore from her throat. A stream of tears slicked down her
face, cries she couldn’t contain.

I brushed the bangs from her face and placed a
supporting hand at the base of her head. “Is there anything I can
do?”

She swallowed hard. Her voice was all raspy,
like maybe it was hard just to speak. “Just don’t leave
me.”

A smile fluttered at my mouth, and my thumb
caressed the soft skin of her cheek. “I’m not going anywhere,
baby.”

I’d barely left her side in two days. I’d
stood, or rather knelt beside her, when the effects of the
pregnancy had suddenly taken hold. It’d seemed almost a shock
because, two nights ago, we’d gone to sleep with her feeling
completely fine—feeling good was what she’d said—and it wasn’t four
hours later that she’d jumped out of bed in the early hours of the
morning. Shocked from sleep and gripped by fear, I fumbled out of
the tangled sheets and rushed into the bathroom where I found her
on the floor, her body sick with the strain the child growing
within her caused.

In the last two days, it hadn’t let
up.

Honestly, it scared me, watching her suffer
this way. In the few minutes I’d found to sneak away, I’d been on
my phone, researching if this was normal, and if it was, what we
could do about it.

Of course, there was no shortage of
suggestions, a mess of folklore and superstition that I wasn’t
about to test out on my future wife. Dotted in between were the few
remedies that possibly seemed legitimate.

But basically, we had to wait it
out.

She frowned. “Don’t look at me like
that.”

I felt one form in return. “How am I looking
at you?”

She almost smiled. “Like if I throw up one
more time, you might have a meltdown.”

I chuckled lightly. “That obvious,
huh?”

This time, she managed a smile, and she wiped
the back of her hand across her mouth. “It’s really not as bad this
time, Christian,” she mumbled in what I could only assume was
supposed to be some kind of reassurance.

It did nothing to allay my concern, only
inflamed the residual guilt that would haunt me for the rest of my
life.

Seeing her like this brought so much to light,
uncovered all those things that I’d never borne witness to, things
buried in the unknowns of Elizabeth’s life when I’d been
absent.

Yeah, I had a vague sense of what she’d gone
through. She’d described it, but when a person isn’t there to
witness suffering, it’s hard to comprehend it. But to cause her to
quit school, I knew it had to have been bad. That knowledge had
been a huge blow to me, struck me deep and beat me down. I mean,
God, I’d left her alone to go through all of that by
herself.

The truth was, though, I really didn’t know
what she’d suffered. I just had no clue.

Now I was getting the idea.

Elizabeth’s eyes went wide, and she jerked
back to the toilet. Her knees dug into the floor as she held
herself up. She strained and moaned and begged for something to
give.

My heart hurt a little more.

God, this was awful.

But not for a second did Elizabeth complain.
She just took it in stride, attributed it to something her body
required of her in return for the child it protected.

I would never cease to be amazed by
her.

“I’m going to run downstairs to get you some
water. Will you be okay while I’m gone?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

“Do you need anything else? Crackers or
something?”

So maybe crackers were about the only thing
I’d seen on my search that I’d be inclined to suggest Elizabeth put
in her body. I wasn’t willing to take the chance—not on her or the
baby.

“No, I’m okay.”

I hesitated.

“Honestly, Christian…I’ve been through this
before.”

Nodding, I turned and rushed downstairs, led
by the muted nightlights Elizabeth had set up for Lizzie in case
she woke up in the middle of the night.

In the kitchen, I grabbed a glass from the
cupboard and filled it with cool water. An uncontainable yawn
escaped me. Exhaustion threatened. On instinct, my gaze traveled to
the clock on the microwave that taunted me with the sleep we’d
lost. It was almost three.

“Shit,” I muttered. Hoping to wake myself up,
I scrubbed a palm over my face and dragged myself back
upstairs.

But how could I complain?

I couldn’t.

There was nothing here for me to complain
about. Nothing but my worry for Elizabeth. She was the one who had
to endure this.

So what if I lost a few hours’ sleep. I could
deal. I sure as hell wasn’t about to leave Elizabeth to suffer
through this alone.

Not again.

Not a chance.

At the bathroom doorway, I paused when I found
Elizabeth in the same position I’d left her in. Exhaling heavily, I
eased up behind her and dropped to my knees at her side. I ran a
soothing hand up the length of her spine and to her neck, softly
tilting her face toward me.

“Here, baby, drink a little of
this.”

She searched for the strength to smile,
allowed me to lift the glass to her dry, cracked lips. If we
weren’t careful, she’d end up dehydrated.

She took the smallest of sips and closed her
eyes as she forced it down. For a moment, she remained still, as if
she were testing the reaction, assessing if she could keep it down.
Slowly her eyelids fluttered open. She whispered her
thanks.

My head slanted in sincerity. “Don’t thank me,
Elizabeth. I’m in this with you.”

Somewhere inside her, she found the energy to
bait me with the hint of a tease. “You are, huh?”

Her efforts came out weak.

Gentle, sympathetic laughter quietly tumbled
from my mouth, and I was unable to keep the playful buzz from
lighting in my chest. A deep sense of wonder hit me. This girl
could even rib me when she was at her worst.

“One-hundred percent,” I said.

She gestured with her chin toward the toilet.
“So, do you think you could take this over for me?”

I pushed back the chunk of hair that had
fallen into her beautiful face and wound it with my finger. An
unrestrained smile split my face. At my reaction, her warm eyes
swam with emotion, so thick, so pure, so…good. Softening, I tucked
the matted tuft of blonde behind her ear and trailed my knuckles
down her jaw.

“You know I would if I could.”

Elizabeth grasped my wrist, pressed my palm to
her face as if it were her lifeline. “I know you would.”

She held me there for the longest time, the
air between us full, both alive and subdued, a quiet comfort we
fell into. Her eyes dimmed before they fell closed. “I’m so tired,”
she admitted.

“Come here.” I shifted and leaned up against
the tub, my legs stretched out in front of me. I cringed a little
when my bare back met the cold porcelain surface. A shiver slipped
down my spine, but I shook it off and pulled Elizabeth to me. She
curled into my side and rested her head on my chest, nuzzled and
nestled until she found a comfortable spot.

I wrapped her in my arms. Her skin was cool to
the touch, clammy, sticky with sweat.

I brought my mouth to the top of her head and
kissed her there, murmured out a promise I’d be sure to keep.
“You’re going to be okay, Elizabeth.”

She snuggled deeper and turned just enough to
place a tender kiss to the center of my chest. “Only because you’re
here.”

Present Day, Late
September

The door quietly latched shut behind me, and I
slumped against it for support as I squeezed my eyes closed,
praying…praying for it to end.

I didn’t know how much longer I could do this.
Didn’t know how much more I could take.

I fought the weakness that trembled my knees,
because I didn’t want to be this woman. I hated her. I didn’t
recognize her.

But I didn’t know how to make her go
away.

My stomach curled. Nausea spun through my gut
the same way it did every time I saw Christian’s face, a tumultuous
chaos that wracked my senses, confused and clouded the truth that
was lost somewhere inside me.

It was visceral. A reaction I couldn’t stop.
Each morning I begged for this to be the day when I opened the door
and I would recognize myself. The day I would recognize Christian
as the man I loved.

That I’d want him.

No one understood how desperately I wanted
to.

None of them understood the way I really
felt.

Clutching my chest, I gulped for air, begging
for anything that would deaden this unyielding pain suffocating me
from the inside out. Unbearable agony pressed and crushed, cutting
deeper into the places where my life had been snubbed out,
infiltrating the crevices of darkness where the light had been
ripped from my soul.

It was blinding.

Excruciating.

Malignant.

And there was nothing I could do to stop
it.

Hot, angry tears burned under my lids.
Uncontrollably they fell, streaming from the creases of my pinched
eyes. I lifted my face toward the ceiling, my head digging into the
hard wood. I cried out, letting the pain that festered within me
rip up my throat. I expelled my misery into the silence of the
hollowed-out walls of this house. But the relentless desolation
only echoed back the memories of what used to be my home. Those
memories swallowed me whole.

At my chest, I fisted my hands in the shirt
I’d worn for the last three days. “Help me,” I
whimpered.

But there was nothing that could save me.
Nothing that could turn back time. Nothing that could give me back
what I had lost.

Hopelessness had become my only
partner.

I staggered out into the middle of the small
family room where a week’s worth of unfolded laundry was piled on
the couch. There were so many good memories here. This tiny room
was where Christian and I had found each other again. For months,
it was here that we’d sat as we played with our daughter, as I’d
slowly come to the realization that I had to have him a part of our
lives. Part of my life.

How could I not see him in it now?

Something within me had been erased.
Obliterated. Because I
knew
I loved him. I just couldn’t
feel it anymore.

Every time I witnessed the worry lining his
face, it brought it all rushing back, and the only thing I wanted
was to block it all out.

And I was so angry, so angry with him, and yet
I didn’t even know why.

I crammed my fists in my eyes, trying to push
the mess of emotions that had surfaced back into the place where
they belonged. Hidden.

Frantically wiping away my tears, I drew in a
ragged breath. I grabbed onto the railing to hold myself upright as
I staggered upstairs. I fell face-down into the unmade bed that
Christian and I were supposed to share. I buried my face in the
pillow and exhaled the air from my lungs as I wrapped my arms
tightly around it.