If Forever Comes (11 page)

Thankfully the waitress came and rescued me
from the scrutiny that had taken hold of the table.

She left and returned quickly with my iced
tea. “Your food should be out shortly. Let me know if there’s
anything I can get you in the meantime,” she said as she placed the
drink down in front of me.

I mumbled, “Thank you,” turned back to the
table, and let my gaze drift over the women who had always stood by
my side. They had always been the ones to rally around me, no
matter what the circumstances. Once again, I knew they were here to
pick me up when I was down.

Little did they know it was an impossible
feat.

I did my best to keep up with the words they
spoke. I tried to listen to the details about their families, the
things that were important to them, near to their hearts. Sarah
talked endlessly about her children. Angie had won the spelling bee
and Brandon had started a new season of football. She talked of how
excited he was that he now got to play tackle, how terrified she
was to finally allow him to take part in it.

Carrie had met someone new, someone who must
have made an impact on her, because she giggled and her cheeks
flushed red with just the mention of his name. My little sister
didn’t do embarrassed. Yet she went on about this guy for the
longest time, filling us in on every aspect of his life and how she
was sure it would fit into hers.

I dropped my face and pressed my eyes shut,
begging for
it
to return, for me to be able to
feel
it, to be excited for them, too.

I felt like the worst person in the world,
because I just couldn’t find it in myself to care.

And I wanted to.

God, did any of them really understand how
much I wanted to?

They droned on, and their words began to bleed
together, spreading out in a thin haze that blurred at the fringes
of my mind. Our food was served, and I pushed it around my plate,
trying to build up the appetite to take a single bite. Laughter and
giggles and sounds of surprise beat against my ears, but didn’t
penetrate deep enough to touch my distorted sense of
awareness.

“Liz,” Sarah said, her voice taking on an edge
of frustration. “Did you hear anything I just said?”

I jerked up. Blinking, I looked at her from
across the table. My mind flicked like a reel back through the
conversation that had just transpired, grasping for anything that
would give me a clue as to where the topic had strayed.

Displeasure flashed on her face. “Were you
even listening?”

“Sarah.” Natalie slanted her head in a silent
plea, her eyes widening. I swore I thought she kicked her under the
table.

Sarah and I had always been close. She’d been
the one I’d run to as a girl, the one who always seemed to have
this natural wisdom, had insight into things I couldn’t see. And
she rarely deviated from her straight-lined demeanor.

Sarah’s attention shot to Natalie. “What?” she
said defensively, as if she couldn’t believe Natalie was trying to
dissuade her from speaking.

But obviously, that didn’t apply for
today.

Her eyes darted back to me. They blazed with
emotion, sympathy and outrage and disappointment. “You have to pull
yourself out of this, Elizabeth.”

At her words, I felt all the blood drain from
my face. Sickness coiled, soured in my stomach as a swell of nausea
swept through me.

It was bad enough when they made little
comments, the ones that were meant to bolster when they really felt
like a slap to the face.

But this…this didn’t just seem like an ambush.
It was an ambush, an attack I wasn’t prepared for.

One I would never be ready to face.

“You’ve sat there this entire time and not
said one word. Not one word,” she emphasized.

“Please, don’t do this right now, Sarah,”
Natalie begged, her voice coming out low. Her attention shifted
between us as she bit at her lip. Tears rimmed her eyes.

I knew they were both trying to protect me,
each in their own way.

Harshly Sarah shook her head. “We’ve tiptoed
around this for too long, Natalie.” Even though she spoke to
Natalie, her stare never strayed from my face. “It’s been almost
four months, Elizabeth. And I promise you I’m only telling you this
because I love you, but you have to make a decision. It’s time you
picked yourself up and started living again. For you. For your
daughter. Start paying attention to the rest of your family”—she
flung her hand out around the table—“because everything is just
passing you by. Even when you’re here, you’re not present. And we
all need you back.”

My face pinched as I slowly shook my head,
struggling to see through the pain that tore through my entire
being. I began to rock, my fingers twisting together in the
tightest knot as I tried to deflect what was coming from Sarah’s
mouth.

My head screamed at me that what she said was
the truth, while my heart shrank, willing the rest of me to
retreat.

It seemed like once she got started, she
couldn’t stop, the worry and frustration boiling over.

“And what about Christian? The man who would
crawl on his hands and knees through hot coals for you? The one who
would gladly die for you? Have you stopped to look at him
lately?”

Recoiling at the insinuation, I dropped my
face to the side to protect myself from the things I didn’t want to
hear.

“I’m serious, Elizabeth, have you stopped to
really look at him? Because he is just as heartbroken as you. It’s
time you either find it somewhere inside yourself to love him again
or cut him loose. Walk away from him, Elizabeth, put him out of his
misery, because the man is hanging by a loose thread. Do you even
see what this has done to him? What you’re doing to
him?”

I cringed, sinking deeper into my chair. Of
course I saw it. I bore witness to it each morning when he came to
pick up Lizzie. And I had cut him loose, had told him to go, and he
had. But there would always be something that tethered us, a
connection that neither of us could break.

How was that bond not enough to hold us
together?

I forced myself to look at her when all I
really wanted to do was hide.

“Sarah,” I begged, my voice cracking. Tears
built and I tried my best to keep them back, to keep them in. But
there was nothing I could do. They were unstoppable as they began
to fall. “You don’t understand.”

“Damn it, Elizabeth,” she said as she leaned
in close over the table, her voice firm. “I know I don’t. I’m not
pretending that I do. But whether I understand or not doesn’t
change the fact that it’s
time
.”

Her words slashed through me, cutting me to
the core.

To my left, Mom gently touched my arm, sadness
woven through her expression.

“Your sister is right, Elizabeth. I know you
don’t want to hear it, but we all love you too much to stand aside
and watch you fade away. I’m not willing to sit here and allow this
to go on any longer without saying something.” She glanced at the
bones jutting from my arms, let them wander over my protruding
collarbones. “Have you looked in the mirror lately? Have you seen
what you’ve allowed this to do to you?”

Allowed
this
to do to me?

Anger tightened the knots in my
stomach.

My mom, of all people, should
understand.

I shoved my chair back from the table and
jumped up.

“I didn’t ask for this,” I spat at the table,
my gaze discordant as it bounced between the women who sat there
staring up at me in shock. “I didn’t ask for this to happen and I
sure as hell didn’t ask for your opinions or your advice.” I
gripped at my aching chest. “Just leave me alone,” I pleaded.
“Please, all of you, just leave me alone.”

Then I turned and fled the tortured confines
of the restaurant, rushing past people who dropped silverware to
their plates as they gaped at me. I ran out into the warm afternoon
sun. I lifted my face to it, searching for the breath that always
seemed just out of reach, as if the capacity of my lungs had been
cut in half, fragmented, and I could never fully take in what was
needed to live.

Because I was dying.

“Elizabeth,” rushed from Natalie in blatant
relief as she came running out behind me. She stood there, hesitant
as she took me in. Finally, she said, “Come on. Let me take you
home.”

Distraught, I nodded through my tears and
followed her across the lot. She kept her hand on my elbow as she
led me to the passenger door. She unlocked it and held it open for
me.

We said nothing as she drove the short
distance back to my house. She came to a stop at the bottom of the
driveway. I could feel the intensity of her gaze burning into the
side of my face while I fisted the straps of my purse in my hands,
staring down at my knuckles turning white as I did everything I
could not to fall apart.

“I’m so sorry, Liz.” Her voice was quiet.
“Please…” She choked over her own tears. “Please don’t think we
planned that, because we didn’t. Everyone is just worried about
you.”

I looked over at the regret swimming though
her glistening eyes. The two of us just sat there, watching the
other cry, not knowing how to make sense of this mess, because
neither of us wanted to be a part of it.

She cleared her throat and shook her head.
“But what Sarah said, maybe it was wrong the way she did it, I
don’t know. But what she said was true. It’s
time
,” she
stressed.

Maybe the problem was I didn’t know what my
life looked like on the other side of this. I’d always believed
Christian was at the end, and now, I couldn’t see him anywhere. How
did I move on from that? From the hopes that had been
shattered?

“I don’t even remember how to breathe,
Natalie,” I admitted softly, dropping my face toward my lap as I
clutched my purse straps a little tighter. “How can I go on when
I’ve forgotten how to live?”

Peeking up at her, I saw her chewing on her
quivering lip, obviously unsure of how to poise her words. She
inclined her head and asked in all seriousness, “Do you still love
him?”

A suggestion of Christian ghosted across my
skin, memories of my life that meant the most to me, love and joy
and everything. Sadness welled up and I swallowed it
down.

“I don’t know,” I whispered.

More tears trailed down her face, maybe in
direct empathy to mine. Her attention traveled out the windshield
where she stared at the empty street. We sat in the excruciating
silence.

“Then maybe you need to remember how to live
without him, Elizabeth, because you can’t continue on this way.”
There was no accusation in the statement, just her own pain, her
words filled with a sharp sense of surrender.

I felt them deep, because I somehow knew she
meant that surrender for me, that it was time I moved on. Even if
it was without Christian.

I glanced at the clock. It was only thirty
minutes before I was supposed to pick my daughter up from school.
Her sweet face flickered in my mind, my devotion to her unending,
and I knew, most of all, my daughter needed me.

“I will try,” I promised my cousin, my friend,
but inside I was reeling because who I really needed to convince
was myself.

Over the console, she reached for me, wrapping
me up in a fierce embrace before she pulled away and earnestly held
my face, her own all splotchy and red.

“You will make it through this,” she said.
“You know that, don’t you?”

I shook my head in her hold. Because I still
didn’t know if I really would. “I need to go and pick up Lizzie,” I
mumbled because I’d had all of this conversation that I could
handle.

I’d said I would try, and that was all I could
give.

She nodded once and I climbed from her
car.

Late May, Four Months
Earlier

From behind, Christian grabbed for me. Needy
hands slid over my hips to my front. He anchored both of them
across my protruding stomach in the same second he buried his face
in my neck.