“Come back, please! I promise it-”

Hot tears pool in my eyes, but I wouldn’t let a single one fall. An iron fist clutches my throat; a knife is thrust in my chest … or rather my back. I would not hear another word from that man’s mouth. I would not. That man … I can’t breathe, I can’t think, I can only get away.

Jack is whimpering as he lays his head on my shoulder. Tommy struggles to keep up, stumbling as I pull him along. I slow my pace enough so that he doesn’t hurt himself. But I had to keep moving. I needed to get out. To get away.

The sky starts to scream in a rageful thunder, but no raindrops dare touch the atmosphere. I slam the front door and put Tommy on my other hip, not wanting him to fall down the porch steps but needing more speed than ever. I have never wanted to get away from something so fast. Someone.

“Mommy?” Tommy’s little voice waivers as if he knows something is wrong, but I don’t have the breath to comfort him; I didn’t have the strength to tell him that everything is okay. I didn’t have anything but my anger in that moment. And I continue down the stone steps we had placed together five years ago. Nothing could stop me from getting away. Nothing.

I struggle to get the keys from my pocket as I put Tommy back down. I unlock the car as the thunder continues to rumble … as the front door opens behind me.

My fingers tremble as I struggle to buckle Jack into his car seat, who is now crying softly. I bite my lip as I get him situated, then kiss him on his warm cheek as Tommy pulls on my leg.

I turn and pick him up, “Elizabeth.”

My blood runs cold, and my heart stops in my throat.

“Please, think about this, please. Hear me out.” He reaches for my son, but I pick him up and walk to the other side of the car, and his hand pulls my elbow back harshly. His eyes are asking, pleading, begging me to stay.

That is when the rain starts to fall. I yank my arm away from him, my skin burning as if he had just branded me with iron. I open the backseat door and do my best to buckle Tommy in without hurting him. All I can do is set him in the car before there are hands on my hips pulling me back and whirling me around. I shake my head over and over again; my entire body is trembling in anger … fear. As he holds my elbows and rests his forehead on mine, his intense gaze bores into my eyes. “Please. Don’t go. We can fix this. I promise.”

The rain may have been falling, but the thunder is still dominating the sky.

“You. Stay. Away. From. Me.” My voice is trembling, and my tears are falling, but not from sadness. I am angry. So angry that I cannot breathe. I am so angry that I don’t know if I could ever see this man again. So angry that I wish he would- that is when his tears finally started to fall, he was desperate, he begged, he pleaded, but he never apologized. I loved him enough to take him back if only he would apologize.

But he didn’t.

“Please,” a whisper, a desperate plea for me to listen to him. But I had already made up my mind, I wouldn’t see him again. I wouldn’t listen to any excuse this man could come up with. He could cry, scream, or yell, but he had no part in my future. He belonged only in my past, and there was nothing he could do to change that because he did the one thing that changed the rest of our lives forever.

I push him away, glaring into his eyes, “This is goodbye.”

He pushes past me and bends into the car before I can stop him. To my surprise, he doesn’t try to stop me or attempt to take Tommy or Jack. All he does is buckle Tommy into his seat and kiss him on the forehead. He turns, and I see his face and how his tears have mixed with the rain and how the guilt, desperation, and pure heartbreak have taken over his features. And somewhere deep in my broken heart, there was a part of me that wanted to stay for him. But then a new wave of pain and anger and betrayal racks over my body, and without a word, I get in the car and slam the door shut. My two boys are crying, but I can’t do anything about it. Not at the moment.

I look out the window, and he is just standing there, hopeless, dejected, and broken.

And I drive away.

~

The things that I did continue to torment my mind. The words I never said continue to tear apart my soul without fail. How? How could I have fallen this far? How did I take advantage of everything that I had? Lost sight of what was actually important?

It has been six months since she left me. Six months since I had seen my sons. Six months since I had last looked upon the only light left in my life. Six months since I lost everything that I loved in one day, one moment, in one decision.

There is no escape. I can never escape what I did, and I can never get close enough to what I had. What I had lost. And now her name is the only one that plays over and over in my head again and again. Elizabeth.

I have spent the last six months searching for them. There is so much that I haven’t said, so much that I haven’t done to show her just how much she means to me. I wish I could have told her, I wish I could go back and undo everything I did. I have searched everywhere she could be. Her father’s house, her sister’s, her cousin’s … but it was as if she had just disappeared into thin air.

I run a hand through my hair and start to pace on the front porch. I built this porch five years ago. I built it with the swing especially made for her. And I haven’t dared to touch it since she had gone. I can only look at it and remember all the mornings we spent in each other’s arms as we watched the sun rise and set on each day. Ironic how each day, I am forced to watch the sun set on an untouched porch swing with my heart emptier than my arms. I rack my brain, searching for any clue that she could have given me in the ten years I had known her to tell me as to where she could have gone.

Her father hadn’t known anything about what had happened between us. He hadn’t seen or heard from her since the four of us had visited him two weeks before she left. But her cousin had seen her. A day after she had left, but not since then. Her cousin, Liam, had grown up with her and was more like a brother than a cousin. I had thought that Liam would have taken Elizabeth’s side and shut me out of his home if not fight me for the things that I did. But Liam didn’t; he told me that he would reach out to me if he were to hear from her.

My heart throbs at everything I lost. The pain is magnified by the fact that it was all my fault. I continue to pace and wring my hands together, willing a clue or an idea to come to me. There is so much that I want to tell her. So much I need to tell her. I miss her with all of me that she had left behind; she had taken the rest with her. I wish I had realized my mistake before I had done it. I wish I had been smart enough to realize what I already had.

A car came barreling down the long dirt driveway, pulling me out of my guilt and thoughts. Liam.

Without hesitation, I run down the porch steps and get to him as soon as he slams the door to his old truck shut. His face is pale, too pale despite the winter cold filling the air. My stomach drops and my breaths come quickly. It has to be about her.

Liam can’t even get out a word, and I know it is her. I grab his shoulders intensely, “Liam, what is it? Is she okay? What is the matter? What is wrong?!”

“Get in.”

He hasn’t told me anything by the time we pull up to the hospital. Not a word came from Liam’s lips. I don’t know what to think. All I know is that I am becoming increasingly panicked by the second. Fear is choking me, and I don’t know how I could ever escape it, ever breathe air again. Why are we at the hospital? Is Elizabeth okay? What about my sons? Tears start to sting the back of my eyes as I think about all the time that I didn’t have with the family that I lost six months ago. I wonder how tall Tommy is or if Jack is as talkative as his older brother was at his age … I wonder if they would even remember me.

“Nick, please, wait a minute for me to talk to her.” Those are the only words that Liam says to me before we walk into the hospital room.

She is lying there staring at the wall with tears streaking her face. The breath in my lungs has just been stolen from me. I can’t even imagine what has happened. She is so beautiful, much more so than I remembered, but that wasn’t the only thing that took my breath from me. She looks like her heart has been taken and crushed beneath the weight of the world.

“Liz, there is someone here to see you.”

I walk into the room, and it feels as if I have just stepped off the world’s highest cliff, and it was only a matter of time before I hit the rocky ground.

~

Liam smiles sadly as I try my best to comprehend the words that were just spoken.

Someone? Who is-

Him.

I shake my head, and it feels like the pain that had tormented me when I had first learned of what he had done is now a consuming fire in my bones. Though I knew that I was no longer angry at him. I still loved him, but I was too heartbroken over his betrayal to say anything to him.

“Lizzy?” his voice had felt like home for most of my life, and I was only now realizing just how homesick I truly was.

“No.” I didn’t have the strength or the courage to talk to him. Not after what had just happened. Tears continue to fall, and I turn my face away because I cannot bear it.

“I will be back, Liz. I am going to check on Jack and Tommy.” Liam walks out of the room, leaving me to the wolves, or rather the one wolf who had been dressed in sheep’s clothing, the wolf who had deceived me for so many years … and I couldn’t do anything about it. I was still stuck in the hospital bed, and there was nothing that I could do to get away.

“Lizzy,” Nick’s voice cracks and he swallows, “What happened? Are you alright?”

I bite my lip to hold back the tears, though my efforts are useless. I couldn’t bring myself to say it. I just couldn’t. Especially not to him.

“Please, tell me.”

Why was it getting harder and harder to breathe? I couldn’t think, I couldn’t speak. My vision began to blur, and my throat began to burn painfully.

“Are the boys alright?”

I nod. It’s all that I can do.

~

“Are you-?” I cannot even finish the sentence.

“I lost the baby.”

Those words shocked me, and it was like a bomb had been dropped right at my feet.

“W-What?”

“Her name was Serah. She passed away last night, two hours after she was born.” Lizzy seemed to be completely empty, completely broken. She had been through so much. I hadn’t even known that she was expecting. I hadn’t been here to be the husband and father that I needed to be, that I should have been. I should have been-

“Oh, Lizzy,” I go and take her hand in both of mine and kneel by the bed, utterly and completely heartbroken.

“There aren’t enough words to tell you how truly sorry I am. To tell you how much I miss you or how much I love you. Or how much of me is you. Or how much I regret doing what I di,d or how much I wish I could take everything back. There aren’t enough hours in the day or stars in the sky for me to show you that I mean every word that I just told you. I betrayed you and your trust. I didn’t deserve you before, and now that is the definition of an understatement. I am so sorry. There is nothing else for me to say or do, aside from I am truly sorry, and you are the love of my life. I am sorry for all the memories I wasn’t a part of. I am sorry for betraying you, for treating you like I did, for abandoning you, and not being there for you. I love you more than anything, and I was a fool for thinking that I deserved or even needed something-someone- else. I will live with those regrets for the rest of my life, and I know that there is nothing that I could ever do to deserve you or even earn back your trust.”

She closes her eyes and whispers, “That day that I left, you said that you promised it was nothing. You promised we would get through it. And all I can think about with each passing day is how you promised to be true to me and there for me for the rest of our lives, no matter what. You promised that on our wedding day. And you broke that promise, the one that was supposed to be number one in both of our lives, and now you expect me to listen to you because you promised it would happen?”

“I love you.” I can’t think of anything else to say. My heart spoke before my mind could think.

“I lost the baby.”

I can see that her wall is breaking down, that she is so broken over the loss and guilt and pain she has felt ever since the moment she found out what I had done. I didn’t know that a heart could be broken any more than mine already was until I looked into the eyes of the woman that I loved and saw her in complete and utter despair, completely broken and torn apart. And it is all my fault.

“Elizabeth Malynn James, I love you more than anything. I made the most horrible and worst mistake of my life six months ago. I let my mind talk me into something that my heart knew I never wanted. I was left empty and broken from what I saw as a police officer, and I felt like I would only weigh you down if I told you and came to you. And I went to someone else, and for that, there will never be anything I could ever do to make up for that. I know you probably regret what we had, and you regret being with me. But despite that, I will love you with all that I am, with all of my heart, I will have you, and I will hold you in sickness and in health. I will take care of you and provide for you, and when I feel myself start to stray, I will come back to you. I can’t undo it, and I don’t know how to fix this, but I know that I love you and that if you decide that you will take me back for the broken, lost, and undeserving man that I am, I will love you for the rest of my life with all of my heart, mind, and soul.”

And she starts to sob and turns her head away from me. I drop my head and close my eyes in dejection, taking her reaction as a rejection, but then I realize she is still squeezing my hand and doesn’t make an effort to pull her hand away from me.

“I never regretted you. I only regretted making you feel like you had to go to someone else to get what you should have gotten from me.” I dare to look up as she turns her head towards mine, and my heart clenches. “I never regretted you,” she says again, “I only ever loved you, but it was my love for you that broke me when you broke us.”

I take a deep breath, bracing myself as she continues, “But I choose you, again. I choose to love you again, and to have and to hold when you are broken, to come back and walk with you when you are lost, and to love you no matter what you think you deserve or don’t deserve, no matter what you do or I do. I choose to love you more than anything we could do or say to each other. I love you, Nickolas Thomas James.”