Lost to You by - (book club books .TXT) 📕

There was no stopping the sob from breaking free. It came as an offensive echo around the room.

I wanted to stop it, go back and change it, but it was too late. The damage already done.

I’d stumbled.

Fallen.

Considering how I felt, I should have known better than to let Christian through my door.

At the party, I’d been hit with the magnitude of how deep my affections ran. Wrapped up in how bad that realization stung, it’d left me vulnerable.

The knock on my door had jarred my hopes, flamed the fear, and stoked my need.

I’d hesitated, quieted my breaths, self-preservation kicking in. I’d silently willed him to walk away while my heart begged him to stay.

My rational side had little chance. The second knock beckoned me forward, and I’d peered through the peephole at the man who held me in the palm of his hand.

Fingers shaking, I’d unlocked the door, insecurity slowing my movements as I cracked the door to stare out at Christian.

Lines of anger had twisted his face, and I’d stopped short, confused and sad and relieved. It left me unable to comprehend the conflict he incited in me.

He’d pushed through, and the room had filled with his presence, the air so heavy that I should have seen it as a warning and not as the comfort that came plundering through my senses.

When his warm lips had caressed my neck, it’d almost been too much, and I’d been seconds from surrendering. A panicked voice inside me cried out to stop, to defend my heart, because I was already in far too deep, and I managed to rip myself from the grip I was falling victim to.

I’d spun around with an accusation perched on my lips and stopped dead.

There had been no surfacing from the flood that was Christian Davison because he’d been looking at me as if he felt the same.

Now my body shook and tingled with his residual, this consuming desire coursing through my blood, mingling with this vast depth of misery.

I would have given myself to him.

Offered what I guarded and protected.

Because to me, it was never a game. It was never supposed to be the fumble of a good time.

It was devotion—an act of adoration—something I’d been so foolish to waste before.

It wouldn’t have been wasted on Christian. Yet it still would have destroyed me.

I shook my head as I made my way back to the stove, my movements jerky as I flipped off the burner. I shoved the burning pot back to an empty burner.

Anger burned my insides.

God, I felt so angry.

His words had slashed me straight to the core, crushed and cut. They were all the confirmation I needed to know how easily he could devastate me.

Low, mocking laughter tumbled from my mouth.

He already had . . . because I’d let him.

And I had no idea what I was supposed to do now.

Sleep came in sporadic bouts. I tossed through the daze that tormented the night.

Never had I felt so alone.

New York had once been my fairy tale. Now it felt like a place to escape. Lazy light seeped through the small window, and I rolled to my stomach, trying to press the memories of the night before from my mind.

I didn’t want to remember.

I didn’t want to feel.

I’d been ignoring my phone all morning. It’d rung at least five times, then bleeped with voicemails that just seemed to break my heart a little more.

When it rang again, I gave up and stretched out to retrieve it from the floor.

It wasn’t the number I was expecting, though. Not another apology from Christian that I knew was truly sincere, but still could do nothing to make up for the fact that he didn’t feel what I wanted him to.

No.

Instead, it was my older sister.

Still lying in bed, I accepted the call. I tried to clear the roughness from my voice. “Hey, Sarah.”

“Are you okay?” she immediately asked.

Apparently, I hadn’t done a very good job.

“Yeah, I just woke up.”

“Oh . . . sorry for waking you . . . but . . .” Excitement bled through her concern for me. I pictured her bouncing as she stood next to the phone in the small kitchen of the home she’d purchased with her new husband just the year before. “I have some really good news.”

I sat up a bit and drew my knees to my chest. Resting one elbow on a knee, I propped my head up in my hand. I forced what I was feeling aside.

Sarah was always so direct, a good listener filled with even better advice, but her mood rarely fluctuated from her mild manner. I knew whatever she’d called to tell me was important.

“What is it?”

“You’re going to be an aunt.”

Her news shifted through me, wound with the sadness, affixed as a plaintive smile on my lips.

A dense weight welled up inside, filled with both light and heavy.

Distinct happiness laced with what Christian had left me with.

“Oh my gosh, Sarah, I can’t believe you’re going to be a mom. Are you excited?”

She laughed. “Can’t you tell?”

“Um, yeah, I think it’s pretty obvious,” I said, warmth and joy for her filling my tone.

“So . . .” I hedged, not sure how to phrase it. They’d planned on waiting, establishing their lives and their home before they had children.

I think she expected my unvoiced question. “It was totally an accident, but after the shock wore off, I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.”

Her happy sigh was tangible in the distance. Again, I pictured her in her kitchen, but this time with a tender hand resting on her belly.

“I’m so happy for you.” I was doing my best at hiding my own turmoil. I didn’t want to taint this moment.

Compared to this news, my issues were so trivial.

Still, it was hard to hide it.

“What’s going on, Liz?”

“Nothing,” I rushed out the obvious lie.

“Don’t give me that. You think I can’t tell when you’re upset?”

My entire family was close, Sarah and I especially so.

Five years older than me, she’d always been my confidant, my defender. She was the one to softly assert she was concerned I might be making a mistake, encouraging me to slow down and think it through, and my biggest supporter whenever I hesitated to try, afraid I would fail.

A strangled groan rose up from my mouth. I flopped with my back to the bed, rubbing my eye with the heel of my hand.

“This has to be about a boy . . . Only a man can make that sound come from a woman.”

I knew this was Sarah’s attempt at lightening the mood while broaching the subject, but it felt too heavy, too much.

“Is it that Christian guy who always seems to be invading your space every time I talk to you?”

I bit my lip as unwelcomed tears filled my eyes.

“Liz?”

I tried to hold it back, but a choked sob rumbled up and tore from my throat.

Uncontainable.

Unstoppable.

It hurt as it scraped through.

Silence stretched across the line before Sarah finally spoke. “Oh, God, Liz . . . you’re in love with him.”

It wasn’t a question.

It was a statement.

She had this intuition about her. She’d been the one who’d seen through my feelings for Ryan, that as much as I’d illusioned myself with being in love with him, I never had been. I wasn’t surprised she could easily tell when I really was.

Hearing those words voiced aloud ripped and tugged, taunted me for being such a fool.

I couldn’t blame Christian. This was all on me.

From the start, I’d known what he was like, yet I’d pushed it, invited him into my life. As if that smile wouldn’t worm its way into my heart. As if the kindness I saw in the depths of those blue eyes wasn’t going to turn me inside out.

Change everything—who I was and what I wanted.

And what I wanted was him.

She remained silent for a few minutes and just let me cry.

“Liz.” Sympathy rolled from my sister’s tongue, quiet understanding. “I hate that you’re all the way over there and I can’t hug you right now.”

A small jolt of laughter made its way through my tears. “I wish you were here, too. I miss you so much.”

Sniffling, I wiped my eyes with the sleeve of my sweatshirt. I