she had been living for Jeremy. She had built walls around her heart for many years to shield herself from the searing hurt of his abandonment. Once again today, those safeguards

d as a muscle in his sculpted jaw ticked. " Assuming that you had told me - " " told you?" She cut in, yelling angrily and indignantly. "I tried, Michael." God understands that I tried. But you disappeared without a trace, always like you did whenever things become too real for you. Long lengths of suppressed indignation and hurt at last tracked down by the words came pouring forward. You answered neither my calls nor my texts. Not even a bit. When I at last located you, your assistant told me you had said you did not want to interact with anyone else." Michael's attitude changed, a gleam of sensitivity neglecting his elements. He whispered, low in voice, "I never said that." Elizabeth shook her head while still crying. "These days, it makes no difference. The damage was done. I had to gather the fragments and start a fresh life for my child and myself without your. To guard against the flow of recollections, she inhaled quiveringly. "Do you find it hard? Trying to make ends meet, raising a child alone, and bearing the weight of your rejection?" Michael moved toward her again, his hands extended in a soothing gesture. "ELizabeth, Please find my apologies here. Assuming I had known - " She sobbed, her voice breaking with passion, "Be that as it may, you didn't have any idea!" "Moreover, whose owner that problem is? It was you who departed, that disappeared out of nowhere. Michael, you decided on it; I had to live with the outcomes. Tears spilled down her cheeks and she angrily swiped them away. " You know I loved you. Respected you with every thread of my existence. And you disposed of everything as though it were nothing." Michael had a sad regretful expression and his eyes were full of ghosts of the past. His voice thick with emotion, he said, "I never intended to hurt you." Elizabeth shook her head, a mirthless laugh escaping her lips. As it happens, Michael, you did. I have suffered in ways I never could have predicted. She ignored, unable to handle his weight any more. "I feel you should leave." Michael stayed still for a good length of time, and unspoken words filled the air. He turned then and left the room with a barely perceptible nod, leaving Elizabeth alone with the echoes of her broken dreams. Elizabeth let the tears run freely in the silence that followed, her body quivering from the cries she had stashed for far too long. As the weight of her loss, anger, and despair sank heavily on her, a tidal wave of feeling threatened to swallow her. She gasped for oxygen. As the fury within her slowly passed, she felt something in the doorway