Flowers//Elavan

~26~

The cold night air kissed her smooth, wet cheeks as her feet took her to places she that felt familiar. Liz didn't know where she was going or what she was doing but her legs kept going involuntarily as far as possible from her Tudor residence. She was growing tired and air was becoming more scarce by the second. Her lungs were craving more oxygen and her whole body ached to stop running.

As fast as she was running, the world around Liz seemed like it wasn't spinning at all. Earth stopped spinning on its axis and time pauses its never ending ticking to let Liz stay in the very second that pained her to the greatest extent. All the forces of the universe seemed to be punishing her for all the wrongdoings to ever exist.

Liz was no longer crying. She had run out of tears but the storm within her still hasn't settled. She was plummeting head first into whatever she was feeling right now.

She finds a small bench near a light post and realizes she was at the park that Avan and her used to go to when they were courting. The light created a shadow that kept her company in her solitude along with the wild flowers that laced around the bottom of the light post. Liz was alone but didn't feel even a little bit lonely, yet she wasn't happy keeping herself company. It bothered her that she had left her family.

Liz realized how much of a selfish person she was being. She knew what she did was beyond wrong especially since she had a sweet five-year-old daughter than needed her, but she just wanted to be alone. These undesirable pains and sorrows within her were resurfacing from all the times that her pre-amnesia self must have repressed them into her subconscious. She no longer wanted to run away from them, she had to face it.

Ironically, Liz had to run away to be able to face her turmoil head on.

Her hand shakily creeps under her shirt. A shiver runs up her spine as her belly was touched by the freezing cold. She caressed her abdomen like it was going to bring her child back.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers, staring out into the expanse. "I'm sorry I couldn't keep you."

She felt like she failed her unborn child. She couldn't even give him a chance to live in this world. The battles that she should have fought for her little Rafa were lost even before she could start sharpening her swords. It was unfair for her baby to not even get a fighting chance. One little glint of hope could have carried the pregnancy along but there was none to be found.

It wasn't Avan's fault, she realized. It was never his fault because he was only trying to do what was best for her. Even if he didn't allow them to terminate the pregnancy, the fetus still wouldn't have the chance to turn into a baby. Her fallopian tube could have possibly ruptured, ruining her chances of ever conceiving again.

But she needed someone to blame it on. It wasn't fair to blame it on Avan, so who was she to blame it on?

Her hand automatically squeezes hard on her abdomen and she doesn't even flinch at the pain. Liz felt like it was her fault now. It was her body that couldn't conceive the child right and her body that made it an ectopic pregnancy. So come to think of it, it was all her fault.

She thought it so cruel that Avan wouldn't even let her finish grieving for what she lost. He was cruel enough to hide it from her. And maybe it was just to protect her from all the pain that was ebbing away at her joyful spirit, but if pain was the only thing she could hold onto to keep Rafa's memory alive in her mind then let the rain pour.

Avan didn't have the right to keep this from her. Rafa was her child too even if she never got to hold him.

The soles of her shoes start to get a little damp from the due in the grass. Her eyes pan down to gaze at the little dandelions and clovers that grew against one of the legs of the bench. It kept her attention for a good minute before she shifted her gaze towards the vines of wild flowers wrapping around the light post.