The Pain in Loving You

by Steiner, Kandi

  Tyler was the only one not laughing.

  But his arm was around Azra’s waist — making them the third happy couple to complete the family.

  His eyes locked on mine, and time stopped, my heart halting along with it before it kicked back to life so hard, I swore my ribcage would break from the force of it.

  I wasn’t sure how long we stood there, staring at each other, everyone else smiling and laughing, but it felt like a lifetime.

  It felt like years of regret, like decades of longing, like centuries of wrong decisions and missed opportunities and fucked-up timing.

  It felt like everything we wanted being just out of reach, and both of us realizing at the same time that we were fools for ever thinking we could run fast enough to catch it.

  “Oh! Jazzy!”

  Morgan’s voice shook me from my spell, and I blinked just as she flew to me, wrapping me in a hug.

  “Good morning, my amazing maid of honor,” she said, squeezing me before she pulled back. Then, she frowned, touching the left side of my neck. “What happened here.”

  I was still looking at Tyler as my hands floated up to where Morgan had touched, and I swallowed. “Curling iron.”

  Morgan tilted her head, narrowing her eyes at the spot before she shrugged and smiled again like she hadn’t been distracted at all. “Look who took a red-eye into Boston to surprise us this morning!”

  Morgan turned to Azra then, who was watching me with a genuine, beautiful smile. Her entire face lit up at the sight of me, like she really had been so excited for the moment we’d get to meet, and in one sweeping motion, she was around the kitchen island and pulling me into a hug.

  She was elegance and grace, tall and lean and tan with a face straight out of a high-fashion magazine. Her eyebrows were thick and perfectly shaped, her lashes long and dark, and even without a single speck of makeup on, she was effortlessly and naturally stunning — the kind of gorgeous that steals your breath and makes you stop and stare.

  Her citrus scent surrounded me as we hugged — or rather, as she hugged me and I stood there awkwardly, trying to act normal but finding it impossible to do so. And when she pulled back, she held my arms in her hands with a smile as big as her face.

  “It’s so lovely to finally meet you, Jasmine!” she said, and the flares of her slight Turkish accent somehow made her even more beautiful. “I’ve heard so much about you from Morgan and from Mr. and Mrs. Wagner. It just fills my heart with joy that we’re able to finally meet, and under such wonderful circumstances.”

  She turned to Morgan then, and they smiled lovingly at each other before all eyes were on me.

  Shit.

  I forced the best smile I could muster, “It’s so nice to meet you, too. I…”

  Slept with your boyfriend last night? Have been in love with him since I was fourteen? Was just thinking about how and when he would break up with you?

  “I can’t wait to get to know you better,” I landed on, my stomach cramping with the lie.

  Azra beamed, and then Amanda was asking her about her latest modeling gig, and Oliver was excusing himself to go take her bags upstairs for her. I expected Tyler to offer to help, but he was too busy staring at me.

  I glanced at him before clearing my throat and grabbing a muffin off the counter and a bottle of water from the fridge.

  “I’m going to go get showered and cleaned up and I’ll be back down,” I said, mostly to Morgan, who nodded and smiled before jumping right back into the conversation with Azra and her mother.

  Then my eyes found Tyler’s, and he said nothing, but his eyes screamed a million different things.

  I didn’t know.

  I meant what I said.

  I’m sorry.

  I could never be sure, though, if those were his thoughts — because as stoic as he was, as he always was, it was impossible to tell if he still meant every word he said upstairs, or if Azra being in the kitchen had slapped him into reality again.

  The word mistake filled me like black smoke, and I tore my eyes from his, running up the stairs before the first tear could fall.

  • • •

  The door to my room flew open moments after I slammed it shut.

  “Jasmine, please,” Tyler said, desperation in his voice as he glanced down the hallway before quietly closing my door behind him. His eyes were wide and filled with pity when they found me again. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.”

  He’d lowered his voice to a whisper, and that alone told me everything I needed to know.

  He was trying to be sneaky.

  He was trying to hide what was being said.

  To hide me.

  To hide us.

  I covered my mouth with one hand, shaking my head as I turned toward the balcony and away from where he stood.

  “Don’t be sorry,” I finally said, forcing a breath and sniffing against the urge to cry. “I mean, what did we really expect?”

  I turned to him then, and maybe I expected him to answer, but he didn’t.

  “We… we fucked up. We made a mistake.” That word burned both of us — I knew because I felt it like hot coals under my ribs, and I didn’t miss the way Tyler flinched when I said it.

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “I do,” I said, sniffing again with a certain nod. “I do. Your sister is getting married in three days. Okay? You and I are in that wedding. Your plus one is downstairs in the kitchen, and mine will be here tomorrow.”

  That last part was a lie, and I knew it, but Tyler didn’t. For all he knew, everything between me and Jacob was still fine, and I was still taken just as much as he was.

  I needed to hammer that home.

  Because if anything was clear to me now, it was that I understood why Tyler did what he did when we were younger. I understood why he listened to his sister, why he made the difficult choice to tell me we couldn’t be together, that he was sorry, that it shouldn’t have happened.

  He did it because he loved me.

  He did it because he knew I wasn’t okay, not after my mom left, and he didn’t want to take advantage of me. He didn’t want to hurt me.

  He made the hard decision for me, for us, because he knew it was the right thing to do.

  And it was my turn to return the favor.

  “Azra is…” I smiled, turning to face him. “She’s amazing. And I know she makes you happy, makes your family happy.”

  “Jasmine—”

  “Let me finish, okay?” I folded my arms over my chest, looking at the ocean like it’d give me the words I needed. “I love you, Tyler.”

  I heard the sharp exhale leave him when I spoke those words out loud, and I winced when I turned and found his face twisted with emotion.

  “I do,” I whispered, smiling a little as my eyes filled with tears. “I love you so much it kills me. But you and I… we had our chance, and we didn’t take it. For whatever reason, it was never in the cards for us to be together. Okay?”

  He shook his head, taking a step toward me, but I put up one hand to stop him.

  God, if he touches me, I’ll never get this out.

  “You and I both know we can’t… we can’t…” I shook my head, something of a smile or a grimace warping my face. “We would break so many hearts. Jacob’s. Azra’s. Your sister’s, your parents’. For what? For our own selfish desires to feed a hunger we’ve starved for seven years?”

  Tyler’s eyes welled with tears, and the sight of him so emotional nearly made me hit my knees. I sucked in a breath, looking up to the ceiling, to the ocean, to the bed where we’d made love just hours before, and then finally, to him again.

  “Last night was amazing. I will never forget it.” My chest squeezed. “But that’s all it can be. One night. And we need to put it all to bed.”

  Tyler watched me for the longest time, and I saw every single emotion pass over his face in waves — pain, anger, hurt, sorrow, longing, regret. I wasn’t sure which one settled in deepest as his face leveled out, and
his jaw ticked, his eyes hard on mine.

  “So, that’s it, then?” he asked. “That’s all you want to say to me right now?”

  I love you.

  I need you.

  Please, be with me. Choose me. Fuck everyone else.

  I don’t care who we hurt.

  I don’t care as long as it’s us in the end.

  I shrugged, wiping away the fresh tears on my cheeks with a whisper. “I don’t know what else there is to say.”

  Tyler tongued his cheek, looking out the window with nostrils wide and brows bent together so fiercely that the line between them was visible even across the room. He nodded, just barely, and then his eyes found me again.

  He took a step — toward me, into me — but then he stopped.

  The air zipped white hot with electricity and poison, with a warning that one false step would demolish everything.

  Tyler’s eyes searched mine, like he was waiting for more, but there was nothing more to be said or be done or be undone.

  It was what it was.

  And we both knew it.

  Maybe there was a part of me that hoped he’d say I was wrong. Maybe I held onto that hope like the string of a balloon, thinking he’d take me in his arms, call me crazy for ever thinking he would give me up after last night, and then he’d kiss me and we’d walk downstairs hand in hand and tell everyone what we’d done — consequences be damned.

  Maybe I was waiting for him to be the knight in shining armor.

  But this wasn’t a fairy tale.

  And Tyler wasn’t my prince.

  One stiff inhale broke the silence between us, and Tyler swallowed hard, glancing out the window and then at me one final time before he turned and flew through my door, not bothering to be quiet when he pulled it shut behind him.

  And I fell to my knees, letting out a guttural cry at the devastating pain of losing him again.

  As if I’d ever really had him, at all.

  Chapter Sixteen

  THE REST OF THE day was an out-of-body experience.

  I wasn’t sure how I managed it — getting off the floor, getting dressed, putting on makeup, curling my hair. It seemed like someone else had jumped in my body and taken over, that it was someone else entirely spending the day with Morgan and Azra, putting reception party favors together, getting manicures and pedicures, going over last-minute to-do items before the welcome party.

  The person running the show was managing to smile, and asked Azra about her life, and laughed with Morgan, and dutifully avoided Tyler — which wasn’t hard, since he and his father were running errands around town all day.

  But inside, I was still just the girl on the floor, arms wrapped around her legs, tears staining her face, heart shattered into a million pieces.

  I knew the decision I’d made for me and Tyler both was the right thing to do. I knew it, deep in my gut. Azra was practically already a part of the family, and before I’d shown up in Bridgechester, she’d been Tyler’s whole world.

  How could I ruin that?

  How could I even ask him to make that choice, one that I knew would kill me, if I were in his shoes?

  I wondered, idly, if this was how Tyler felt all those years ago. If when he’d told me he hadn’t meant to sleep with me, that it couldn’t happen again, that it was a mistake… was he burning on the inside? Was there someone else driving his body while he curled up on the floor of his soul, too?

  It didn’t matter.

  Nothing did.

  I just had to hold on, to keep myself together and get through the wedding.

  Then, I could go home to California and figure out what came next.

  But, before that, before anything, I had to call Jacob.

  It was late when I finally went upstairs for the night, even though everyone else was still downstairs laughing and drinking and enjoying each other’s company. I blamed a headache when I excused myself, and with Azra being there, no one even really batted an eye at me leaving.

  Not even Tyler, who simply sipped from his glass of whiskey, keeping his eyes on the table when I stood and said I was going to head upstairs.

  I changed into an oversized t-shirt and boy shorts once I was alone, climbing into the bed that still smelled like Tyler with my laptop and a giant knot in my stomach. Again, I knew I was doing the right thing — but just because it was right didn’t make it any easier.

  I was going to break Jacob’s heart, which was worse than breaking my own.

  There was nothing left to wait for, nothing I could prepare to say or do to make the fall any easier for either one of us. I just had to accept responsibility for my actions, and the consequences that came with them.

  Jacob’s face filled the screen of my laptop, and when he saw me, he flashed me the biggest smile. That smile hit me like a drop from a twenty-story building, my stomach hurdling with the fall, but I managed a tilt of my own lips in return.

  “Hey there, gorgeous,” he greeted, settling back in his chair and adjusting his screen. He was outside on his balcony, the last bit of sunlight casting a golden glow on his face. “How’s my girl tonight?”

  I closed my eyes at the words, and though I’d sworn there were no tears left in me to cry, I felt them stinging at my nose. I shook my head against them, but already, my lips were warping with the resistance, my heart aching and burning and begging for me to let the emotion out.

  “Jasmine?”

  I let out a long, slow exhale before I opened my eyes, which were blurred by tears I couldn’t fight back no matter how I tried. And Jacob leaned forward, his brows tugging together hard as he searched my face.

  “What happened, baby? What’s wrong?”

  Where do I start?

  I didn’t know how to tell him everything I needed to, what to say first, how to get him to possibly understand what I had experienced since I’d been back in New England. No one could fully comprehend it, because not even I could — and it was me it was happening to.

  There was only one way to do this, I decided, and that was to rip off the Band-Aid.

  So, I sucked in one last shaky breath, and then I prepared myself for the burn.

  “Jacob… I’m sorry…” I whispered the words, shaking my head as I watched his face morph from concerned to confused to a distant and horrible understanding in one breath.

  I knew just from the way he was watching me that I didn’t have to say the words.

  He already knew.

  Jacob inhaled a long, deep breath, running his fingers through his hair before he sat back in his chair on a huff. His eyes were cast somewhere in the distance, and he was silent for a long while before he looked at the screen again. “It’s him, isn’t it?”

  That was all it took for me to break.

  I whimpered against the sob threatening to tear free from my chest, covering my mouth with both hands and squeezing my eyes shut, but not before more hot tears slid down my cheeks. I shook my head, over and over, wishing none of it was true, wishing this moment wasn’t real, wishing I could go back in time to two weeks ago and never get on the plane that brought me back to the place I’d been running from.

  But I knew that even if I went back, I’d choose this — over and over, time and time again.

  As much as it hurt, as much as I wanted to wake from this dream, I’d have done anything to have the night I had with Tyler last night.

  Even if it was all we’d ever have.

  “Jasmine, open your eyes and talk to me,” Jacob commanded, his voice harsh. “You at least owe me that.”

  I sucked in a breath, shoving it out forcefully as I swiped at my cheeks and nodded. “I know,” I said, finding his eyes on the screen. “I know. You deserve an explanation. You deserve so much, Jacob… and I’m just so sorry that I can’t be the one to give it to you.”

  “You could be,” he argued.

  “No,” I said quickly, shaking my head. “No, I couldn’t. I’ve been running from this place, from what happened here, for my entire life. I ne
ver faced it head on. I never dealt with my feelings… with any of it.”

  The words I thought I didn’t have poured out of me, as if I was realizing everything in real time.

  “My mother left me in Bridgechester. First, for rehab, and then, for a boyfriend and a cross-country move to a new life. My father was a monster, a rapist, a dark shadow that has followed me my entire life. And I’ve let him, because the alternative was too hard. The alternative was to turn around and face him, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t face him, or her, or everything that I left behind here.”

  I sniffed against more tears building, looking at my fingers tangled in my lap.

  “And Tyler…”

  Just saying his name made my heart shrink in on itself, and every muscle in my face constricted, making me cover it as another wave of emotion rolled over me. When I finally caught my breath, I looked at Jacob, and bless him, he was watching me with furrowed brows not born of anger — but of pain, of sorrow, of understanding.

  “I loved him, Jacob,” I admitted. “I still do.”

  Jacob swallowed hard but didn’t say a word.

  “And I know I’ve told you a little about my past, about how I’ve had my heart broken, how I was hesitant to trust. I told you there was a boy here who had torn me in two, and that I never wanted to come back here. But I never told you why. I never told you who. And I think you and I both know it was because there was still a part of me that held onto Tyler, to this place, to my past that I thought could maybe still be my future. I never wanted to come back here, but then again, I never imagined a possibility that I wouldn’t. It’s like Bridgechester is a black hole, and no matter how hard I fight it, it will pull me back time and time again.” I bit my lip, vision blurring. “I think… I think until I face everything that happened here, every source of pain, every scar that was made… I’ll never be able to move forward.”

  It was the worst admission for someone like me, someone who spent every ounce of energy running from the things that cause pain as opposed to facing them. I was so afraid of getting sucked down into a dark depression and never being able to escape it that I was just always running, staying busy, throwing myself into work and travel and filling my life with fun and joy, pretending like the past never happened.