The Pain in Loving You

by Steiner, Kandi

  But here it was, latching onto me after years of chasing me, laughing and screaming, “Aha! Gotcha!”

  Jacob was quiet for a long time, but he nodded, chewing his lip as he digested what I’d said. “Okay,” he said after a while, his eyes finding mine. “Well, that’s okay. It’s okay that you feel this way. We all have pasts, things that hurt us, things we wish weren’t a part of us. But let me fight these demons with you. I can be the one you talk to about all of it. I can be the one to hold you through the pain.”

  My throat was so tight with emotion that I swore I wouldn’t be able to take another breath for as long as I lived. But I managed to swallow, to shake my head, to find his gaze again with a shaky breath. “I wish it were that easy, Jacob.”

  “It can be. If you let me in, it can be.”

  “I slept with Tyler last night.”

  Jacob’s head snapped back at the words, like I’d reached through the screen and slapped him.

  I might as well have.

  “I see.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I whispered, wishing I could reach out and touch him, but knowing I didn’t have the right to. “I wish I could tell you it was a mistake, that I regretted it, that it was never supposed to happen. But that would be a lie, and I can’t lie to you anymore. I can’t lie to myself anymore.”

  Something of a laugh came from Jacob’s nose. “So, you’re with him now? Is that your big plan to face your past — to fuck the guy who broke your heart?”

  I winced at the accusation, but I wasn’t angry.

  I deserved it.

  “No,” I whispered. “We’re not together. He… he has a girlfriend. And she’s here now. And…” I shook my head, because I was getting off on a tangent Jacob didn’t need to hear. “It was a mistake.”

  “You just said it wasn’t a mistake, so which is it?”

  I shook my head, squeezing my eyes shut and pressing my fingertips into my temple. “I don’t know. It was a mistake for him, but not for me. Or maybe not for him, either, but… Tyler and I can’t be together. Not now. We had our chance, and it didn’t work, and I refuse to break even more hearts than those that have already been broken.”

  “Except mine, right?” he asked with a scoff. “I guess I’m the collateral damage you don’t mind having in this whole situation?”

  “What else can I do?” I asked, stretching my arms out toward him. “Would you rather me have lied to you? Would you rather have gotten on that plane tomorrow and flown here and never known that I slept with the best man in the wedding? Would you rather me go home with you to California and just pretend these two weeks never happened, that I never woke up to all the shit I’ve been hiding from, that I didn’t completely change into someone I don’t even recognize anymore?”

  A long sigh left his chest, but the wrinkle between his brows softened, like when he weighed that option, he didn’t like it much either.

  “I’m so sorry, Jacob,” I cried. “I’m sorry I’m breaking your heart right now. I’m breaking mine, too. But I love you and respect you and care about you far too much to lie to you. I know it’s not easy to hear this, but I think not telling you would be worse. I think you deserve the truth. And I think you deserve a girl who loves you as fiercely as you love her, because you are the most amazing man,” I said, sniffing against a new wave of tears. “And I want you to be happy.”

  Jacob nodded, his eyes cast downward. “Just not with you, right?”

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to.

  But it still broke me all the same.

  Several minutes of silence passed, but I didn’t rush them. I didn’t try to talk more, because I’d said all that needed to be said, and I didn’t try to end the call, because my heart wanted to hold onto Jacob for as long as it could — as selfish as it was.

  When he finally looked at me again, he blew out a slow, steady breath, and nodded once. “Well, it doesn’t seem like I can change your mind, which is maybe what hurts most of all. In most cases, you have the chance to fight for the woman you love when things go south. But this would be a hopeless fight, wouldn’t it?”

  My nose stung, tears welling in my eyes.

  Another sigh left him. “What if I still come to the wedding?”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “I know you’re hurting. And as much as you’re breaking my fucking heart,” he choked on emotion with those words, and seeing how torn up he was killed me. “I don’t want you to go through this alone. Let me still fly in tomorrow. I’ll be your plus one, and no one has to know. Then we can fly home together and… I don’t know. We’ll figure it out from there.”

  Emotion surged through me again, but this time, it was mostly a sickening sense of unworthiness. How could this man be so good to me, still, even after all I’d confessed? He was still willing to get on a plane and fly out to me after what I’d done to him, just to help me, just to ease my pain.

  I shook my head, rolling my lips together as more tears slipped down my cheeks. I was convinced they’d never stop at this point.

  “No,” I whispered, but I smiled when I met his gaze again. “That is… the kindest, most selfless thing anyone has ever offered me, but I can’t let you do that. It wouldn’t be fair to you.”

  “I wouldn’t mind.”

  “You’d be able to be around Tyler, knowing we’d been intimate, without it hurting you?” I challenged.

  He didn’t have anything to say to that.

  I sighed, reaching out until my fingertips were on the screen. I traced the edges of his jaw, the fair blond of his hair. “I love you, Jacob,” I whispered. “And I am so thankful for the time we’ve had together. And more than anything, I am so sorry for the pain I’m causing. I just hope… I don’t know,” I confessed. “I hope one day we can…”

  “Don’t say it,” he said, shaking his head on a grimace. “Don’t tell me you want to be friends, Jaz.”

  I nodded, ashamed. “I’m sorry.”

  It was all I could offer, and it was absolutely nothing.

  “I love you, too, you know?” Jacob said after a long pause. “I hate that you’re doing this, but I could never hate you.” He sighed, shaking his head. “I’m going to miss you, sunshine.”

  My face twisted, and I nodded, my voice shaky through the emotion strangling me. “I’ll miss you, too.”

  “What are we going to tell our followers?”

  It was an attempt to make me laugh, and it worked, though it hurt where it left my chest as I swiped more tears away. “They might be more devastated than us.”

  “Never more than me,” Jacob whispered. “Never more than me.”

  It was just as painful the rest of the conversation, though neither of us said much more. We agreed to talk again when I was back home, and then we ended the call, and I felt just as bad as I predicted I would.

  No, I felt worse.

  I wanted to run, but if I went for a run, I’d have to shower. As it was, I still smelled like Tyler, and I didn’t want to wash him off yet. I was still marked by him, still covered in the remnants of his touch, his taste, his entire being.

  For one last night, I let myself wrap all of me up in all of him, slipping under the sheets with tears still staining my cheeks and my heart so heavy in my chest, I thought I’d never walk again.

  Thankfully, sleep pulled me under quickly, a merciful release.

  Though my dreams weren’t so kind.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “THERE SHE IS.”

  Aunt Laura dropped her beach bag in the sand next to my chair, opening her arms wide.

  There was barely a cloud in the sky, and it was one of those warm summer days on the Cape that had you sweating before noon. Everything was so bright — the sun, the sand, the reflection off the water, all the highlighter-colored swimsuits dotting the shoreline, the bright beach towels and chairs.

  Everything inside me was dark and shadowed, damp and cold, but on that warm stretch of beach the day before Morgan’s wedding, I could alm
ost forget about the empty cave inside my soul.

  Almost.

  My aunt was a sight for sore eyes, and after the last forty-eight hours I’d had, it was all I could do not to cry when I leapt out of my chair and hurled myself at her, letting her wrap me up tight.

  “I’ve missed you, too,” she said on a chuckle, pulling back to hold my arms in her hands. “See what happens when you come to New England and don’t make enough time for your poor aunt?”

  “Hey, it’s you who’s been the busy one with all your clients. Not my fault you have the most popular salon in the county.”

  “Says the one who’s been wrapped up in wedding planning.”

  “Can we just agree that we both suck and get to the part where we’re drinking fruity drinks and catching up on the beach?”

  Aunt Laura smiled at that, sliding her oversized reflective sunglasses down her nose enough to waggle her brows at me from under her floppy hat. “Now that’s a plan I can get behind.”

  I smiled, helping her get settled in the chair to the left of mine.

  The chair to the right of mine was where Morgan was set up, and Azra was right beside her. I’d spent most of the morning listening to them talk about Azra’s childhood, which was annoyingly fascinating, since she’d fled from Turkey with her parents when she was just four years old. Presently, however, Morgan was somewhere talking to one of the many wedding guests gathered on the beach, and Azra was with Mrs. Wagner at the beach bar, giving me a much-needed break.

  I’d learned a lot about Azra in the past two days.

  She was the center of attention the day she showed up unexpectedly, and the universe still seemed to revolve around her the entire next day, too. I wanted to keep my distance from her, but it seemed everything Morgan wanted me to help with for the wedding, Azra was involved, too.

  Because of our close proximity, I’d listened as she told riveting stories of her modeling gigs, her travels abroad, the obscene amount of free products she received all the time. “You should totally come visit sometime and shop my closet!” she’d offered me. “We’re practically the same size, and you’re so gorgeous. I can already picture a hundred dresses and bags and shoes I have that would look amazing on you.”

  I wanted to hate her. I wanted to be annoyed by her voice, by her perfect, long, dark hair, by her slender frame and long, lean legs. I wished she was a bitch. I wished she would glare at me and claim Tyler whenever I came near, wrapping her arms around him and planting a kiss on him to threaten me away.

  But she didn’t.

  In fact, she was spending most of her time with Morgan, which told me more about her than anything else could have. She cared about Morgan like she was already family. She wanted to make this weekend about her — as it should be.

  If anything, she was doing a better job than I was, and I wondered if Morgan wished it was Azra standing behind her as maid of honor.

  What was worse, I knew in my gut that she didn’t feel the need to claim Tyler when he was in the same room as me, to thread her arm through his or kiss him passionately or brag about their travels together.

  Because she wasn’t threatened by me.

  She wasn’t threatened by anyone.

  And while I had spent the last two days trying to hate Azra and finding it impossible, Tyler seemed to be doing everything he could to avoid me.

  It was what I’d asked for. It was what the last words I’d exchanged with him had made perfectly clear. The one night we shared would be all we’d ever had, and there was nothing left to say.

  So why did it break my heart that he was leaving me alone, just like I’d asked?

  Gone were the longing looks, the passing touches, the jokes or memories of our childhood days.

  He might as well have been a stranger to me, another guest of the wedding who I’d yet to formally meet.

  “Oh, man, do I need this,” Aunt Laura said once she was settled in her chair. She stretched out her toes where they rested in the sand, leaning back with a wide smile on her face. And when one of the servers hired for the welcome party delivered her a piña colada with a little orange umbrella in it, she lit up like the Fourth of July.

  I smiled, and it was the first real smile I’d felt stretch my lips in days. “I’m really glad you’re here,” I told her, and I meant every word. I didn’t realize how lonely I had been in a house full of people, how isolated I’d felt — not until she held me in her arms.

  “Me, too, Jazzy Girl.” She made an exaggerated ahhh noise after her first sip of her drink, and then she frowned. “Where’s Jacob?”

  I was thankful for the aviators covering my eyes when she asked that question, because I knew they’d have given me away. Thankfully, I didn’t have time to answer before Morgan bounded over and wrapped Aunt Laura in a giant hug.

  “You made it!”

  “The party has arrived,” my aunt said, thrusting her drink into the air before taking a big sip.

  “Does that mean you’ll take shots with me later?”

  Aunt Laura clicked her tongue. “You’ve got a wedding tomorrow, little girl. I’m not going to be the one responsible for dark bags under your eyes after a day of binge drinking.”

  “Excuses, excuses,” Morgan teased, but then she opened the lid of her customized white Thermos that said bride in delicate script on the side, showing the contents to both me and my aunt. “Just water for me today,” she whispered, holding her finger to her lips once she’d replaced the lid.

  Aunt Laura cheersed her, and then Morgan reached down for my hand. “Walk with me? I have some things to go over for tomorrow.”

  It was a normal request, seeing as how it was the day before her wedding and I was the maid of honor. But the way she said it, the way her lips twisted to the side as she stretched out her hand for mine had my stomach dropping.

  “Sure,” I answered, taking her hand to help me up. I assured Aunt Laura I’d be back, and she arched a brow, sipping her piña colada in a way that told me I wasn’t going to get away without answering the question she’d asked me before Morgan slid in to save me.

  Once I was up, Morgan threaded her arm through mine, and we walked toward the water, turning to the left once we hit the edge of it. The sea lapped at our bare feet as we walked, and once we were far enough away from the wedding party and all her out-of-town guests, she let out a long sigh.

  “I hate having conversations like this.”

  I chuckled. “Uh-oh. Am I fired? Are you giving my job to Azra?”

  It was a joke, but I didn’t miss the hurt in Morgan’s expression when she turned to me. “I would never. Is that what this is about? Are you feeling threatened by her? I love her, Jazzy, but she’s not you. You’re my best friend in the whole world.”

  “Uh… I’m not threatened by Azra,” I lied, but it came out so easily and effortlessly that I even convinced myself a little. “I was joking. But clearly, you’re not. So, what’s going on?”

  She sighed, watching her feet as we walked. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on, and honestly, I don’t really have the mental capacity to go over it right now — not with my wedding tomorrow. But Jacob isn’t here, and I can tell Azra makes you uncomfortable, and you and my brother keep looking at each other like the other one is responsible for poisoning your puppy.”

  I gulped, heart racing in my chest more and more with every word she said.

  She could see right through me.

  Morgan pulled us to a stop, folding her arms across her chest. “I know I’ve been pushing you two to be friends, you and Ty,” she said, shaking her head like this was all her fault. “And I’m sorry for that. I guess I just really hoped you guys could put the past behind you and have a friendship. I wanted what we had when we were kids.” She laughed under her breath. “Silly, I know.”

  My heart squeezed. “It’s not silly, Morgan,” I assured her.

  “Well, regardless, I can tell there’s still bad blood between you two. And maybe part of that is my fault. I don’t kn
ow…” She blew out a breath, and I waited for her to go on down that path, to bring up what happened after my mom left, after Tyler and I crossed that line that we could never uncross.

  But she didn’t.

  She shoved her sunglasses up into her short hair, leaving them on her head so I could see her eyes.

  “Look, I know it’s all complicated. And I don’t need to know everything in this moment. Right now, what I do need, is my maid of honor. And my brother. Tomorrow is the most important day of my life, Jaz,” she said, smiling as her eyes filled with emotion. “And I’m counting on both of you to be there — really be there.”

  I swallowed, looking down the beach at where everyone was still gathered. My gaze caught on Tyler, who was standing at the edge of the shore with his father, lost in conversation.

  “So, please,” Morgan begged when I looked back at her. “Whatever is going on, figure it out.”

  I sighed, taking her hands in mine where we stood. “Morgan, I’m here. Okay? I promise. I know tomorrow is your day, and I love you and Oliver so much. I’m honored to be the one standing by your side. And I promise, everything is fine. Okay? Yes, there have been some… complications,” I admitted. “Between me and Ty. But we’re both here for you, and you’re what is most important. I feel that way, and I promise you, he does, too.”

  She nodded, her little mouth pulling to one side. “Thank you.”

  I smiled, pulling her in for a hug before we made our way back down the beach. She was instantly back in wedding mode, going over our agenda for the next day as we walked, and she steered us right toward where her brother and father were standing, no matter how subtly I tried to turn us.

  When we made it to them, Morgan pulled her dad away on the pretense of needing him to fix a situation with the drinks that were available to the guests, but she gave me a pressing look over her shoulder as she left me alone with Tyler.