Make Me Hate You

by Kandi Steiner

“This is me saying that I would set myself on fire to bring light to all of the dark places within you.”

the pain in that sigh told me that it mattered to him that I wasn’t okay — which mattered to me, more than he would ever know.

There was always something safe about Tyler.

Part of me wondered if I was the reason she turned to drugs so hard, if seeing me brought back that night of her life every day.

“You are spectacular, Jasmine Olsen,” he whispered. “Don’t you ever forget that.”

I didn’t know he would call me three days later and tell me it was all a mistake, that we could never tell anyone, that it could never happen again.

“Because I miss you. Because I have missed you, ever since the day you left. Because it kills me to be around you and not touch you, laugh with you, to not be engulfed with everything that you are.”

“Maybe, at the core of every human being, there’s a dark, hidden world. Maybe it’s not what we do for a living or our hobbies or our background or our family that makes us who we are, but rather what exists in that dark little world that no one sees.

wow

“You are my weakness, Jaz,” he husked. “You always have been.”

“It’s this thing that never was, but always is, that never will be and will never not be.”

“But all it took was one trip. One time coming back here — to this place, to you — and it’s so painfully clear that I wasn’t even close.”

“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.

And making a decision based on possible negative outcomes only puts fear in the driver’s seat of your life, my girl.”

His arms held another woman, but his gaze held me,

He and I, we weren’t just here and now. We were the past, the present, the future. We were other worlds and other universes, too.

But in the next breath, he released me completely, taking his shaky hands back to the wheel and his gaze back to the windshield.

So when the plane lifted off the tarmac and carried me west, I didn’t shed another tear. I smiled for what we had. And I promised myself to let go of what we never would.

“I came to get my girl.”

“This isn’t effortless love, but it is real love — and I refuse to let it slip through my fingers again.”

“Did you notice I was wearing sneakers?” he asked. “I was prepared to run you down and pin you to the ground, if I had to.”

“I think the rest of our lives won’t even be enough.” At that, Tyler kissed me, slow and soft and sure, and then he whispered, “Then let’s stay together forever after that, too.”

“I’ve always been hopeless when it comes to you.”