Make Me Hate You

by Kandi Steiner

“I don’t… I don’t understand. What are you saying, Tyler?” The right side of his mouth crooked up, and he stepped even closer, his hands sliding up my arms, over my neck, cupping my jaw and framing my face with his eyes flicking back and forth between mine. “I’m saying that you are spectacular, Jasmine Olsen, and that I love you with everything that I am.” He pressed his forehead to mine, and my hands wrapped around his wrists, holding him tight. “Please, come home. Come back to New Hampshire. Come back with me.” Then, he pulled back, his eyes catching mine again. “Be with me.” An ecstasy like nothing I’d ever felt before in my life washed over me like a tidal wave, sucking me under, stealing my next breath and any words I could have said in return. So, I wrapped my arms around his neck, and I tilted my chin, and I said yes with every single piece of me. I said yes with my hands in his hair, with my lips warm against his, with my heart and soul that had been plucked out of me years ago and given to him, wrapped in a little gold bow. I said yes with a promise to never let anything stand between us again. I said yes with fear behind me, beneath me, unable to touch me again. I said yes with an ache that seared as much as it filled, that broke as much as it mended, that told me more than anything that there was no other option but this one. I was his. And he was mine. Tyler wrapped his arms full around me, pulling me into him so fiercely that my back arched, and I felt that em...