Make Me Hate You

by Kandi Steiner

I’d woken with the determination to stay far away from Tyler, to let him go, to let the past go. And instead, I’d been forced to walk down the aisle to him, to pretend to be his bride, to let him take my hands in his and stare into my eyes and not say a single word but say everything I’d ever wanted to hear, too. It was impossible in that moment to not picture it, to not wonder what it could have been like, what we could have been like. And it knifed me open, right down the middle, spilling my guts with irreparable damage. I sucked in a harsh breath, running faster, as if that would help me. But as soon as I took three more steps, my mind was wandering again — this time, to the rehearsal dinner, where I’d sat at the restaurant with Morgan and her family, and I’d been a slave to the fantasy of what it would be like to really be a part of it. To be Jasmine Wagner. To be Morgan’s sister-in-law. To be Tyler’s wife. I couldn’t escape the whirlwind of what ifs as I sat there, eating and laughing, listening to Morgan tell Oliver stories about me and her and Tyler growing up. Robert teased me. Amanda offered me the last cheddar roll in the bread basket, because she knew they were my favorite. And Tyler sat across from me, his hand around a glass of scotch, a lazy, content smile on his face as he listened and chimed in on our childhood stories. It didn’t matter that he didn’t talk directly to me. It seemed he was doing the same thing I was, trying to put distance between us, to blo...