Make Me Hate You

by Kandi Steiner

I didn’t know what it was to be wanted so desperately that each kiss felt like a fire searing every inch of skin covering my bones. I didn’t know what it was to tremble and shake, to be lowered back into pillows and sheets with hands so careful and confident that every other thought left my head completely. I didn’t know what it was to feel a mixture of extreme passion and somehow familiar safety all at once, to succumb to something so forbidden, and to love it like nothing I’d ever loved before.

I looked into the eyes of the man I didn’t know, of the boy I used to know better than anyone, of the friend I’d lost. Of the friend who’d hurt me.

It meant nothing to him that he’d made me feel more loved than I ever had in my entire life right after I’d convinced myself love wasn’t real, and then he’d ripped it away the very next day, taking everything I cherished along with it.

“I also discovered today that I am a terrible person,” I whispered into the microphone. “I guess we all are, aren’t we? At least, when we really break ourselves down to the molecular level. When we push aside all the sunshine and bullshit, and look good and hard at who we are, at the decisions we make, at the things we feel — things we would never say out loud or confess to anyone else.”

“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. And we can’t ever show it to anyone — not to our best friend or our family or our significant other — because we know in our gut that if anyone ever saw what truly existed there, they’d run. They’d run and curse us and scream at us to stay far, far away.”

Every new beat of my heart was a flash of memory, of a past life, searing through me like hot sparks as I gripped him tighter. I saw what once was, what maybe could have been, and more than anything, what never was.

That was then, and this is now. Still… it felt like he did know me, like I knew him, like no matter how much time and distance had passed between us, we would always be connected in a way that nothing would ever be fully hidden from the other.

I couldn’t be just friends with him. And I couldn’t be more. Which meant we only had one option of what we could be. Nothing. And that word sank into my skin like a tattoo with each new mile we drove, until I could no longer ignore it or pretend it wasn’t true.

“Don’t,” I warned, shaking my head. “Come here.” “Please, don’t touch me.” “How can I not?” he asked, stepping toward me with purpose. “You’re hurting, and it’s killing me, and I don’t know how to fix it other than to pull you into me and try to shield you from whatever it is that’s bringing you pain.” “It’s you!”

It had always been him. It had always been us. And that kiss — that passionate, painful, bruising kiss told me that he knew it, too.

How was it so heartbreaking to look at him, and yet so intoxicating, too? How was there still hope and want and longing simmering deep in my belly as I watched him, when all the signs pointed to us being nothing but toxic for each other? How could we ever be together? How could we ever be apart?

We were shackled to each other like prisoners, but if someone handed one of us the key, we’d hide it and pretend we never had any other option.

With his arms around me, I could do anything. With his arms around me, everything was whole. His arms were my home.