Make Me Hate You(47)

Then, he squeezed each hand gently, and he let me go.

The minute we were no longer touching, I sucked in a harsh breath, turning from him immediately and crossing my arms over my chest. I smiled at Morgan, who was mid-sentence talking through a few things she noticed, and she wrapped me in a hug before dismissing us all to go get showered for dinner.

Tyler was the first one to bolt for the stairs, but when he was at the foot of them, he stopped and looked over his shoulder.

At me.

He said nothing, but his hand gripped the banister, and he took one step backward, like he was debating running to me instead of up to his room.

But in the next second, it was like I’d imagined it all. He turned and jogged up the stairs without so much as another pause.

And again, I found myself watching his back as he went.





It was too late.

Those were the words that flashed like little caution lights in my mind as I ran, my legs burning, chest aching, breath coming shorter and shallower with every new step.

It was too late to be out for a run on the beach.

It was too late to be out and alone, period.

It was too late to be awake when I had another full day of wedding activities tomorrow.

And it was too late to ever have a relationship with Tyler Wagner.

That last point was the one that mattered most, the one that my brain focused on as I ran, sneakers kicking up sand behind me. The cool evening breeze swept across my damp chest, covering me with chills, but still, I ran.

It was the only thing I could do after an evening like the one I’d had — packed with emotion and longing and conflict. The war raging on inside my mind, inside my body, inside my soul was invisible to anyone but me.

And maybe Tyler, but he couldn’t save me.

No one could.

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 block out the same flurry of thoughts I had.

Still, I loved the way he spoke about us. I loved the way my heart swelled at the memories. I loved the way I felt being back here, back with them.

Back with him.

And the way he smoothed his thumbs over my wrists under that arch…

My body moved faster, as if to shake that thought away before I could latch onto it, but still, my mind raced. It was a fog impossible to fight through, but more than anything and at the root of it all — I hated myself.

Because all it had taken to show my true, dark, and fucked-up morals was one trip back home.

And one thing I knew for sure, one truth swimming low and acidic in my gut, was that I had to call Jacob tomorrow.

And I had to break up with him.

It didn’t matter that Tyler had a girlfriend, that our time had passed, that we would never be together. It didn’t matter that, surely, it was being here that was messing with my mind, and had I stayed in California, none of this would have happened.

All that did matter was that I realized, in painful clarity, that I was not okay.

I was not ready to date someone as seriously as I was dating Jacob. I didn’t deserve his love, his time, his doting attention. I didn’t know what I wanted, or who I was, or where I was going because I’d spent the last seven years running from where I’d been.

It was the wake-up call akin to a bucket of ice cold water to the face, and I couldn’t run from it, no matter how I tried.

My nose stung with the urge to cry, but I fought against it, picking up my speed, instead. My muscles ached in protest, and I knew I was pushing too hard. I knew I’d be sore as fuck tomorrow, but I couldn’t not run. I couldn’t not put my body in pain and fatigue.

It was my only chance at escaping everything inside my head.

It was almost eleven when I’d left the beach house, so I knew it had to be past midnight when I finally made my way back. I slowed from a run to a jog the closer I got to the back steps that led up from the beach, and I stopped at the foot of the stairs, hanging my hands on my hips and looking out over the dark water as I tried to catch my breath.