The Pain in Loving You

by Steiner, Kandi

  Me: *whistles* That’s a conversation for another podcast.

  Tara: Right? But seriously, I think if we all do this, just take a pulse check on our life from time to time, we can really evaluate what matters to us, and start to step away from what doesn’t. Focus on building habits that support who you want to be — not who you used to be, or who you think you are, or who you think others want you to be.

  Me: Well, I don’t think we could end on a better note than that. Thank you for joining us on And All That Jazz today, Tara. It’s been a real pleasure.

  Tara: The pleasure is all mine.

  Me: Now, before you go, can you tell everyone listening where they can find you if they want to follow you or get to know you more?

  Tara: Sure! Instagram is my main place, and you can find me at…

  I paused my editing program, the needle marking my stopping place as I removed my headphones and scrubbed my hands over my face. It was just past five thirty in the morning — way too early to be awake, for most people, let alone editing a podcast.

  But this had been my new normal since returning to Oakland.

  Sleep was a fleeting thing, and usually found me between the hours of midnight and three or four in the morning, and then again somewhere in the late afternoon, when I’d succumb to a two-hour nap. For the most part, I was awake — my wheels turning, mind racing to make plans for the future, body aching for me to just get moving so I would stop thinking.

  Every cell and fiber that made up my being was desperate for routine, for something to work toward, for distraction.

  For healing.

  And I was trying. Truly, I was. I’d only allowed myself four days of lounging around in full self-pity mode before I’d peeled myself out of my dark bedroom and started being a human again. I was recording for the podcast, editing and planning, working on social media marketing and self-care challenges to get more sign-ups and listens. I booked myself with other podcasters, and even started putting together a mini video series where I would help new podcasters figure out where to start and how to bring their ideas to life.

  If I said I was completely avoiding thinking about Tyler, it would be a lie. Some days I did my best to keep my mind busy, but others, I submitted to every drowning thought and memory he produced in me. Some days, I’d close my eyes and trace every feature of him until it felt like he was standing in the room with me. Some days, I’d look back on old pictures of us, or old notes we’d passed in school, or text messages from the wedding weeks — though those were mostly short and direct, little things Morgan wanted him to tell me or me asking where he was because he was needed for something.

  On my strong days, I’d feel the memories of him only as a soft warmth under the surface as I worked on any little thing to keep myself busy. I hadn’t made it to the point that I was going out with friends yet, but I was getting there, and I’d been in constant contact with Morgan, who was still on her honeymoon, sending me pictures and recaps every day. I’d surprised her with chocolate-covered strawberries and a couples massage for her birthday, courtesy of the resort they were staying at, and hearing her delighted shock over the phone was the closest I’d been to feeling okay since I left Bridgechester.

  I was eating relatively healthy, aside from the sleeve of Oreos I sometimes consumed when pity snuck in.

  And I was back in my daily routine of running.

  Checking the time on my watch, I decided that was what I’d do next, since my editing brain was fried from the early morning. So with another scrub of my hands down my face, I stood, my back aching in protest from where I’d been bent over my laptop. I stretched, changed into my running shorts and tank top, laced up my sneakers, and dragged myself out of my apartment and onto the street that led to Lake Merritt.

  Lake Merritt was a fresh and saltwater lake that sat in the center of downtown, and I’d picked my apartment location solely based on how long it would take me to get there. It was by far my favorite running loop in the city, an easy three-point-four miles that I could run peacefully, and as I picked up my pace from a walk to a slow jog the closer I got to it, I already felt myself growing lighter.

  When my sneakers hit the official loop trail within the park, the sidewalk wide and following the circumference of the lake, I found my pace, settling between a jog and a run that I knew I could hold for a long time. I had a feeling this would be one of those mornings when I’d want to spend hours on the trail.

  It was too early for the loop to be crowded, given that the sun had just made its ascent over the horizon, but there were a few joggers who nodded good morning at me as we crossed paths, acknowledging that we were one of the few crazy enough to get out of bed and put on sneakers this early. The lake itself was vacant, too, not a single paddle board or kayak to be seen, though I knew it would be crawling later. And the necklace of lights that hung between lamp posts was still the main source of light, the sun not quite yet filling the sky.

  It was exactly the right mood for me to slip into the universe I only found while running.

  Inhale. Exhale.

  My breath steadied, settling in for the journey.

  Pat, pat, pat.

  The rhythmic sound of my sneakers on the pavement was familiar and welcome.

  Ga-gong. Ga-gong.

  My heartbeat echoed in my chest and between my ears, its pace fast, but not labored.

  That was the beauty in running — it never changed. No matter where I was, what scenery surrounded me, whether I was stressed or happy, whether it was sunny or pouring rain, running was constant. It was familiar, like an old friend, or an old love. I knew what to expect when I went running. There were no surprises, nothing to throw me off track.

  It was just me, and the loop, and my sneakers.

  It was my mind quieted, my body alive, my soul fed.

  Until the exact moment that I ran under the columned arches of the mission revival-style pergola that adorned the lake and found Tyler Wagner standing in the center of it.

  My heart stopped automatically, feet quickly following suit as I blinked over and over, again and again, wondering if he was a mirage or a dream. But every time my eyes opened again, there he was — standing in the center beneath the large oval canopy top, his hands in the pockets of his rust-colored slacks, white polo hugging him the way all his shirts did, hair mussed, eyes dark and hooded and zeroed in on me.

  It was just the two of us under the canopy, the lake still quiet, sun still rising. My heart thumped loudly in my chest, though, and I swallowed once the shock had faded, somehow finding the courage to take three careful, measured steps toward him.

  “Tyler?”

  I watched his chest rise and fall with his name on my lips, and he took three steps that matched mine, over and over until we were just a few feet from each other under the pergola’s shelter.

  It might have been an hour, us standing there with his eyes steady and focused on mine. Or maybe it was days, me rooted to the spot, chest tight and throat thick with emotion. Perhaps it was a lifetime, and we would always be destined to watch each other from that distance — close enough to feel, yet never close enough to touch.

  The necklace of lights that surrounded the lake flickered off, and it was that small change in the atmosphere that seemed to shock us both back to the present moment. I was suddenly self-conscious of my damp hair I’d piled into a bun on top of my head, of my makeup-less face, of the bags I knew had lined my eyes for weeks.

  “What are you doing here?” I finally asked, fighting the urge to reach up and fix my hair. I crossed my arms over my chest, instead.

  “I came to get my girl.”

  A shuttering kick of my heart. A stolen breath.

  “What?”

  The word was barely a whisper from my lips, but Tyler stood strong and confident before me.

  “I didn’t want to let you get on that plane, Jasmine. It was the most difficult thing I’ve done in my life, to sit there in that car and let you go. But I knew that I couldn’t
ask you to stay. I knew that this time I had to do everything right.”

  I shook my head, his words another language for how much they were lost on me. “I don’t understand.”

  Tyler inhaled a slow breath. “You were right, that morning after we slept together. We weren’t thinking. We acted on impulse, not caring for who might be hurt in the process. I thought about what you said every day after that — about Jacob, about Azra, about my sister and my family and the fact that you and I are not just you and I. At least, we haven’t been.”

  A small step toward me, one that I felt like a fiery volcano below the earth’s surface.

  “But what I thought about most?” he whispered. “Was how you said you loved me. I replayed it a million times — the way your lips formed around the words, the way your eyes were glossed with tears and pain that I’d caused you, the way I felt that declaration so deep inside me that it might as well have been a tattoo on my soul.”

  I rolled my lips together as tears pooled in my eyes.

  “I don’t know if you still do,” he continued, shrugging. “Hell, I don’t know that I deserve it. But, I love you, too, Jasmine. I have loved you since the first day I saw you walk through the hallways of school that had felt like a prison to me until you came. I loved you when I wasn’t supposed to, when you were my little sister’s best friend, when I claimed you for my own at the worst possible time, and then broke your heart because I was too scared that I couldn’t be the one to help you through everything you were facing.” Tyler got choked up at that, his lips quivering a bit as he regained his composure. “I loved you from across the country, in secret, for years, praying for the day I’d get to see you again and explain everything, and somehow also praying in the next breath that I’d never see you again.”

  My heart splintered in my chest, because I knew the exact feeling he was trying to explain. 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.

  “Loving you has been torture,” Tyler said, stepping fully into me now. His hands swept away from his pockets and reached for me, eliciting a wave of chills over my entire body when his skin finally made contact with mine. He palmed my arms, holding me just above the elbows with his dark eyes searching mine. “But it doesn’t have to be anymore.”

  My next inhale was shaky, and I went to speak but Tyler beat me to it.

  “I couldn’t tell you not to get on that plane because I knew I had to take care of so many things before we could be together — truly together — without anyone or anything else between us. I had to explain things to Azra. She deserved that from me. And I had to talk to Morgan, and to Mom and Dad, and, if I’m being honest, I had to sit down and have a long talk with myself, too.”

  Hope flittered in my chest, but everything inside me warned me not to give in to it.

  This can’t be real.

  This can’t be real.

  “Jasmine,” Tyler whispered, tugging until I uncrossed my arms and let him hold my hands. His thumbs traced the cool skin of my wrists, just like that day at the rehearsal, and my eyes traced the hazel flecks of gold in his eyes. “I couldn’t stop you from getting on that plane, but I’m here to put you on another one, instead. I can’t let you go this time. I can’t make you hate me, just like you could never make me hate you, because the truth is we have belonged to each other since we were teenagers, and I think if anything, the last seven years and especially the last month have shown us that nothing will ever change that. Not time, not distance, not trying to love other people. This,” he said, motioning between us. “This isn’t effortless love, but it is real love — and I refuse to let it slip through my fingers again.”

  My next breath was on a smile and a sob and a laugh and a grimace of pain all at once. I shook my head, tears blurring my vision. “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 embrace like a magical force pulling every shattered piece of me back together. In the next instant, my feet were in the air, Tyler spinning us around as the sun rose over the lake and the birds chirped their good mornings.

  It was a moment suspended in time, one that felt like a dream and like the only real sliver of life I’d ever truly lived at all. The fog lifted, the horizon clearer than it had ever been, and for the first time in my life, I felt purpose running thick and heavy in my veins.

  With his arms around me, I could do anything.

  With his arms around me, everything was whole.

  His arms were my home.

  And now that we’d crossed space and time to find it, I would never leave again.

  Tyler set my feet back on the ground, but still, I floated, soaring high with his promises and our future surrounding me like clouds of silver. I kissed him again, saying yes with everything that I was, and then we shut the door and locked the key.

  Welcome home.

  • • •

  The only light in my apartment when Tyler and I tumbled through the door was a sliver of gold from the rising sun, slipping between the break in my curtains and casting a glow over my bed. The rest of the studio was dim and quiet, and I heard the steady beat of Tyler’s heart as I locked the door behind us, sliding my hands over his chest and up to pull his mouth to mine.

  His hands were on my waist in the next breath, blindly backing me up until we bumped into the edge of the bed. When we did, everything slowed, from the ticking seconds of the distant clock to the way his lips moved over mine, the way his tongue curiously swept in and out of my mouth, the way his hands roamed and discovered, folding over every valley and curve of my body.

  This wasn’t the bruising, claiming fit of passion and lust we’d found ourselves in on the Cape. There was no need for it now. Neither of us required proof to know that we belonged to the other, and so we took our time, as if we had all we ever needed.

  There was no rush.

  We had forever.

  Time felt like music in that moment, each note slow and beautiful, melodic and sure. We peeled each other’s clothes off between deep, sensual kisses, and then Tyler lowered me back onto my bed. He took his time with each kiss, each trace of his tongue, each drag of his fingertips over my skin as he lowered until his head was between my thighs. And at the first slick of his tongue over my clit, I arched into him, surrendering to the passion, losing myself in the man I thought I’d lost forever.

  We spent hours worshipping each other’s bodies, exploring and discovering like it was the first and the last time all at once. It wasn’t enough to make me fall apart with his mouth on me, or for me t
o swallow his first orgasm while I bent on my knees for him. We had to take more, we had to take it all, we had to have each other in every possible way until there was nothing left for anyone else ever again.

  Sometime in the late afternoon, when we were in a dream-like state between being awake and being so physically exhausted that all we could do was lie there and hold each other, I balanced on my elbows, looking down over Tyler in my bed. His eyes were hooded, lids heavy, hair mussed and muscles ebbing and flowing as his hand rubbed my lower back.

  “How did you know where I’d be this morning?”

  The corner of his mouth tilted. “Well, you’ve posted Lake Merritt to your Instagram story more than a dozen times over the years and said it’s your favorite running spot. So, I got there early, and I prayed I wasn’t an idiot and you’d show up eventually.”

  “How early?”

  “Four in the morning.”

  I smirked, running my thumb over the hollow base of his neck. “You really do love me.”

  “I do,” he said, pulling me down to kiss him. When I was balanced over him again, his eyes searched mine. “When did you break up with Jacob?”

  “The same day Azra showed up. That night.”

  Tyler frowned, his hand splaying on my back. “I’m so sorry. That had to be so hard.”

  “It was. He was a great guy, and I hated hurting him. We were such good friends… and the way it all went down when we talked on the phone, I thought we’d talk more once I got back here, that I’d get to see him again, maybe explain in person and try to establish some sort of friendship. But…” I shook my head on a dry swallow. “He didn’t want to see me, and I can’t blame him. You can’t really ever be just friends with someone you loved like that, I suppose.”

  Tyler nodded in understanding, his fingers drawing shapes on my skin.

  “What happened with Azra?”

  He sighed. “Well, she hates me. Understandably so. When I told her, we were back home at Mom and Dad’s. She flew down the stairs and told them along with Morgan and Oliver what I’d done.” He paused. “They were about to drive to the airport to leave for their honeymoon.”