Chapter Fifteen #2
But after twenty-five minutes and no sign of him, curiosity got the best of me.
I threw on my pajama pants and a hoodie without a bra underneath, running my fingers through my tangled hair and pulling it to over one shoulder as I skipped down the stairs.
It was just past seven in the morning, so I wasn’t even thinking about anyone else being up and around.
In fact, my head was too busy playing out other fantasies, like Tyler deciding to cook us omelets once he got down here, or taking the time to brew us coffee.
So when my sock-covered feet hit the ground floor and I slid-turned into the kitchen, I nearly fell on my face at the sight of the island surrounded by the Wagner family.
With Azra in the middle of them all.
They were all mid-laugh, Azra pressing one hand to her chest with her eyes shut and laugh turned to the sky in the most angelic way.
Oliver had his arm around Morgan, who was watching Azra like she was the Christmas gift Morgan had prayed for all year, and her parents stood next to them in a similar embrace, smiling at their son.
Tyler was the only one not laughing.
But his arm was around Azra’s waist — making them the third happy couple to complete the family.
His eyes locked on mine, and time stopped, my heart halting along with it before it kicked back to life so hard, I swore my ribcage would break from the force of it.
I wasn’t sure how long we stood there, staring at each other, everyone else smiling and laughing, but it felt like a lifetime.
It felt like years of regret, like decades of longing, like centuries of wrong decisions and missed opportunities and fucked-up timing.
It felt like everything we wanted being just out of reach, and both of us realizing at the same time that we were fools for ever thinking we could run fast enough to catch it.
“Oh! Jazzy!”
Morgan’s voice shook me from my spell, and I blinked just as she flew to me, wrapping me in a hug.
“Good morning, my amazing maid of honor,” she said, squeezing me before she pulled back. Then, she frowned, touching the left side of my neck. “What happened here.”
I was still looking at Tyler as my hands floated up to where Morgan had touched, and I swallowed. “Curling iron.”
Morgan tilted her head, narrowing her eyes at the spot before she shrugged and smiled again like she hadn’t been distracted at all. “Look who took a red-eye into Boston to surprise us this morning!”
Morgan turned to Azra then, who was watching me with a genuine, beautiful smile. Her entire face lit up at the sight of me, like she really had been so excited for the moment we’d get to meet, and in one sweeping motion, she was around the kitchen island and pulling me into a hug.
She was elegance and grace, tall and lean and tan with a face straight out of a high-fashion magazine.
Her eyebrows were thick and perfectly shaped, her lashes long and dark, and even without a single speck of makeup on, she was effortlessly and naturally stunning — the kind of gorgeous that steals your breath and makes you stop and stare.
Her citrus scent surrounded me as we hugged — or rather, as she hugged me and I stood there awkwardly, trying to act normal but finding it impossible to do so. And when she pulled back, she held my arms in her hands with a smile as big as her face.
“It’s so lovely to finally meet you, Jasmine!
” she said, and the flares of her slight Turkish accent somehow made her even more beautiful.
“I’ve heard so much about you from Morgan and from Mr. and Mrs. Wagner.
It just fills my heart with joy that we’re able to finally meet, and under such wonderful circumstances. ”
She turned to Morgan then, and they smiled lovingly at each other before all eyes were on me.
Shit .
I forced the best smile I could muster, “It’s so nice to meet you, too. I…”
Slept with your boyfriend last night? Have been in love with him since I was fourteen? Was just thinking about how and when he would break up with you?
“I can’t wait to get to know you better,” I landed on, my stomach cramping with the lie.
Azra beamed, and then Amanda was asking her about her latest modeling gig, and Oliver was excusing himself to go take her bags upstairs for her. I expected Tyler to offer to help, but he was too busy staring at me.
I glanced at him before clearing my throat and grabbing a muffin off the counter and a bottle of water from the fridge.
“I’m going to go get showered and cleaned up and I’ll be back down,” I said, mostly to Morgan, who nodded and smiled before jumping right back into the conversation with Azra and her mother.
Then my eyes found Tyler’s, and he said nothing, but his eyes screamed a million different things.
I didn’t know.
I meant what I said.
I’m sorry.
I could never be sure, though, if those were his thoughts — because as stoic as he was, as he always was, it was impossible to tell if he still meant every word he said upstairs, or if Azra being in the kitchen had slapped him into reality again.
The word mistake filled me like black smoke, and I tore my eyes from his, running up the stairs before the first tear could fall.
The door to my room flew open moments after I slammed it shut.
“Jasmine, please,” Tyler said, desperation in his voice as he glanced down the hallway before quietly closing my door behind him. His eyes were wide and filled with pity when they found me again. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.”
He’d lowered his voice to a whisper, and that alone told me everything I needed to know.
He was trying to be sneaky.
He was trying to hide what was being said.
To hide me.
To hide us.
I covered my mouth with one hand, shaking my head as I turned toward the balcony and away from where he stood.
“Don’t be sorry,” I finally said, forcing a breath and sniffing against the urge to cry. “I mean, what did we really expect?”
I turned to him then, and maybe I expected him to answer, but he didn’t.
“We… we fucked up. We made a mistake.” That word burned both of us — I knew because I felt it like hot coals under my ribs, and I didn’t miss the way Tyler flinched when I said it.
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do,” I said, sniffing again with a certain nod. “I do. Your sister is getting married in three days. Okay? You and I are in that wedding. Your plus one is downstairs in the kitchen, and mine will be here tomorrow.”
That last part was a lie, and I knew it, but Tyler didn’t. For all he knew, everything between me and Jacob was still fine, and I was still taken just as much as he was.
I needed to hammer that home.
Because if anything was clear to me now, it was that I understood why Tyler did what he did when we were younger. I understood why he listened to his sister, why he made the difficult choice to tell me we couldn’t be together, that he was sorry, that it shouldn’t have happened.
He did it because he loved me.
He did it because he knew I wasn’t okay, not after my mom left, and he didn’t want to take advantage of me. He didn’t want to hurt me.
He made the hard decision for me, for us , because he knew it was the right thing to do.
And it was my turn to return the favor.
“Azra is…” I smiled, turning to face him. “She’s amazing. And I know she makes you happy, makes your family happy.”
“Jasmine—”
“Let me finish, okay?” I folded my arms over my chest, looking at the ocean like it’d give me the words I needed. “I love you, Tyler.”
I heard the sharp exhale leave him when I spoke those words out loud, and I winced when I turned and found his face twisted with emotion.
“I do,” I whispered, smiling a little as my eyes filled with tears. “I love you so much it kills me. But you and I… we had our chance, and we didn’t take it. For whatever reason, it was never in the cards for us to be together. Okay?”
He shook his head, taking a step toward me, but I put up one hand to stop him.
God, if he touches me, I’ll never get this out.
“You and I both know we can’t… we can’t…” I shook my head, something of a smile or a grimace warping my face. “We would break so many hearts. Jacob’s. Azra’s. Your sister’s, your parents’. For what? For our own selfish desires to feed a hunger we’ve starved for seven years?”
Tyler’s eyes welled with tears, and the sight of him so emotional nearly made me hit my knees. I sucked in a breath, looking up to the ceiling, to the ocean, to the bed where we’d made love just hours before, and then finally, to him again.
“Last night was amazing. I will never forget it.” My chest squeezed. “But that’s all it can be. One night. And we need to put it all to bed.”
Tyler watched me for the longest time, and I saw every single emotion pass over his face in waves — pain, anger, hurt, sorrow, longing, regret. I wasn’t sure which one settled in deepest as his face leveled out, and his jaw ticked, his eyes hard on mine.
“So, that’s it, then?” he asked. “That’s all you want to say to me right now?”
I love you.
I need you.
Please, be with me. Choose me. Fuck everyone else.
I don’t care who we hurt.
I don’t care as long as it’s us in the end.
I shrugged, wiping away the fresh tears on my cheeks with a whisper. “I don’t know what else there is to say.”
Tyler tongued his cheek, looking out the window with nostrils wide and brows bent together so fiercely that the line between them was visible even across the room. He nodded, just barely, and then his eyes found me again.
He took a step — toward me, into me — but then he stopped.
The air zipped white hot with electricity and poison, with a warning that one false step would demolish everything.
Tyler’s eyes searched mine, like he was waiting for more, but there was nothing more to be said or be done or be un done.
It was what it was.
And we both knew it.
Maybe there was a part of me that hoped he’d say I was wrong.
Maybe I held onto that hope like the string of a balloon, thinking he’d take me in his arms, call me crazy for ever thinking he would give me up after last night, and then he’d kiss me and we’d walk downstairs hand in hand and tell everyone what we’d done — consequences be damned.
Maybe I was waiting for him to be the knight in shining armor.
But this wasn’t a fairy tale.
And Tyler wasn’t my prince.
One stiff inhale broke the silence between us, and Tyler swallowed hard, glancing out the window and then at me one final time before he turned and flew through my door, not bothering to be quiet when he pulled it shut behind him.
And I fell to my knees, letting out a guttural cry at the devastating pain of losing him again.
As if I’d ever really had him, at all.