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When Jeb and Kate first said ‘I love you’, it was young and sweet and everything you’d expect from two naïve college students. Just two kids absolutely thrilled to find someone who understood. Kate was even the first to say it, her voice full of youthful enthusiasm, having no fear of the feelings exploding out of her chest or voicing them out loud.
Then the worst happened. And suddenly, her life was smaller, and her heart was shattered.
And then, to her surprise, someone picked up the pieces.
————
The screen door slammed behind her, the sound echoing through the evening air. The springs of the door squeaked as it bounced against its frame.
“Kate!”
The screen door slammed again. Kate ignored the call of her name, adjusting her sweatshirt and hugging her middle as she descended the porch steps to cross the yard of her mom’s farmhouse.
Tyler followed her, taking the porch steps two at a time. “Kate!” he shouted, catching up with her easily. “What was that back there?”
“Nothing,” she replied, feeling out of breath knowing she shouldn’t be, her back to him from where she stopped in the middle of the yard. “It was nothing.”
It had to be nothing.
“No, Kate…” Tyler approached her as if she was a spooked horse. He turned to step in front of her but didn’t dare touch her, afraid she’d bolt again.
Would she bolt again?
She avoided his eyes, her gaze locked on the grass around her bare feet, too afraid of what she’d say and what it’d mean.
“You’ve been off all day-“ True. “-avoiding me, avoiding any real conversation-“ True. True. “-and we have one moment, something that feels like you are actually in the room again for the first time all day and you bolt outta that house like a bat outta hell.” He considered her for a moment, hesitating, before he continued softly, “Was it because I said—“
I love you, Kate.
“No,” she interrupted before he can say it again.
“Kate,” he repeated, his voice pleading. “I’m not trying to push this. I’m not that big of an asshole. But I need you to talk to me.”
She shook her head and brushed underneath her eye with her fingertips. “There’s nothing to talk about. I don’t want to talk about it.”
She can’t talk about it.
“Your face says otherwise,” he said gently.
Groaning, Kate covered her face with her hands, frustration seeping through her fingers. Pure, misguided stubbornness pushed her forward and back into herself.
“Why are you even still here?” she shouted abruptly, pulling her hands away from her face and finally meeting his confused gaze.
Tyler reacted as if she had slapped him in the face. “Why am I—Kate, are you kidding me right now?”
“You should go.”
“I’m not goin’ anywhere.” He countered, taking a step toward her.
Tears prickled behind her eyes. “Tyler…”
“I love you,” he pressed, “more than I know what to do with. But hell, Kate.” He almost laughed. “This—whatever this is right now—would drive any man to drink.”
“Tyler, please…” she pleaded, her eyes sliding closed.
“I’m not even talkin’ a couple cheap beers. I need some McCallan 25 right now, 15 minimum.”
He was trying to make her laugh, she knew. She felt her breath sticking to her ribcage, the need to let him in overwhelming her.
Shoving it aside, Kate shook her head. “You don’t love me.”
Tyler gave her a self-deprecating smile. “Hate to break it to you, City girl, but I do.”
“How can you even say that?” she demanded, a catch in her voice. “How can you even know that already?”
He furrowed his brow. “Pretty sure I’m the authority to decide that for myself.”
Her stubbornness was waning, the prickles behind her eyes growing sharper, her breaths more difficult. She focused on the calming pattern of his flannel shirt that stretched across his strong chest.
Joking pushed aside, Tyler stepped closer to her. “What is this?” he asked softly. “You’re spiraling, baby, and I need you to come out of it.” He brought his hand up to her cheek and whispered, “I need you.”
“You can’t need me today,” she said quietly.
The admission startled him. “What do you mean ‘today’?” Tyler tried to meet her gaze as his fingers smoothed the hair behind her ear.
Her breath shallow, Kate shook her head as she covered her mouth with her hand.
“Kate, what’s today?” he asked again, his tone urgent.
She finally looked up at him, her eyes brimming with crystal tears. Her hand moved to sit against her heart.
The realization hit him like a semi-truck. “Shit…”
Her throat was tight. “I haven’t been back in Oklahoma for the actual ‘day’ since—“
…since it happened.
“You can’t love me,” she choked out, her voice watery, “not when he loved me and then, it was all just…gone. As if it never existed. You can’t love me.”
“Baby…” he breathed.
And the dam shattered, her broken sobs echoing across the yard, as Tyler swiftly pulled her into his chest and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, his cheek resting against her hair.
And for the first time in a long time, her raw pain overwhelmed her. But for the first time in just as long of a time, she wasn’t alone.
————-
Once Kate’s tears had slowed and her legs had regained their strength, the pair made their way to the porch steps, sitting side by side, Tyler’s arm curled protectively around her shoulders.
She turned under his arm to face him and laid her hand along his jaw to pull his eyes to meet hers. He waited for her, his other hand coming up to gently trace the tendons in her wrist.
“I love you.” Her smile was sad on the edges but radiated a reassuring truth.
Tyler tightened his hold on her shoulders but shook his head. “Baby, we don’t have to do this right now…”
”No, I want to,” she urged. She nodded encouragingly at his questioning stare.
He relented with a sigh and a brief smile as he pulled her closer again.
”It feels…it’s not a betrayal,” she tries to explain. “That’s not what this is. It almost feels like…a surprise. I just never thought my heart would be this full again.”
“Whatever this is, it doesn’t change anything about what you and Jeb had,” Tyler replied holding her gaze, the sincerity of his words settling in the center of Kate’s chest. “It’s important to me that you know that. That I wouldn’t expect it to.”
“I know that. I’ve known that this whole time,” she reassured him, her fingers curling into the gap in his shirt as the fabric pulled against the buttons.
Tyler released a breath, relief relaxing his features. He pulled her legs into his lap, her knees bending above his thighs.
His eyes turned to the sky, his hand running along her bare calf. “I’m actually grateful to him.”
“Ty…”
“He loved you enough that you could love again,” he said before looking down at her. “That’s a powerful thing.”
“Yeah, he did, didn’t he?” she said with a small nostalgic smile. “It’s just…” Her pause was searching and carried no heaviness. “Saying those words out loud again after so long? And on today of all days…”
The apology on his face was unmistakable. “Kate, I didn’t realize…”
She shook her head, interrupting him with a soft hand to his lips. “I know you didn’t. I didn’t tell you.” She pulled her hand away. “That time of my life, that time with Jeb, it was so freeing and naive and…really very wholesome looking back.”
“Is this less so?” he questioned with a kind smirk.
“A bit less wholesome, yes.”
“Good,” he replied with a confident nod. “I wasn’t goin’ for wholesome.”
Kate’s laugh surprised both of them. Tyler smiled as he kissed her hair.
Tightening her legs against his jeaned thighs, she continued, “But this? Ty, this is everything. And it’s important to me that you know that too.”
“I know that, baby,” he whispered, curling his finger under her chin and pulling her lips to his. “I’ve known that this whole time.”
————
In the early hours of the next morning while traffic on a desolate highway in Oklahoma was at its lowest, Kate and Tyler drove to the overpass that had sheltered her six years before. His touch never left her. Linked hands across the center console as he drove, his presence silent but steady. His hand in hers as she gripped his arm while they stood on the side of the highway, his posture reverent and strong. And his hand in her hair as he kissed her on the front porch when they returned, a promise of ‘what’s next’ between them.
————
When Tyler and Kate first said ‘I love you,’ it was loud and messy and nothing you’d expect from two people who do, in fact, love each other. But then, it was quiet and reverent and everything Kate feared she’d never feel again.
It was different in so many ways, but it was real. The most real thing Kate had ever experienced in her life.