Page 102 of Love Is…?
“You’re smiling.”
Jayde sat up. “You couldn’t possibly have seen that.” She piled a cheese wedge and a dried apricot onto a cracker and shoved the lot into her mouth.
Her father beamed. “I might be a bit slow on the uptake, Jayde, love, but that response tells me you were. You smile so much when you talk about Tessa. It’s beautiful. It makes me happy.”
Jayde chewed, humming around the mouthful, then she swallowed.
“I do smile a lot, don’t I? It’s so warm and terrifying and I…” She stared at the carpet. “I think I might… That maybe I might love her,” she said in a rush. She didn’t dare look at her father.
There was silence.
“Oh, sweetheart,” her father whispered, and she looked up to see a smile on his face, a flash of worry in his eyes.
“Dad?” Jayde swivelled her body, nearly brushing her knees against his, but catching herself before she made contact.
“I did wonder. The way you look at her. How she looks at you. It’s right there for all to see. I was wondering if you saw it, felt it as well.” He reached for her hand.
Jayde shook her head. “If writing this profile and putting together the book has taught me anything, it’s that love is about trust, and I don’t know if I can trust.” She pulled her hand away, and stared at the carpet again. What a fascinating brownish-cream sort of colour. “I’m worried that I can’t trust anyone enough to give my love away. Maybe I can with Tessa, but I just…” She blinked away a tear. “I don’t want to be you, Dad.” Then, gasping, she jerked her head up to find that her father’s face had fallen. Instant remorse stabbed at her stomach. “Oh God, Dad. I’m so sorry. That was awful.” Jayde swallowedthickly, and her father used both hands to sweep up her hand, effectively creating a sandwich.
He nodded slowly. “It’s okay, love. You think me naive.” He paused. “Gullible.”
Jayde squeezed his hand hard. “No!”
“You do, and that’s understandable. Perhaps I was silly for giving my love—for loving your mother even though that love really wasn’t returned. My love was mostly wishes.”
Tears stung Jayde’s eyes. “Dad….”
Her father rubbed the back of her hand. “Oh, I knew my love wasn’t returned.” He waved vaguely at his head. "Even before the injury, but that didn’t matter, you see. I loved her with everything I had, and made myself vulnerable on purpose because that’s what you do when you’re in love. You make yourself vulnerable. Falling in love is fresh air and gravity but the landing is the key, really.” He stared intently at Jayde. “It takes strength to be vulnerable, and I was strong, despite this.” Again, his hand fluttered near his temple. “It’s probably why I watch so many romantic films. Perhaps I feel a connection to that vulnerability on the screen. Who knows? I do know that I have a strong heart to have held that much love for so long, to have given that love for so long, and I see it in you, Jayde. You are strong, which means you can be vulnerable, which means you can love.” Then he deflated. “I’m becoming waffly and old. Forgive the length of that speech.”
“You’re not waffly or old. You’re wonderful. But seriously, Dad, I don’t think I could handle it if I fell in love with someone,toldthem that I was in love with them, but they didn’t feel anything for me in return and walked away.”
“That’s the risk, isn’t it?”
“It feels too much like gambling.”
“You’ve got pretty good odds with Tessa there, love.” Oliver smiled, and it was a smile filled with such fatherly love, suchconfidence in her inner strength, that the tears finally fell and Jayde buried her face in his jumper.
“What if she walks away, Dad?” she mumbled.
Her father stroked her hair like he used to do when she was little. “If she does, then she does. But if that happens, your heart wouldn’t be stranded on an island and left to fend for itself.You’d find love again because you would have allowed yourself to feel it already.”
Jayde remembered Tessa’s analogy from a couple of months ago.
“Because saying I love you doesn’t need an echo,” she said into his chest. “It’s an emotion riding a wave that lands in the sea of unconditional and if the tide comes in and love returns, then it brings back the sea.”
Her father’s chest rumbled. “Oh, that’s excellent, love. There’s that writer in you.”
“They’re not my words.”
“Oh? Whose are they?"
“Tessa’s.”
Her father pushed Jayde upright, held her shoulders and stared into her eyes.
“I really don’t think she’ll take her love away. Do you think your love has returned from the sea of unconditional and brought souvenirs? Brought Tessa to land on your shores?”
Jayde nodded slowly. “Yeah. I think it might have. She had a look in her eyes at the wedding reception that was more than…” Jayde faded off. There had been a variety of looks in Tessa’s eyes that night but her father didn’t need to know about any of those. “Tessa said she gives her love fairly quickly but?—”