Caring

VII

Of Love and Maybes

Love
Verb; feel deep affection or sexual love for someone
Maybe
Adverb; perhaps, possibly
Noun; a mere probability

Love, despite its sincerity and its importance, is one word which is thrown around a little too often. It irritates Nadine beyond belief that such a word, with all its connotations and implications, is so easy for people to say. It's so straightforward for them to say they love people and it's effortless for them to be loved.

She could never place herself in that category – it meant too much to her. She rarely said the word out aloud, and she was sure that a part of her feared the emotion. She was scared of love and the control it could have on her and on her life.

So, when people ask her about falling in love with James, she shrugs her shoulders nonchalantly, ridding herself of the butterflies in her stomach and ignoring her heart which is beating too fast for her liking. She puts on the hopeful voice and says her one-word reply to the inevitable question.

"Maybe."

And it's the answer she says to herself constantly. Maybe, she could fall in love with James. Maybe she could. Maybe he could fall in love with her. But this maybe follows her around like a ghost haunting someone who had wronged them in the past life and she can never seem to rid herself of this ghost.

The maybe ghost.

The maybes get out of hand sometimes. Maybe he does love me. Maybe, I'm easy to love. Maybe he sees that when looks at me for too long – or maybe he's immune it. Maybe he's waiting for the right moment. Maybe he'll do a grand proposal and we'll get married and have lots of kids and live happily ever after. Yes, they're definitely out of control. Nadine thinks it's time to let go of the maybes.

Nadine seemed to be thinking about James all the time, which is odd considering she sees him nearly every day of week and on those days they spend almost every waking hour with each other – sometimes even sleeping hours if taping runs past midnight. Her subconscious must be tired of seeing his face in her thoughts constantly.

Maybe she shouldn't fuss over him so much. But she knows it can't be helped. Her mind won't stop racing until she knows he's okay and that he's fine. It won't stop until she knows he's eaten, until she knows he's got home safely, until she knows that he's had the vitamins she's forced into his mouth.  Maybe, he knows her too well so he sugar-coats his feelings a little to make her worry less – she's become suspicious of that lately. And although it should dishearten her that he isn't sharing what he's truly feeling, her heart warms at the thought of him caring about her so much. Maybe she wasn't so hard to care for.

She's sat at this interview now. It's for a magazine and she likes that she can say what she thinks without the cameras flashing. She likes that her words meet the paper instead of bouncing from a microphone, and she likes that her thoughts are read with eyes before they are heard by ears.

Nadine frees up her answers for magazines. She thinks about what to say and what she's actually feeling and the maybes stop trailing her for a while.

So when the interviewer asks her about falling in love with James, she doesn't shrug her shoulders or give her one-word reply. She thinks about it.

And that's when the realisation hits her.

Does she love James?

Every fibre in her body refuses to deny it. Because she does love him and she knows she does.

Nadine loves James with every ounce of her beating heart.

It's a love that sometimes overpowers her and it has control on her life too.

It's a love she shows through the little things – the worrying thing, the protective thing, the thinking thing, the just being there if you need me thing.

It's a love she is sure of when he looks at her and knows exactly how she feels and it's a love she is proud of when she thinks back to how they both started out.

It's most definitely a love she can no longer forbid herself from having.

Nadine loves James and she may not be in love with him just yet but that isn't what matters. The word in before love makes all the difference in the world to some, but not to her. And it surprises her now that it took her so long to admit she loves him, not because he was hard to love - quite the opposite actually - but because she knows he's accepted that he loves her too.

It's an unconditional love. And that's exactly what she needs – a love without maybes.