Chapter 160
My mind drifted to Jade. Where was she now? What was she doing? I wanted her in my life so desperately, but I’d hurt her. She’d asked me if our relationship was real and if I was serious about the long haul, and after saying yes, I’d said no. It had been wrong of me.
I typed her name into a search engine online. I wanted to see her face. I wanted to talk to her, call her, hold her, and kiss her, but seeing her face would have to be enough for now.
When I searched her name, a whole bunch of links popped up, and I frowned. I clicked through them one by one and started watching the videos she’d been posting. They were cute and funny, videos about screwing up and making it right again. Videos about being human. She had a whole slew of subscribers, and the comments on all her videos were positive. They loved her.
I smiled. I knew whyshe was lovable in every way.Published by Nôv'elD/rama.Org.
A new video she’d recorded popped up, and I clicked on it.
Hey guys, this is Jade from Being the Little Guy. Welcome to my channel! This is where we dream big dreams and make them come true! Today, I want to talk about something very different than jobs and money and making it in the real world. Today, I want to talk about love.
Full disclosureI’m at the back end of heartbreak, and let me tell you, it’s not easy. But it got me thinking about what love means, and that’s why I’m talking about it today.
It’s so cliche and off-topic compared to the business stuff I’m trying to figure out in my life, but it’s not completely out of place with everything I’ve been going through to figure out who I am. I have a feeling that’s true for a lot of you. How can we split up what we do for work from who we are when we love someone, right? Love defines us in so many ways. It makes us believe in ourselves when we see ourselves through someone else’s eyes. It makes us feel like we can touch the stars and realize all our dreams. It makes us feel like we’re walking on air…like we are taking flight.
When we love, anything is possible.
And when we lose that love…everything comes crashing down. Am I right?
I know I’m not the only one who’s had a situation where I crashed and burned…more than once. Love is the only thing that we never learn. We learn from our mistakes. We grow, we try new things, and succeed, but with love, we always go back and love again.
No matter how many times it hurts. No matter how many times we fall.
It took me a long time to realize that it’s not bad to keep returning to the same thing. I thought I was a fool for loving again, but I was wrong. Being able to love is what makes us human. Being able to love despite how often we get hurt proves that we’re stronger than we know, can do more than we thought, and don’t need someone else to touch those stars.
We’re so set on looking at the negative, but if you’ve been in love, and you’ve been hurt…when you’ve loved, and then you’ve lost…you’re amazing. Why? Because you got up again. You had the strength to pick yourself up and start over.
Once you understand that you’re strong enough to do that, you realize you’re strong enough to do anything you set your mind to. Starting your own business, saving for that holiday, creating the life you want. Love teaches us so many things, and even though it can hurt like hell and make you wish the earth would swallow you whole, love teaches us that we can, we will, and love lets us power on.
So, this is to you, my viewer, cheers to your strength, to love, to march on, to do what you need to do to make it happen. We’ve all been therehurt, in the dust, thinking we can never do it again. And yet we pick ourselves up and keep marching.
Here’s to being the little guy and dreaming big dreams with the strength of will you have in you to live as hard as you love, and to love yourself as much as you once loved another.
Her face froze in a smile when the video ended, and I stared at her. Jade was everything I’d never known I wanted in my life. She was sweet kind, and caring, and she was resilient. She was stronger than anyone I’d met, too.
And she loved as hard as she did anything else. She closed her eyes and jumped. I had so much going for me in lifemoney, a great career, a wonderful son, and family at my back no matter whatbut I didn’t have the strength she had. I didn’t have the outlook on life that she did.
Most of all, I didn’t have her.
I realized with a pang that I wanted her. I didn’t care about anything elseI wanted her in my life. I wanted her to be my wife, to be Ben’s mother. I wanted her to complete me. The week in Aspen had been perfect, not because of the great sex or good company, but because I’d felt like I was enough for the first time since Ben had arrived on my doorstep. With Jade in my life, I knew I could do it all. I was a good father, but I was a good man with her. And Ben loved her.
What more did I need than that?
I grabbed my coat and headed out of the office.
“Cancel my meetings for the rest of the day,” I said to my secretary.
“But you have”
“I don’t care. Make it work.”
I didn’t wait for a response before I stepped into the elevator. I didn’t have a moment to lose.
I wanted Jade in my life and would get her back, no matter what.
I loved her, and I needed her to know that. I loved her and needed her to understand that she was everything to me.
I loved her, and I needed her back in my life.
I loved her.
My mind spun when I got in the car, and I tried to figure out how I was going to do this. At first, I turned toward her apartment, but then I changed my mind and headed into town, toward Placement.