“It is often thought of as the last stage of recovery from trauma.”
“So…” Imagination said, sitting back and releasing a sigh. “You want to know why.”
“Yes,” snarled Joanna. “Why did I have to bleed? Why did I have to be so abused so long and so horribly that my mind had to be split into pieces!?”
“And you think love would be good enough?” Imagination asked.
“Love would be worth it!”
“And not The Garden?”
“The Garden…” Joanna’s lip trembled. “The Garden won’t love me back.”
“Won’t it?” Imagination said.
“Tell me, Goddess!” Joanna screamed. “No more riddles! No more leads! Tell me! I’ve earned the answers!”
“I see a version of you that you can’t see. I always have. You always have. Since we were children.”
Bergen stepped into the doorway and leaned against the threshold. Kallan lifted her head and, in silence, they listened, watched, waited.
Joanna was heaving with anger.
“I see you calm. At peace and all of this behind you. Imagine,” Imagination said, holding her stern gaze on Joanna. “Imagine a day when you are calm, whole, and at peace with your past. You understand why it happened. That it happened for no reason. There was no meaning. It was for nothing.”
Joanna shook, tears streaked her face as she frowned at Imagination.
“Unless,” Imagination said.
Joanna gave Imagination a perplexed look.
“Unless you choose the meaning,” Imagination said. “What meaning would you give your trauma?”
“That it was done to me so that I would know love. So that I would…”
“What is love?”
Joanna paused.
“You told Raven once. Do you need to go back to Broken?
“36 times. 36 times you use the word “love” in Broken. Read them now.”36 times. 36 times you use the word “love” in Broken. Read them now.”
“You don’t know what love is, Joanna,” Imagination said.
“Value,” said Joanna. “Love means value.”
“I notice you only thought of that word when you mentioned your father,” Imagination said. “Keep looking.”
“Logic,” Joanna said. “God is love.” God. Good. Good is love. Good… I had it once… What was good…”
“Value,” Joanna said. “To love is to value.”
“Go on,” Imagination said.
“Yes. I was eight. Comfort, compassion, and love were foreign to me
I knew because I too had endured it, and I understood. The hate, the hurt, the longing to be loved and never finding it. He had been as alone and as hurt as I all that time.
“Fuck,” Joanna said. “That isn’t love. It’s Trauma-bonding.”
“There it is, lass,” Bergen said.
“I need to read Broken. All of Broken,” Joanna said.
“Continue,” Imagination said.
“I love you. You’re beautiful. You’re kind. I like you. These are things we should never hesitate to say.”“I love you,” William repeated. “You don’t think those words should be reserved for…appropriate occasions?”
“That’s it,” Joanna said.
“Something isn’t right. Check it again,” Anna said.
“299 times,” Joanna said.
“Read them all.”
“Valued,” Joanna said.
“You know,” Kallan said. “Love comes from the Latin for “influence.” One could almost argue that “to love” means “to allow one to influence us.”
“He has influenced me,” Joanna said. “I wish… I wish I could influence him. I wish I could return all he has given to me. And I feel like… I can’t.”
“To treasure. To cherish. To value.”
“What is love?”
“Is that what you’re doing? Pursuing love?”
“I want to understand it. I feel like I’ve been finding it this whole time.”
“So maybe… I have simply known love… too much… and it’s time to accept that it’s over.”
I don’t want to quit love before ever really knowing it! I want that feeling again. I want to feel in love again… And I can’t. No one will ever break through that.
“Believe it, lass.”
“Believe in love,” Joanna said. “Or don’t. Harden my heart to it. Or don’t.”
“It’s a boundary,” Imagination said. “Trust that he’ll get through it.”
“What if… you use trust and boundaries… and if he can get through those things… then warm up your heart to him.”
“I used to love so easily,” Joanna said.
“Love was never the problem. You were surrounded by monsters.”
“Maybe,” Imagination said. “Maybe… you will still feel that warmth and love again.”
“It’s so cold,” Joanna said. “I’m tired of how cold it is. It’s so… so cold.”
“It’s cold because you’ve already rejected love.”
“Love… is only granted to those who can receive it. If you seek to possess it, it will never come to you.”
“Hugo.”
“A Heart Beneath A Stone.”
“Without love, we would do nothing. We would be nothing.”
“My life was always driven by love,” Joanna said. “Love for trees, for rain, for animals. Love for mankind. Love for hope. Love for moonlight and grass. Love for children, laughter, and sex. Love. It truly is the opposite of war. Where war destroys, love creates. Why? Because we love. Love is the power of gods. For when a god has no love, he destroys. And when a god has love, she creates. She creates to celebrate the love. How does she create? Through the emotion: love.
“I loved a man once, so deeply so completely…
“What would you say to him?” [William] asked. “If he were real, I mean… If he is real?”“That, despite my belief—that love was passing and faded and grew and changed—that I did believe I would love him to the end of our days,” I said. “I could see us, he and I, forever using the other as a source of comfort when all else failed us. Because, while neither of us could ever completely trust anyone, we could and did trust each other enough and somehow, we knew we would not fail the other to the best of our ability. That, if ever we did fail each other, we would know that the other tried their best and that was all that mattered.“I would tell him that—although I can not marry ever again, and although I needed my space and my freedom to ebb and flow like the waves—that I truly, sincerely, wanted to try with him. That while I ran from door to door, or man to man, while I lived my life loving and smiling and laughing as much as I could, that my door, my heart, and my bed, forever had a place for him. And that if he ever wanted more, he had but to ask and I would do my best to let him break me in. If ever there was anyone who could break me, he could.”William listened, no longer interested in scribbling his notes. I continued.“For the first time in my life, for him, I wanted to be fixed. I wanted to be normal. I wanted to be able to settle down, marry, grow old, and die with him. And that, even though I couldn’t, I sure as hell wanted to try. And more than ever, I wanted all those things with him. That is how he made me feel.”“So Raven is your hope? Your future? Your potential?”I grinned. “Perhaps.”William grimaced.“I love him so completely that I would never take anything from him or cause him pain,” I said. “I would sooner keep my silence, and bear my burden alone, than share my pain and hurt him. I love him so completely that, for the first time in my life, I truly valued someone’s happiness above my own. No judgment. Pure freedom. Complete love. That is what I gave him. That is what I still wish for him. That is all I can ever do for him because I love him.”
“Go deeper, Anna,” Imagination said.
“I am afraid to love.”
“There it is,” Bergen said.
“I am terrified to love. I don’t trust it. And if I let it back inside of me…”
“Love did not hurt you. People did.”
“Give hope back, let hope in, and love comes back.”
“I was a dreamer.”
“Toxic romanticism isn’t love.”
“Love is the warmth that fills your heart.”
“Again. What is the ideal love for you?”
“It isn’t what I get from him. It’s what I give to him.”
“And what would that look like?”
“I would give him… I loved Raven so much. And that… that is love. And I don’t know if ever I will love again. It bothers me that I haven’t loved any else like that. It was so easy. It was just the way of it. Natural. Pure. Like how I loved my second husband. Once upon a time, that is the only way I knew how to love.”
I want that back.
I wish I could love my Number #1 like that. I want to. It’s all the fear and the pain…
“What are you afraid of?” Imagination asked.
“Being stupid about love. I don’t trust myself. I don’t trust that I will love wise again.”
“That is the risk.”
“It’s all the fear of loss.”
“The real delusion is thinking we can possess something and hold it and keep it… loss is the changing. It is losing our expectations and dreams.”
“What is love, if not what we value? What we cherish?”
“Anna. Close your eyes. Imagine…what would love look like if you could make it into whatever you want?”
“Love would be selfless… Love would be giving. Love would be gifts. Real gifts. The kind you buy for someone just because. The kind you give to someone because you think it would make them happy. It would make them smile. The kind where you never think or wonder or hope that it would get you something in return. Loving without worry that you’ll get love back, that is my kind of love. I miss that kind of love.”
Pain has to be greater than the fear. That is when people change.
It hurts to live without love.
Then don’t.
Love was why I did everything. I loved the animals to save them. I loved my forest, so I danced with her.
You’re still thinking like you’re an object… “a man who has earned you.” As if you’re a prize he can win.
Your Abusers took called love so many things that weren’t love. Gifts… Accept gifts. Accept love and adoration. You don’t have to sleep with them. If they love you, they won’t care.
I will only sleep with those who I love and trust.
Going forward, you will only sleep with those who you love and trust.
It happened because it happened.
Now YOU get to make it mean something. YOU choose to make it mean nothing or something by what you do with it.
You choose if love is real.
Pure love… like what I had for Raven… Shamir… That is love.
And you never worry if you’ll lose Shamir.
There is no possession in that love.
Maybe that is what you don’t believe in anymore… Love with possession in it. Like love is a gift. The kind you give to another just because.
I don’t want to live afraid of love. I don’t want to live afraid of loving and being loved. I can’t live like that. It’s against my core beliefs and ethics.