Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 122219 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 611(@200wpm)___ 489(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122219 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 611(@200wpm)___ 489(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
“What?”
“I said, I like Nathan.”
“Are you about to give me a father-daughter talk?” I asked as I walked over to the stands to join him.
“I’m about to give you a father-daughter talk.” He patted the empty spot beside him, and I took a seat. He turned his stare back to the field. “Do you remember when your mother and I used to take Yara and you to the baseball field for family time?”
I laughed. “Yeah. She and Yara would sit up here making artwork while you and I hit balls on the field.”
“Those are some of my favorite memories.”
“Me too. You’re the one who made me fall in love with the game.”
“You’re the one who made me stay in love with it,” he expressed, clasping his hands together and resting them in his lap. “I like Nathan,” he repeated.
I sighed. “Yeah. I heard that the first time.”
“You like him, too,” he said, certain. “You love him.”
I blinked a few times. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Baby girl, love has to do with everything.” He stared forward and shook his head slightly. “I don’t know much about life. I’m a simple man who does construction and enjoys a good beer on Friday nights. But there are so many complicated things in life that I don’t know much about. But I do know about love. I think love is the reason we humans decided to come to this damn planet in the first place.”
“If that’s true, then we’re stupid. It’s stupid,” I countered.
He arched an eyebrow. “You think love is stupid?”
“Yes,” I confidently said. “Because if we came for love, then why wouldn’t we come solely for love and love alone? If we only came for love, then why is there so much hurt, too?” I shook my head and shut my eyes. “Because all the hurt in the world seems so much louder than love. It feels more as if we humans came here to suffer. To break.”
“You don’t really believe that, do you?”
I shrugged. “Sometimes. Because if it was all about love…” My voice cracked as I rubbed my hands against my legs. “Then why would this world allow a little girl to lose her mother? Why are there children suffering, wars, violence, pain? There’s so much pain, Daddy,” I cried, placing my hand over my chest. “There’s so much hurt. Why would we do this? Why would we come for love but then make hearts that could break so easily?”
“I think you’re confusing the opposite of love with hurt.”
“No,” I disagreed. “I know the opposite of love is hate.”
“No,” he replied with a headshake. “The opposite of love is indifference. The feeling of emptiness. That’s what the opposite of love is. Love allows you space to feel everything—joy, bliss, sorrow, and pain. Grief is love, Avery. Love and grief go hand in hand.”
“Why is that?”
“Because grief is the realization that you could care for another so deeply. That your heart could shatter a million ways, all due to how much you adored another. Being able to feel so deeply is a gift, baby girl. It’s the indifference, the inability to feel, that is the curse.”
“It’s scary to feel grief…”
“It’s even scarier to feel nothing.” He flicked his thumb against the bridge of his nose. “I once read a quote by a person named Jamie Anderson that said, ‘Grief is just love with no place to go.’ And I felt that deeply. Yet then I realized that the gift of grief is that there are still other types of love that surround you. When I had so much grief after losing your mother, I thought I had nowhere else to put said love, but then I saw it within you three girls. My love for her spread into the love I had for you. And don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t cancel out the love I have for your mother. That grief will always be a part of me, but the love from you girls…that refilled my tank. I think after all these years, that’s what you need, baby girl. You need a refill of your tank.”
I sniffled, knowing that Nathan had started to refill my empty tank over the past few months. Still, I was so scared that I created a leak in the tank because I was terrified of what would happen if that love went away again. “I’m scared of loving him, Daddy,” I quietly confessed.
“I know,” he agreed. “Tell me why.”
“Because…” Tears streamed down my cheeks as the reality settled in. “I think I’m so broken that no matter how hard I try to be enough for him, I’ll never live up to what he deserves. What if my love isn’t enough for him to stay?”
Daddy took a moment, taking in my words. He wasn’t one to speak out of turn without thinking his thoughts all the way through. Then his mouth parted, and he said, “I’ve sat in the stands at the home games this whole season, Avery. I didn’t watch the game, though. I watched Nathan watching you.” He gave me a small smile and wiped away my tears. “I’ve only been in love—real love—once in my life, with your mother. That kind of love doesn’t come around often; it’s rare. But I see it when he looks at you, sweetheart. His love for you is only growing with each passing day. Don’t run from something real just because you’re afraid of getting hurt or that you’re not good enough. Life is hard, and hearts do break, but those hearts can heal, too. Just don’t think that your heart needs to heal on its own when someone out there is interested in fixing it with you.”