Her voice trailed off. They kept quiet again.  “I can see that,” Tina finally said softly.  “Based on what you just shared.”

“I can see why you could have doubted what your body was telling you. See why, all this time, you’ve been telling yourself to be careful about the person that you fall in love with … questioning whether having a relationship with someone you thought you’d fallen in love with is worth it to you.  Careful about not having lust fool you into thinking what you felt was love.  Protecting your heart; guarding your soul …”

“It’s not just me, Tina,” Jade protested. “I could see during her recovery that somehow she didn’t want to tell me all that often that she loved me, because she was still wary of everyone she’d ever had a relationship with and who’d seemed to want to care about her…”

But I know, of course, that Rian chose to trust in what she felt for me soon enough.

“Jade, honey. This is what I see: you and Rian struck a good friendship at the start, were respectful of the relationships you had with other people and kept the strong attraction you felt for each other at bay. And when you got together again you both had to overcome the challenges of adjusting and working through the ebbs and flows of a really difficult recovery by Rian from extreme, even catastrophic injuries that would be daunting even for a relationship of equals.  You’ve told me about how some of that went, but only you and her would ever really know what it took, what sacrifice it must have taken, to get through all of that.”

Before Jade could respond, Tina added, “And I know that in your mind you and Rian were not equals. You hinted about these often enough: she was more experienced, had more “polish” you liked to say, was older, and was growing ever more beautiful as the years went by, always attracting attention from all these guys, some of them super-loaded…”

“Can you blame me, Tina?”

“No, I can’t blame you, actually.”

“Wha-a-a-t-t-t?!” Jade exclaimed, confused.

“I’m sure you didn’t call me to pump your confidence up, cuz.”

“Umm.. no, but.”

Tina soothed her quickly, “And I’m not here to deflate your ego, either.”