Soulmates by Mindy Kincade Page A

yourself. Emily and I shared a special kind of love — agape love,” he said with a grin.
    “Agape love? What’s agape love?” she asked.
    “Agape love is a spiritual love, a selfless love. The purest form of love. It’s hard to form a definition of agape love. It’s more of a feeling, a knowing.”
    “Wow, you nailed it! That’s me and Tyler, for sure,” she lied.
    He turned towards her and looked deeply into her blue eyes and said, “It’s when that person dominates your thoughts each and every night before you close your eyes. And again in the morning when you wake, your mind fixates on that person instantly. The problem with this is if you are the only one in the relationship with these feelings, then it’s all for nothing. Because it’s not true love and you’re just wasting your time. It must be mutual. And I for one would never settle for anything less than true love because once you’ve experienced that, nothing else compares. I would rather be alone than try to force love to happen with someone.
    For a moment Presley was silent.
    “Yeah, Tyler and I have all that,” Presley repeated as she looked away.
    “Sure you do,” he smiled.
     

 
    Chapter Seven
     
    Jesse walked Presley back to the cabin. He was obviously disappointed that Presley had rejected him. He stopped her at the doorway and took her hand.
    “Please think about what I said. I really don’t believe Tyler is the one for you. You deserve better,” he whispered.
    “Maybe I do. But I’ve been wondering. If you really believe in all that ‘true love’ stuff, then why did you ever even date Sarah? I mean your whole spiel back at the river about ‘the one’ was touching, I'll admit, really. But I’m not sure you truly believe that,” she said.
    “What do you mean? I courted Sarah for a short time here,” he confessed, his face flushed.
    “Yeah. Well, if you were so in love with Emily, then how do you explain Sarah?” she pressed.
    Jesse looked down and shook his head.
    “Woman! I courted Sarah for a short time here because I couldn’t have Emily! And I do mean a short time. I figured out quickly that our relationship was not going to work,” he explained. His eyes were eager for her response.
    “Why didn’t it work?” she asked softly.
    “Because I—I— was still in love with Emily. I learned and accepted, after being here for a while, that I would always love Emily. She was my one,” he said sadly.
    “Okay, I see. I don’t know why you’re getting so defensive with me,” she said.
    “Because you wanted to know,” he looked at her as if she were crazy.
    “Well -now I know. Good night,” Presley said as she opened the door. She took one last look at Jesse before walking inside the cabin. Presley was now not only jealous of Emily, but of Sarah too. And she was a little angry with Jesse for dating either. She couldn’t understand why she was having these feelings. She was too tired to try to sort them out. Exhausted, Presley collapsed her body onto the bed and thought silently to herself.
    “Agape love. Jesse and Emily had agape love. That was so long ago. Seriously long ago, the eighteen hundreds. I think love has probably changed since then. Hmm, agape love — there’s no such thing,” she concluded. She shut her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
     
    ≈≈≈≈≈
     
    Presley began to dream again. Only this time the images were sharp and in focus. The colors were bright and it seemed so real, as if she were right there. Jesse was riding a black horse and a young lady was riding behind him. The horse was galloping fast and the girl held on to Jesse’s waist tightly with her head resting on his shoulder. Her long hair was curled at the ends, with the sides pinned up. Her long dress flowed as they rode. Jesse stopped the horse and he turned around and kissed the girl.
     
    ≈≈≈≈≈
     
    “Get up Presley! We are finally going home!” Paulette announced from the kitchen. Presley rubbed her eyes as