Accepting a Loving Heart

Chapter 15: Safe Place

Luc's POV

I was playing the piano and smiling at the person standing beside me. It was a very dark room but it felt peaceful. The man standing beside me touched my hand suddenly and my fingers playing over the piano keys came to an abrupt halt.

"That's enough honey. Someone is here for you." The person said in the soft voice that I treasured.

I glanced up at the man and he smiled warmly at me. A halo surrounded him and he looked like a lamp in the dark room.

"Daddy, no one would be here with us. It's only going to be you and me..always." I promised him, worried that he said it because he wanted to leave me alone.

He pressed his lips together sadly at that. I watched him sit down on the piano bench beside me and saw how he tried to touch my hand but his hands went through mine like a ghost.

"Luc, I am just a figment of your past. I am no more. But there is someone who loves you truly that exists beside you. In this place you've created in your mind, wouldn't he be more suitable to stay beside you than me?" He asked me and I blinked in surprise. What was dad saying?

"You don't want to stay beside me?" I asked him in confusion.

"Sweetheart, you know this conversation is just taking place in your head. If I am asking you that..it's you thinking it now. You are ready to move on from me." He told me and my eyes widened. I shook my head frantically.

"No. I am not. Only you love me truly dad. True love is only for god and between parents and children. Nobody else." I exclaimed.

"Luc, you know differently now. It's true that true love originates from god. But there are many different forms of love in this world and they vary in strength, beauty and purity just like every other thing in this world. Love between parent and child is sacred and it's a love destined by god on every child and parent. But not every parent loves their child and not every child loves their parent despite how much love their parents showered on them. Just like that, love between spouses also has god's blessings but not all honour the vow they take in marriage. But the ones that do honour that vow, perseveres and continues to honour that vow despite many hardships and across time where everything physical fades and only their pure love remains until death." He said wistfully.

I stared at him and said the one thing I didn't ever dare to say to him. "Your love for mum destroyed any chance of a normal childhood for me. If you had chosen to forgo your love for mum, perhaps you could have saved me." I said sullenly and he gave a startled look at me for that.

"Luc..I.." He started and then exhaled. He didn't speak for a while.

"Luc, I loved your mum and you equally but..your mum's love towards me was destructive while your love towards me was one I taught to you to some extent. It was never a competition. There is no such thing as a competition in love because the two relationships you talked about are not fundamentally equal. Having said that, I knew Belle was jealous of my love for you and that you could come under harm due to that. I did try to save you from Belle. I asked for forgiveness from my father and my family but they were not willing to accept us back into their household. I don't know what else I could have done. I tried raising you alone. But it was destiny to go back to your mother. I decided to rest our fate in god's hands and go back, Luc. I know it looks so bad as a parent to go back to that and you probably think I should have died first trying to protect you than go back." He said and I protested.

"No. I never wanted you to die." I replied immediately and he smiled.

"Luc, you are both mine and Belle's son. You have that possessive streak in you that makes you want to possess all the love a person could give to yourself. I know you wished I died protecting you instead of the way I did, because I wouldn't have said these words otherwise. Remember, this dream you are having is all a figment of your imagination." He said and I blinked. I didn't know what to think as I wondered over that.