The struggles going on in Fiona were particularly intense. On the one hand, she experienced an intense desire to give herself completely to Alexander and move forward with him. On the other hand, she was incredibly afraid of failure, another marriage that would fail. The crazy thing was, she hadn't actually suffered from this at all after her first marriage, but the idea that a relationship with Alex could fail... she couldn't bear to think about it. In those few days, he had become so precious to her!

Alex didn't think it was possible that their relationship could end up on the rocks. He couldn't imagine it because they had such an intense soul connection. But despite sensing that he was right, her fear just wouldn't go away.

That duality meant that she would prefer to hang out with Alex all day, but on the other hand avoided it. They sat at the table together, both at breakfast and dinner, but after breakfast she tried to avoid him. They both knew that Alex's friends, Johan, Marieke and Marianne, were fully behind them. They understood what was going on, had themselves felt the deep connection between Alex and Fiona. So from that group of friends too, she had nothing to fear, but still....

Alex assured her, that she was welcome with him any time, during the day and even at night, but that he wanted to leave her completely free in everything because so many struggles were still going through her. It regularly shot through her mind, that he was so loving to her, so totally focused on her well-being, allowing her to discover how far she could and wanted to go. He was so focused on her, so desirous that she would do well. Again and again, that was what came to her mind, that his focus was on her, not on himself and his own desires. He did have his own desires, she was well aware of that, but he focused only on her, on what was good for her!

Because of the fight, she had decided on Monday that the shared meals should be enough for now, that they would see further after the holiday week. But after breakfast on Tuesday, she already had doubts about her decision. Did she really want this? Didn't she just want to hang out with him during the day? With him alone and with him in his group of friends? The atmosphere was good, but she didn't dare, experiencing struggles within herself about whether she would then not impose herself, whether the group would not eventually see her as an intruder after all.

.

Marieke had seen her struggle, had sensed what was going through her, but really had no idea how to deal with it, what she could do for Fiona. So she decided to talk about it with Anton, Anton, the man everyone perceived as a kind of father figure. She just couldn't find him that morning.

It was only towards noon, when the group of friends were having lunch on the veranda, that she saw Anton and Joke returning together from the village. She saw that they parted with a kiss, after which Joke went inside, probably to work on her book, and Anton strolled in their direction.

"Bon appetit youngsters!" he greeted them, and sat down next to her at Mariekes beckoning.

"A sandwich too, Anton?" asked Marianne.

"I will honestly confess that I had lunch today with a huge ice cream coupe, so no thanks, I'm really full!"

He turned to Marieke: "Tell me girl, what's on your mind?"

Marieke chuckled: "Are you psychic or something?"

"No, but I saw a thousand thoughts shooting back and forth in your furrowed brow and you beckoned me... that's like one plus one is two!"

Marieke shot into laughter: "Okay ordinary people skills, then!"

"Something like that, combined with feeling."

"I wanted to share something with you."

"Can I guess?" asked Anton.

"You can always try..."

"Worried about Fiona?"

"Well... indeed!" Marieke didn't take time to wonder about it, but spoke straight through. "It's so obvious that Fiona and Alex have a soul connection, not just one, but a very... well, intense is the right word I guess... as if nothing else exists for them anymore. I notice that Alex will do anything for her, but that Fiona is incredibly insecure, scared, I don't know what for. I would love to talk to her, to help her cross the bridge, because I can just see from her that she longs for Alex too, but I wouldn't know what the hell to say about it!"

"First of all, I think what you are telling me now is very clear. You could share that with her too. On the other hand, I also understand that you're like 'nice, and then what?'"

"Exactly, that! And I don't even know where she is either."

Marianne came over to them, crouched down. "Am I right in thinking you are talking about Fiona?"

"Yes, indeed... I would like to tie her to Alex. They long for each other, but she has so much insecurity and fear, doubts. She is fighting with herself immensely," Marieke explained.

"I think I have the solution," Anton said. "Not me, but you together. Marieke, you have experienced it with Johan, that incredible click, that soul connection that you absolutely cannot deny or explain away. And you, Marianne, have experienced how Johan changed as a result. So you know it from both sides, and ... you belong together to Alexander's group of friends. If you manage to get her involved, that will already make a big difference to her, because I wouldn't be surprised if she also struggles with the friend group phenomenon. She doesn't really know you guys. She is new, alone, would such a regular group want to accept her, really want to accept her as one of them? You know the answer to that question, and I know you told her too, but she doesn't dare to receive it yet."

Marieke nodded, looking at Marianne. She also nodded and told her that she knew where Fiona was just now. It was close, Marieke could walk it just fine.

.

After a short walk, they saw Fiona lying under a tree. As they got closer, they saw that tears were streaming from her eyes. She was crying without a sound, without sobs.

Marianne coughed, causing Fiona to open her eyes.

"Marianne? Marieke?"

"Hey, can we keep you company, just as women among themselves?"

Fiona nodded, although, as she wiped away her tears, she did wonder, what was the reason why they came.

Marieke sat down against the tree and sighed, "This is the twist of fate, especially an armchair for a heavily pregnant woman!"

Fiona chuckled, "Yes, I ordered that for you, foresight, I think."

"That'll be it! Are you okay a bit again?" asked Marieke.

Fiona shrugged: "Only half, I think. I'm in my own way pretty much."

Marianne pretended to be very relieved: "Thank goodness, I was afraid you thought you were getting in our way! To be honest... we miss you. I do know you're new, and not originally part of the group, but when someone has such an intense soul connection with one of us, they automatically belong. You belong, you belong to our group of friends, Fiona. May we welcome you on behalf of those guys and ourselves? Please?"

Fiona sighed deeply and fought back tears.

"Get real, I don't dare to do it all, I want to so badly, but I don't dare, I can't!"

She started crying again. This time her whole body shook and she became completely upset. Marieke held Marianne back, with such a gesture of "let her be". Only when she calmed down a bit did Marianne put her hand on Fiona's shoulder.

"Is it so hard, Fiona? I didn't want to force anything on you, you know, but it just feels that way, that you belong. Do you understand how I mean it?"

Fiona shrugged. "It sounds like you long for it, for me to join the group, to become one of you, something like that."

"Exactly, that's how I mean it. You know, Marieke has a very intense soul connection with Johan. I would hate it if Johan is part of our group, and Marieke is not. Can you imagine that?"

"Yes, I can understand that in itself, but it's quite a difference, Marieke and Johan are married, or living together, they are already a couple. Alex and I are not yet, and that is precisely my stumbling block. After all, I don't dare. I was married for ten years to someone with whom, in retrospect, I had no relationship at all. We didn't fight, but neither were we able to give anything to each other, let alone give ourselves to each other. After our divorce, I was actually relieved, I could finally start living. I discovered my old hobby, working with clay, though I am running into something in that too. And beyond that, damn, I feel so confused. I'm just scared. I am afraid that I will never be able to receive that love I do see in Alex, his love for me, his desire for me, that I will never be able to reciprocate that love. He said I was in a bubble, and I experienced that that was true. I cut myself off from my parents and brother as a young child, and since then I have been unable to give or receive, to enter into real relationships. Do you understand what I mean? I don't want to hurt Alex, or be disappointed again myself. Pfff, it's so complicated!"

Marieke nodded: "I think I understand very well what you mean. When I was almost an adult, I met Johan in the base year of our studies. Ellen was there too, I don't want to withhold her name, she is still a friend of ours, but we all see that she has no connection with Alex. Somehow I always felt that, but never really thought about it. Anyway, so the three of us were those students who really wanted to go for it, Johan, Ellen and me. Not that we were those super-students, but those students who really wanted justice to prevail on earth, who wanted to eradicate injustice. All three of us were people used to living from our inner selves, quite unconsciously still, but that was what we did. Johan often walked between us with his arms around our shoulders and called us 'his women'. But Ellen felt that his heart went out to me. He loved her as a good friend, but longed for a lifelong relationship with me. Vice versa, I had that too. Only we were both too scared, too insecure to express it to the other. And then we lost each other, because Johan went on to law school after the foundation year, Ellen too but a different direction, of advocacy, and I towards security. I grieved, Fiona, really grieved. And afterwards it turned out that Johan had experienced the same. It had felt for both of us as if half of us had been cut off, ripped off. It hurt so much! And only because we didn't dare, our insecurity and fear seemed greater than our desire. In hindsight, I feel so bad, we lost so many precious years!

Last year, Ellen brought us together again, because of Lisa's court cases. That was so great! Ellen arranged for the three of us to have dinner, at my house. I remember I had made two kinds of lasagne, and some kind of stracciatella ice cream. The spark between Johan and me... was stronger than ever! Ellen sensed it and left early that night with an excuse about her work. And Johan stayed, and never left..."

As if it had been so agreed, Marianne took over.

"You should have seen him in court the next day. He reacted totally differently to me, that's where it started. And after I brought him coffee, he started looking at Lisa's records, with pictures and everything. He suddenly went on a rampage like a beast, he was so mighty furious that he nodded his empty mug off the table and didn't even notice. He didn't notice that I came in. Later that day, we had lunch together at his office. I never do that with a judge, because of sexual harassment... yes, there was quite a lot going on in that court, it really wasn't all pure and right there. But anyway, I always felt that Johan was different, and especially from that day on. So I dared to have lunch with him. And he told me in great outline how Lisa's past had affected him, which had made him so uncontrollably angry, and how he had felt her pain. And he told about the day before, about Marieke, and that she had destroyed the walls around his heart with her love and the power of her soul. Marieke, had you done anything special?"

"Well no, I just couldn't resist that spark, that connection anymore. And despite the misery of the years before, the loss and all, and the possibility that I might lose him again, that this relationship would therefore not really come about, I threw myself fully into the adventure. And Johan did the same. And our relationship only got stronger after that. We regularly go through miserable things, of old pain, old wounds. And then the other is there again and again, and it gets even better, even stronger. And then when I think of Alex and you, I want to ask you: is it okay for you when the man who longs for you so intensely to catch you when you go through depths? Do you dare to allow him into your heart?"

Fiona sighed: "Rosalie... When I first met Rosalie, Saturday afternoon, she suddenly looked straight at me and said, "Just open your heart, it's okay!" And I didn't understand what it was about. I suspected it had to do with Alexander, because it was after that power surge, that lightning bolt that had been there between us. Did you know it was there?"

Marieke shook her head: "We didn't experience it, but we heard about it from Ellen. She did feel it, and knew it had happened between Alex and you, that lightning bolt. That also allowed her to decide to leave Alex, because she realised that what you guys had, she had never had with him. Therefore, she does not blame you for anything, although it may feel different to her at times, but that is her own process she will have to go through. Anyway, back to that comment from Rosalie. Where do you stand on that now?"

Fiona lowered her eyes, looking down at her hands, which fumbled with each other in her lap.

"I want it so badly, but I don't know how. It's not that I don't want to, I find that I long for Alexander very much, but how am I supposed to do that, open my heart, how am I supposed to do that while I'm in that bubble?"

"I don't know how," Marieke told me, "I only know, that being with your soulmate breaks a lot, releases a lot, heals a lot. So the first step is actually a step towards more power, towards more fire, towards more light, so that you are released and healed. And knowing Alex a little bit..."

"... knowing Alex quite well," Marianne corrected, to which Marieke continued chuckling: "... right, knowing Alex quite well, he himself is already healed to the point where his power is perfectly capable of breaking or melting your bubble. Well, sort of like what my soul power did to Johan."

Marianne nodded, "I think you would just do well to go to him. You don't have to do anything special, say anything special. Just be together. Look, of course we also hope you will feel at home in our group, but the most important thing is that you can be with Alex. He is your first home."

Tears started flowing again at Fiona, this time again very quietly. Tears that washed her clean, inside, tears that took away worry, tears that flooded and reduced her uncertainty and fear, giving her the courage to wipe them away and stand up after a while.

"Okay ladies, I'm going to look for him. I know, I feel you are right. And I still find it exciting, but I feel like my tears have washed away the sharp edges of my fear and insecurity. I dare to do it, I am going to do it. Shall we walk back?" asked Fiona.

"Gladly, I want to hang out in that lovely lounger for a while. Will you help me up?"

Laughing, Marianne and Fiona both grabbed a hand from Marieke and pulled her upright. Embraced like three friends, they strolled back.

To chapter 73. Alexander and Fiona

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