"Sometimes I wonder if your brother loves me," Isabella said, kicking up the next conversation like a cloud of dust. Candace looked as if she wasn't expecting this statement, but she responded anyway.
"He does, but not in the way that you think."
"There are ways?" Isabella tilted her head at the answer.
"Well, love is complicated," Candace said, plucking petals off of an unfortunate daisy. "There's a bunch of different kinds."
"Like what?" Isabella asked, drumming her heels against the brick fence she was sitting on.
"Well, there's the kind of love you feel for a friend," Candace elaborated, "like Jeremy with Coltrane and Hugo." Isabella thought on this kind of love, feeling as if that was the only kind of love Phineas was ever going to have for her. She wanted to say something then, but she refrained from opening her mouth in order to listen to what else Candace had to say.
"And then there's the kind of love you feel for somebody you look up to. Admiration," the redhead continued, "like with you and your mother, or Irving to Phineas and Ferb."
Isabella giggled at the thought of the twitchy, nervous fanboy fawning over one of the Big Ideas. And then she thought of how she aspired to be as loving as her mom, and knew Candace was right. She looked down at the daisy the teen held, which was halfway naked of petals.
"What about love for a pet?" Isabella added.
"That's love, too," Candace said to her.
"There's family love, and your mom should know all about that," the redhead added, to which the younger girl agreed.
Candace was quiet for a long time, plucking petals off of the daisy. They fluttered to the ground and landed in a pile beneath her feet, like a fresh snowfall.
Isabella thought about Candace's opinion on the different types of love. She felt she had seen or experienced every single kind of love the teenager had just mentioned, besides motherly love, of course.
How many of her friends had felt like this too? She wondered.
Ferb felt family love, definitely. What about Buford? Buford had friendly love. He had a tough hide, but a soft interior. And Baljeet had the same best-friend love for his bully. The world wasn't quite so loveless after all.
After a minute or two, she began again. "And then there's true love, which is my favorite. It's the kind of love that you feel for someone special, and if it's real, then they'll feel it, too. And everybody else can just tell."
Candace appeared to enjoy talking about it. It was clear that she felt like she was deeply connected to that sort of love.
"That sort of love would be like..." The redhead paused to search for an example.
"Like you and Jeremy?"
Candace looked down at the girl with shock, who was grinning cleverly. Isabella had been waiting to mention that, because she knew her older companion's reaction would be priceless. And indeed, the face she was making was rich enough to force Isabella to stifle a laugh.
"...I was going to say, like my parents," Candace finally said, "because I don't think Jeremy and I are much of an example..."
At just about that moment, Jeremy showed up behind the fence with a friendly greeting and a smile. Isabella was riding her bike along Jeremy's street when she saw Candace waiting, and was happy to stop and talk for awhile to help her pass the time.
"There's my favorite girl," Jeremy said, kissing Candace on the cheek and presenting her with a very colorful bouquet of flowers, which she eagerly accepted.
"Oh, they're beautiful," the flattered redhead gushed.
Isabella got down off of the fence and straddled her bike.
"Looks like an example to me," she called to the couple as she rode away.
She could hear Jeremy asking, "What was she talking about?" before she was out of earshot, and saw Candace trying to explain hurriedly.
Isbella grinned. She loved doing things like that.