Secrets (22 page)

“What happened, Jess?” he spoke softly, wrapping his arms around her and pressing his lips against her ear.

A wave of a new emotion washed over Jessica, and she
pulled away. With both fists clenched, she pounded Kyle’s chest. “You left me, that’s what happened! Why did you leave me?”

Kyle grabbed both her wrists and held them fast. “I didn’t know.” His words were firm. “I didn’t see you leave the road.”

“A truck cut in front of me, and I followed it here.” She began to cry again. “I blinked, but you didn’t stop.”

“I thought you were behind me. I didn’t realize I’d lost you. I’m so sorry, Jessica. It must have been terrifying to be stuck here.”

“They came and looted the truck,” she said, controlling her tears and pulling the rein in on her emotions.

“Who came?” Kyle stroked her hair and wiped her tears with his steady hand.

“Some men. They broke open the back of the truck. I don’t know what’s left.”

Kyle pulled Jessica to his chest and held her close. “Oh, Jess, I’m sorry. No wonder you were hiding. They didn’t see you?”

“I don’t think so. I thought you were them. Coming back for these sleeping bags.” Jessica could hear Kyle’s heart beating with a thick, steady rhythm as she surrendered herself to his embrace. They held each other silently for a minute before Kyle pulled away. He had one leg still outside the truck, one leg bent under the steering wheel, and his arms stretched across the seat to hold her.

“I’m going to see what they took. I’ll be right back.”

“I’m going with you,” Jessica said, slipping across the seat and joining Kyle outside in the rain, which had slowed to a drizzle. Kyle put his arm around her shoulders, and they walked through the mushy mud to the back of the truck. The lock on the back had been broken off, and the door was still rolled up. All that was left were the two empty ice chests, three
pieces of luggage, and one sleeping bag.

“Wow, they sure cleaned us out,” Kyle said. Jessica wondered if he would be upset at the loss. He seemed to take it in stride. “I’m just glad you’re okay,” he said, wrapping his arms around her once more.

Jessica circled his middle with her arms and leaned her head against his shoulder. She thought of how good Kyle felt and how she fit so perfectly in his embrace. She belonged here.
Don’t ever let go
.

“What I think we should do,” Kyle said, “is load up what’s left in the back of the van and drive back to Mexicali. The rest of the group is at the border control station. We can’t pull the truck out of the mud tonight. We’ll go to a motel on the American side of the border, and then I’ll come back in the morning with a tow truck.”

Jessica helped load the luggage into the van. Kyle locked the truck with his second set of keys and did his best to close the broken door on the back so it would at least keep out the rain. Jessica hopped up into the front passenger seat of the van, and Kyle turned the key in the ignition.

Nothing happened. He tried again. All they heard was a faint clicking sound.

“I don’t believe this!” Kyle said, banging his fist on the steering wheel. “It sounds like the battery.” He popped the hood, fished under the front seat for a flashlight, and then hopped out in the rain to examine the stubborn beast. “Try starting it now,” he called to Jessica.

She reached over and turned the key. Nothing.

“Try it now.”

She did and again nothing.

Kyle slammed the hood and hustled back into the front seat, shaking the wet from his jacket before hopping in. “I don’t know what the problem is.”

They were silent for a moment.

“I guess we’re stuck,” he said. “It’ll be daylight in about…,” he checked his watch with the flashlight, “four hours. We can walk out to the main road for help then. It would be foolish for us to try it now.”

“What about Teri and the rest of the group?” Jessica asked.

“They’ll be okay. At least I know where they are. They have shelter, couches, and a candy bar machine. That’s more than we have,” Kyle said.

Jessica wanted to say, “But I have you, and I feel safe now.” Instead she said, “I’m glad you found me.”

“I have to tell you,” Kyle said, turning so that his back rested against the closed door, and he was facing Jessica, “I was pretty scared there for awhile.”

“You
were scared!” Jessica said, following Kyle’s example and leaning against her closed door to face him. “This night ranks among the very worst of my life.” Then remembering her conversations with God, she added, “And I guess it also ranks among the very best.”

“What do you mean?”

Now Jessica wasn’t sure what to say. She thought Kyle would be pleased about this milestone on her spiritual journey, yet she didn’t know how to express it. Kyle waited patiently while she searched for the words. Finally she said, “I sort of came to terms with God. I guess you could say that in my spiritual journey I’ve fallen on my face.”

In the darkness, she couldn’t see Kyle’s face. She sensed a deeper warmth in his voice as he said, “And?”

“And…I’ve surrendered. It’s a big step for me, trusting God like this. He never really seemed to be on my side before.”

“But now you’re on his side,” Kyle suggested.

Jessica nodded. “I don’t know how to say it, but I know everything is different.”

Kyle reached across the open space between the two seats and grasped Jessica’s hand. He squeezed it three times, and in a rather hoarse voice he said, “I am so, so glad. Eternity begins tonight, Jess. You’re saved.”

She thought those were awfully bold words. Yet his hand felt warm and secure blanketing hers.

“You’re cold,” Kyle said. “Let me get you a sleeping bag.” He crawled to the back of the van and brought back two sleeping bags. Unzipping the first one, Kyle placed it over Jessica and tucked part of the puffy down bag behind her back. He used the second one as a back rest between himself and the cold window on the driver’s side. Then, looping his left arm over the top of the steering wheel, he asked, “Do you want to try to sleep?”

Jessica couldn’t help but admire Kyle’s chivalrous acts. What she really wanted to do was talk. She had let herself become more vulnerable with Kyle than she ever had intended. She didn’t know what would happen to them back in the “real world,” where she had to carefully guard herself.

However, tonight, for the next four hours, they were alone. Completely alone. If ever she had an opportunity to find out about this man, it was now. She wasn’t sure what she would do with the information. She knew she shouldn’t process it in terms of Kyle being someone she would become attached to. That would mean she would have to tell him the truth about her life, and she couldn’t do that. For now, she could listen. She could hear from Kyle’s own lips why he was interested in her and why he had so patiently pursued her.

Before she lost her courage, Jessica said, “What I’d really like to do is listen to you.”

“Listen to me?”

“Yes, tell me about you.”

“What do you want to know?”

“About your family.”

“I have two younger brothers. One is a year younger, the other, three. My parents have been married for thirty-five years and have lived in the same house in Portland for thirty-one of those years. My father was a pilot. What else do you want to know?”

“What do you want to tell me?”

Kyle laughed. “I have a dog,” he said. “She’s the only other family member. Her name is Amber. She’s a golden retriever. Do you like dogs?”

“Sure. I like golden retrievers. They’re beautiful.” Jessica felt snug under the warm sleeping bag. She was trying to picture what it would be like to go hiking or camping with Kyle and have Amber curl up beside her at the campfire at night.

“What about you?” Kyle asked.

“I don’t have a dog,” Jessica said.

“I know you don’t have a dog. What about your family?”

“Well,” Jessica began slowly, “my mom died when I was eight. My dad is a businessman, and I grew up in southern California. There’s not much to tell. I always wanted to live in a small town and be a teacher. I guess I’m doing what I’ve always wanted.” She hoped Kyle would be satisfied with her answer and not probe any further. She quickly thought of a question for him. “Did you always want to be a firefighter?”

“Don’t all little boys?” Kyle said. “Actually, I came by it in an unusual way. I thought about being a school counselor or football coach because I liked teenagers and I wanted to work with them. But then, about four years ago, I ended up taking care of an elderly woman for awhile, and I decided I wanted to help people medically and then volunteer my time to work with teens. And that’s what I’m doing.”

Jessica surmised that the elderly woman was Thelma. She
wanted to hear more. “Was the woman ill?” she ventured, wondering if she should come right out and tell him that she knew about Thelma.

“She had cancer.”

“Tell me the whole story,” Jessica said. “I’d really like to hear it.”

Kyle let out a heavy sigh. “Her name was Thelma Atkins. She was the dearest woman you would ever hope to meet. She prayed for me every day. I don’t mean a little sentence. She prayed for hours. An amazing woman.” For the next ten minutes Kyle proceeded to tell Jessica about Thelma and repeated what Dawn had already told her about Lindsey coming to help out and then dying a few months before Thelma did.

“You and Lindsey were engaged?” Jessica asked, since Kyle hadn’t yet used that term.

“Yes. She was only nineteen when we got engaged. I suppose we thought we knew what we were doing. Our engagement didn’t even last two months before she died.”

“What did she die of?” Jessica asked.

Kyle didn’t answer. Jessica remembered that Dawn said it was pneumonia. In the darkness, Jessica couldn’t tell if Kyle had floated off in his memory or if he had clammed up. His words had seemed so intimate and sincere up to this point. Jessica wasn’t sure if she had overstepped her boundaries. It didn’t bother her to hear about Lindsey. She felt the same sympathetic camaraderie as she had in the graveyard when thinking of her mother’s death.

“I’m sorry if I’m being too nosy,” Jessica said.

“No, that’s all right.” Kyle paused and then said, “Lindsey died of AIDS.”

Jessica never expected to hear that.

“No one knows,” Kyle added quickly. “I’m not sure why I
felt I could tell you. Besides Dr. Laughlin, who maintains professional confidentiality, no one else in Glenbrooke knows. Thelma never knew. It would have broken her heart.”

Jessica couldn’t think of what to say. “I’m sorry,” were the only words that came from her mouth. But her mind was flooded with a thousand questions. Jessica had felt one thing thinking of a beautiful young woman dying of pneumonia, but she experienced a completely different reaction hearing she had died of AIDS.

“Are you okay?” Jessica asked tentatively, feeling that the question could be taken in a non-probing way, or could lead Kyle to open up about his own state of health.

“If you mean about her death, I think so. It’s taken me a long time to get over her, but I think I finally am.” Kyle drew in a deep breath. “If you mean do I have AIDS, no. I don’t. Lindsey and I were never intimate. She got it from a football player in high school. She was fifteen; he was a senior. He chased her for a month until she finally went out with him. They went out twice. He got what he wanted on their second date and then dropped her to go out with the head cheerleader. It’s a pretty typical high school scenario. Lindsey didn’t know what was going on. She was so innocent. She was chaste after that. But all it takes is once.”

Jessica could tell Kyle was struggling from the way his voice wavered. She reached over and held his hand lightly as he finished his story.

“I met her when she came to Glenbrooke to take care of her grandmother. We dated for four months, and then I asked her to marry me. The day after we bought her engagement ring, Lindsey received a phone call from this guy. He was in the hospital in Spokane, and he told her he had AIDS and was trying to contact every girl he had slept with. I imagine the list
was rather long. He told her he was sorry. He died four months after she did.”

“How awful,” Jessica said, holding Kyle’s hand a little tighter.

“I can’t believe I’m telling you this,” Kyle said. “I’ve never told anyone. No one. Not even my mother.”

“I’m glad you’re telling me,” Jessica said softly. She remembered what Kyle had said to her that afternoon when she told him to leave her alone. “I think I understand now why you said secrets get heavier the longer you carry them. I’m glad you’re not carrying this all alone anymore.”

“This isn’t public information, though,” Kyle said, leaning forward. “I need you to keep this confidential, Jessica. It would shock too many people if they knew the truth.”

“And it probably wouldn’t do too much for your reputation either, would it?”

Kyle pulled his hand away.

“I’m sorry,” Jessica said quickly. “That didn’t come out the way I meant it. You have a lot of friends in Glenbrooke, and people look up to you. A stigma comes with AIDS. People might look at you differently if they knew.”

“Do you?”

“No.” She reached for his hand again. “Kyle, I know this whole thing had to be unbelievably difficult for you, and I know all about carrying heavy secrets. Knowing this doesn’t change my opinion of you. Honest. It makes me admire you even more for all you’ve gone through.” She paused. “May I ask you something?”

“Okay.”

“What if you knew you could save someone’s life. You would do it, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course.”

“I know you would. I mean, you came to my rescue, and you took care of Mrs. Atkins. Kyle, what if you could save someone’s life, like Dawn Laughlin’s?”

“What are you getting at, Jessica?” She heard an edge of irritation in his voice.

“Dozens of young girls like Lindsey are fifteen right now. You could have such an influence on their lives that they would never have to worry about receiving a phone call when they’re nineteen.” Jessica wasn’t sure if she had overstepped her boundaries. Kyle had turned quiet, and his hand didn’t move. Jessica gave it a little squeeze and said, “I could be completely out of line here, but Kyle, if you came to my health ed class and told your story, I think it would have a profound effect on the students. All I can give them are statistics. You can give them reality.”