In an Instant(63)

“Hi,” he says brightly.

Zap, like static electricity: Mo lifts her face, and their eyes meet, causing a shock, a jolt that hurts, then tingles, then makes you want to rub your feet on the carpet so you can feel it again.

“Wow,” he says. “It’s you.”

And I witness something I’ve never witnessed before—Mo flustered and shy. “Hi,” she manages.

He takes her by the elbow. “Come on. Let’s go inside where it’s warm.”

If he looked closer, he would see Mo is sweating, beads of dew on her temples and her cheeks flushed with heat. She is seriously overdressed for the spring weather, but Kyle doesn’t see that. Like déjà vu, his brain is unable to leap forward from the last time he saw her, and his heart races with leftover concern.

Once they are inside the lodge, he relaxes. “Can I get you a hot chocolate?”

Good move, Kyle. Mo loves chocolate.

She nods, and he practically runs to the counter.

I forgot how good looking he is. He pulls off his hat, revealing mussed honeycomb hair to his ears that is lighter than I remember. His eyes seem lighter as well, sage with sparks of bronze.

Mo takes a seat near the window, her gaze fixed on the snow outside.

“What are you doing here?” Kyle says as he slides into the seat across from her and sets the hot chocolate in front of her. I notice and Mo notices that he didn’t get a hot chocolate for himself, and my guess is his budget only allows for one hot chocolate a day.

Mo explains her mission.

“Oh,” he says, his mouth puckering slightly around the word.

“Are you okay with talking about it?” she asks.

Kyle is silent a moment, his eyes on the table between them. “I don’t know. I haven’t really talked about it to anyone.”

“Not even your girlfriend?”

“We broke up a few days after the whole thing.”

“What about your family?”

He shrugs. “I didn’t want to worry them. It was that guy Bob who gave the interview, and I don’t think he knew my name, so the news never mentioned me. I don’t think, other than the rescuers, anyone even knew I was involved.”

Mo’s eyes grow wide. “So no one who knows you knows what happened?”

Kyle gives a thin smile. “Probably better that way.”

Mo thinks about this, and I watch as her expression changes from shock to agreement. “I think you might be right. It’s kind of awful, people knowing.” She takes a sip of her hot chocolate. “I mean, everyone’s real nice and concerned, but they don’t really get it.”

“Yeah, well,” Kyle says, “it’s kind of hard to describe.”

Mo nods and wraps her hands around her cup as she watches the steam rising from it. “It’s like, people, they think it was this great big adventure, and it’s like they’re all excited to hear about it.” She shudders.

“Too many action movies,” Kyle says. “Nothing too great or exciting about kids dying or people losing fingers and toes.”

The color drains from Mo’s face.

“Sorry,” Kyle says quickly. “I’m so sorry.”

“No,” Mo says. “It’s okay. It’s why I came here. I want to hear it, all of it.” Her eyes are moist and her skin white as the snow outside.

“Are you sure?” Kyle asks, concern lining his face.

She nods and lifts her face so her eyes are fully on his. “I need to know I’m not crazy,” she says, and my heart breaks a little as I realize how much she has been struggling, all of this too much and with no one to talk to about it.

“You’re not,” Kyle says, clearly distressed and out of his depth, unfamiliar with having a beautiful girl ask him to recount the most awful thing in the world, especially knowing it will undoubtedly upset her, which is the last thing in the world he wants to do.

“So I need to know what happened,” she says, “all of it.” Her nose pinches, and she closes her eyes. With a deep breath, she opens them, settles her gaze on his, and says, “Then I need you to tell me it won’t happen again.”

Kyle reaches over the table and wraps his hands over hers and then, with a deep breath of his own, begins, “My car broke down as I was driving from my apartment to my job . . .”

It takes him nearly an hour to tell the story. His hands hold hers the entire time, and Mo listens with her eyes fixed on the table between them. At several points she shivers, and at others, tears leak from her eyes. Each time, Kyle stops, and I watch as his nose opens and closes with his rapid breaths, his desperation to soothe her and somehow make this easier pulsing off him.

Minutes pass as she works her way through it, and then bravely she nods for him to go on.

The only lie he tells is an omission. He leaves out the part about him slipping over the ledge and my mom letting go. I watch his expression as he does it: the smallest wince at the memory before he moves past it.

“And then I was taken to the emergency room,” he says. “And now I’m here with you.” She looks up, and he gives a thin, crooked smile. Then his hands slide farther around hers to envelop them completely, and he adds, “And it will never happen again.”

“Thank you,” she says.

“You’re welcome.” He releases her hands and leans back.