Chapter 21
I stood staring at him, not able to comprehend what happened. My stomach knotted. I felt nauseous. I started to hyperventilate. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t hear what more he said. My gaze locked on a man who was supposed to be dead.
Rafael grabbed my arm, shook me slightly as he stepped in front of me. The room closed in, spinning around me, and went black.
When I woke up, I was in an ambulance with Rafael.
I tried to glance around, but I couldn’t move off the stretcher. I pulled the mask off my face. It made me feel like I couldn’t breathe.
“Kayla, leave on the oxygen mask and slow down your breathing.” The paramedic told me. “You're okay. We're taking you to get checked out after fainting.”
Tears running down my face, I looked at Rafael. He held my hand, saying nothing. When we arrived at the hospital, they gave me a sedative. They told me they needed to make sure I hadn’t hurt my head or neck when I fell onto the floor in the conference room.
A couple of hours later when I opened my eyes, I saw Rafael and Antonio in the room.
Rafael came to sit on the side of the bed. “Honey, what happened? You’ve never panicked about a presentation before.”
Tears ran down my face. “It wasn’t the presentation.”
“What was it? What happened?”
“They told me he was dead.” I began to sob. “I’ve mourned and missed him for six years. I didn’t want to go on without him.”
“Are we talking about the car accident? Are you telling me the man who walked into that room was your Javier Fuentes?”
I nodded, sobbing so hard that I couldn’t speak.
“Oh my God.” Rafael wrapped his arms around me.
I cried as he rocked me back and forth. “I need my shrink. I need you to call him for me. I can’t be alone. I don’t understand. Why’d they tell me he was dead? Why didn’t he come find me? Where the hell has he been?”
“Shh, I don’t know why. I don’t know what happened. I do know that we’ll never get any answers until you’re calm enough to ask some questions.”
I continued to cry. “What about Steven? I’ve started to move on. I just started to feel again, to allow myself happiness and then Javier appears? I don’t understand! I’m going to be sick.”
Antonio brought me a bucket and I vomited. He handed me a glass of water when I was done. I rinsed my mouth and cried some more.
“Kayla, who’s your shrink? How do I contact him?” Rafael asked.
“His card is in my wallet.”
Thankfully, Rafael had grabbed my purse when the ambulance came for me. He went through my purse until he found my wallet and the business card with the doctor’s name and number. He stepped out of the room to make the call.
Antonio took over where Rafael left off, sitting on the bed holding my hand.
Rafael came back in from making the call. “He’s on his way.”
“He’s coming here? Can’t I leave and go there? I don’t want to stay here. I spent months in a place like this between the hospital and going to rehab. I don’t want to stay here.”
“We’ll see when he gets here. I can tell you that they’re not going to let you leave unless you calm down.”
I struggled to stop crying. “Rafael? Where’s Steven?”
“He stayed to pitch the design.”
“What time is it?”
“It’s one o’clock.”
“Has he called?”
“Yes. I told him not to come, that you were resting and they’d probably release you soon.”
I wasn’t sure what I expected. The man just pitched a plan to my dead boyfriend from six years ago. How could I expect Steven to understand any of this when I clearly didn’t?
“What about Javier? Did he say anything?”
“It all happened so fast. He shook your hand. You went pale and hit the deck. There was pandemonium while we tried to wake you. Then, the EMT’s came in and took over. I was focused on you and never looked at or even spoke to him. I’m not sure Steven even understood what was happening since I couldn’t put it all together without prior knowledge of your past.”
“I don’t know what to do, Rafael. What to feel.”
“I don’t either, but the doctor will help you through this.”
“I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to see Steven either until I have time to figure some things out.”
“You can stay with us as long as you like, sweetheart.” Rafael kissed my forehead.
~ ~ ~
Doctor Samuel White, my psychiatrist, walked through the door thirty minutes later. He had such a calming effect about him, I felt better as soon as I saw him. He introduced himself to Rafael and Antonio. They excused themselves and left the room.
“I hear you had quite a day.” Dr. White sat down in a chair next to the bed.
I started to cry again. “They told me he was dead. All these years, I thought he was dead. What do I do now? I don’t know what to do.”
“Kayla, let’s start from the beginning. Tell me why you think Javier Fuentes isn’t dead.”
“I was supposed to present a showroom design to JVF Automotive executives today. I met Rafael and Steven at the meeting place.”
“Steven is the man you’ve started seeing romantically?”
“Yes, he’s the architect on the project. We went into the meeting room and set up our props. The executives began to file in and then a man approached me. When he was walking toward me I thought about how much he looked like Javier. Once he was close enough, I realized it was Javier. He shook my hand, introduced himself as Javier Fuentes and thanked me for coming. I don’t even know if he recognized me or if he knew all along who I was.”
“What then?”
“I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe. I was sweating, but my face felt ice-cold. The room started to go black and then I woke in the back of an ambulance with Rafael.”
“I brought your file with me since Rafael indicated that you’d seen Javier. I wanted to review our early conversations when you first started to see me. You stated you first learned of Javier’s death the day after you were brought into the Phoenix Trauma Center. You said that your father informed you that you’d been in a car accident and Javier didn’t make it.”
I nodded in agreement as we replayed those painful conversations.
“When did your mother learn of his death?”
“I’m not sure. She was there when my dad told me the day after the accident.”
“Was your sister there too?”
“Yes.”
“When we spoke about the following days, you stated that your dad had taken away your phone and blocked your computer so that you could only enter approved websites.”
“Correct.”
“Did he do the same thing to your sister?”
“Yes. In fact he sent her to boarding school back East that week. We never went back to Nogales or saw anyone from there again.”
“Did you ever see an obituary or a gravesite?”
Tears ran down my face. “No. My dad wouldn’t even allow me to say his name without becoming enraged, let alone take me to the cemetery. He said I wasn’t well enough to go to Javier’s grave anyway and wouldn’t even tell me where he was buried or let me send flowers. I couldn’t find out for myself.”
“How about later, after your parents left? Did you try to verify his death?”
“No. I didn’t have a car. I couldn’t go anywhere while I was in college in Phoenix. I never heard from anyone again. I thought they blamed me for what happened to Javier and that’s why nobody came to see me.”
“Why would they blame you?”
“I wanted to spend part of my Christmas break with Javier and we came up with the skiing trip over New Year’s. It was my idea, my fault we got hurt.”
He sat and stared at me.
“I never considered that my family lied to me. Where has he been? Why didn’t he come for me?”
“The only way you’ll know is to ask him.”
“I'm scared.”
“I know. You’re facing what has haunted you for six years.”
“What do I say to Steven?”
“Does he know about this accident?”
“No, not really. He knew something bad happened to me. He was the first person I tried to date in an effort to get over Javier.”
“I have notes about those conversations.”
“I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t force myself to be with Steven when I really didn’t care about him.”
“And now?”
“And now, I don’t know. I finally told myself that Javier was dead and that I shouldn't feel guilty for moving on. I finally allowed someone to touch me without cringing. I finally felt happy.”
“And you don’t think you can still feel happy?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I feel right now, but I don’t want to hurt Steven either.”
“Then, you need to be honest with him.”
“How? What do I say about this mess?”
“Tell him about your relationship with Javier before the accident. Tell him about the accident and then explain what happened today.”
“What if it’s too much and he walks away?”
Dr. White leaned forward and looked me in the eyes. “Life without chances isn’t a life at all. Sometimes we feel good and sometimes we don’t, but it’s the ability to go on that matters. Hiding is just self-inflicted seclusion. Isn’t that what your parents already provided for you?”
I thought for a long moment.
“If I allow you to be discharged today, I’d prefer it if you weren’t alone. Do you have someone who can stay with you?”
“Rafael and Antonio.”
“Okay. I am going to write a very small prescription for a sedative. I want to see you in my office every day until you’re through this period of crisis.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
~ ~ ~
An hour later, I was discharged. Rafael and Antonio drove me to my condo to pack some things. I listened to my messages before we left. Two from Steven and one from Javier. The two from Steven were frantic and begged me to call him as soon as I was home.
The one from Javier was more chilling. It simply stated he hoped I was feeling better. How strange. He didn’t seem to be at all surprised to see me. Not like I was when I saw him. Why? How did he get my number?
I sat down and decided to call Steven while I was here. I grabbed a box of tissues knowing that this conversation was going to be hard.
“Hello?”
“It’s me.”
“My God, Kayla, are you okay?”
“I'm doing better. I'm sorry about today.”
“What happened? Are you sick?”
“I have to tell you some things about me, Steven. Things I should have told you a long time ago.”
He was very quiet before he said, “Okay, I'm listening.”
“When I was in high school I had a boyfriend. Because my parents were so strict, I’d sneak around to see him. He was my first. My only before you.”
“Honey, people have previous relationships. It’s a normal part of life.”
“Not for me. Not in my family. But, he was special so I broke their rules. We went to the mountains over New Year’s to ski with some friends. My parents thought I was there with my girlfriend and her family, but I wasn’t.”
“What happened?”
“We had a car accident in a snowstorm on the way home. I woke up in the hospital and they told me my boyfriend died. I had a lot of injuries and stayed in the hospital for weeks before being moved to a rehab facility to recover from my spinal fractures. My parents completely lost it. They took away my phone, blocked my computer and sent my sister to boarding school back East on the spot.”
“That’s terrible.”
“It’s not all. While I did rehab, I finished high school online and then they enrolled me at ASU. I was in no position to argue. It’s taken years for me to recover. I’ve been under the care of a psychiatrist ever since the accident.”
“I can’t imagine going through what you did.”
“You were the first person that I dated after high school. Obviously in college, I wasn’t ready for us to have a relationship. When we met again, I’d finally moved past the grief, I was ready to live my own life with you.”
“I still don’t understand how this caused what happened today.”
“Today when we were at JVF, my dead boyfriend walked in and shook my hand.”
Rafael walked over to me and rubbed my shoulders.
Steven didn’t speak for a moment. “How are you doing?”
“Not good, Steven. I need to understand why I was told he was dead. Why was I there today? Why wasn’t he surprised to see me? Seeing him today opened up all the pain, all the guilt I felt over his death.”
“Are you alone?”
“No, I’m going to stay with Rafael and Antonio tonight.”
“Can I call you?”
I sniffled. “I’d like that.”
“Do you need me to do anything?”
“Not right now, but thank you, Steven.”
“It’s going to be okay, Kayla. I promise.”
“I hope you’re right. Bye for now.”
“Bye for now.”
I hung up, put my head in my hands and sobbed.
“What did he say, Sunshine?” Rafael stroked my hair.
“He was Steven, always sweet, always understanding and always kind.”
“This is good, right? He didn’t run in the other direction.”
“I know, but I’m hurting him again.”
“I know, sweetie. You’re hurting too and he needed to know. If you're going to be together, he must know all about you.”