When it Rains

Chapter 1

Kylie West opened a sleep-heavy eye and sighed. She punched her pillow and rolled over lazily. It was too early to be up, and it was vacation after all. Her internal alarm, however, would not let her sleep in any longer. Despite the wall calendar next to her bed and the weather, which both indicated summer, Kylie was unable to get back to sleep. She pushed back the covers and went to the bathroom. The 27-year-old face that stared back at her was the same one she saw every morning, but it seemed changed somehow. The hair was still long, mid-back, and the same dull brown she hated, but everyone said was the color of milk chocolate. Her eyes were large, and that in itself was good, but the hazel color that looked sleepily into the mirror was another point of dissatisfaction. She had always wanted solid green eyes but instead got green and gold flecks mixed with a bit of brown. They reminded her of a murky mud puddle. Negative thoughts were rare with Kylie; she usually tried to look at the world and herself positively. This morning, however, things seemed less than positive. She splashed water on her face in hopes that she could cleanse her mood as easily as she scrubbed her face. The scent of her cleanser revived her a bit. Feeling more normal, she walked downstairs to fix her morning cup of tea. Before she got to the kitchen, she saw evidence of her puppy’s restless night. The trash was scattered around the living room, and her tennis shoe looked like it had spent time in the garbage disposal.

“Great,” she thought. “This is the last thing that I need. Nana…oh Nana, where are you?”

The blanket on the chair suddenly moved, and emerging from the nest sat her 1-year-old giant of a puppy. The Newfoundland looked at her with sleepy eyes and a questioning tilt of her head.

“Oh, did I wake you up, you scamp? Nana, look at the mess you made.”

As an answer, the puppy jumped down from the chair and sniffed the garbage trail that led to the kitchen. Nana barked once and then panted, her tongue in a slight doggie smile.

“Oh, who could be mad at you anyway? Silly dog, you are just too cute. I thought, when I named you after the dog in Peter Pan, you would be responsible and trustworthy… however, you seem determined to prove me wrong this morning. You still need time in the back yard while I clean this mess.”

Kylie lifted up the black fur ball with a grunt to kiss her nose, “Nana, wow…I think you have gone up a weight class. You aren’t the 70-pounder you were a month ago,” and guided her out the back door.

“There you go, now stay out here and play nice,” she said, checking to make sure there was enough food and water.

And with that, Nana went hurriedly off the back porch and off to sniff the morning air. Kylie walked to the stove in her kitchen and started the kettle. As she got the mug and bag for her tea, she looked around the kitchen as if seeing it for the first time. The walls were painted a light gray, and rather than feeling sterile, the color gave the room a sense of calm. The room itself was large and airy, as were most farmhouse kitchens. This was her favorite room in the house. The cabinets were white and made to look like old barn wood, and the countertops were a light granite. There was a large island in the middle of the room, and an old table that she had refinished, sitting by the picture window, looking out to the backyard. The whistle of the kettle brought Kylie back from her examination of the room. She poured the steaming water into her cup and absently gave the teabag a few quick dunks. She walked to the pantry and extracted the broom and dustpan.

“No time like the present to clean this up,” she muttered to herself.

After a drink of the warm liquid, she tackled the mess of dirty napkins, eggshells, and TV dinner boxes. Fortunately, the mess looked smaller with a cup of tea than it had when she had first woken up. After depositing Nana’s adventure into the trash, Kylie grabbed her tea mug and went to the living room. The room was comfortable, with plush furniture in various shades of blue and an abundance of throw pillows in reds and whites. The floor was hardwood, covered by a large oval braided rug with matching shades of blue woven into the design. Overall, the look was warm and inviting. Kylie’s favorite part of the room was the windows. They were large and let in the morning sun. The house had certainly changed since she had bought it a few years ago. She spent all of one summer and all her vacations since fixing up room after room, turning the house from a rundown eyesore to the inviting home it was now. She leaned against the oversized cushion of the couch and sighed.

An entire summer and she had nothing to do, at least nothing now, since her life had suddenly ended. Or at least that’s how it felt…all her hopes of a future gone in an unhappy moment. The unpleasant memories kept running through her mind like a song on repeat. Kylie sighed, took another sip of the tea, and let herself remember that Ryan was gone.

❖ ❖ ❖

Kylie closed her eyes and let the memories of the past year wash over her like a wave. Ryan Phillips was well…perfect. He was tall and handsome with a smile that made her insides turn to soup. He was brilliant and incredibly popular with the faculty, especially with the female staff. Kylie was an English teacher, and Ryan was new to the school, teaching Biology. On the first day of teacher orientation, she had noticed him right away. At a close 6’ 4”, he towered over most of the other teachers and almost had to duck under the “Welcome Class of 1993” banner that was hung to celebrate the new seniors at the start of the year. He was hard to miss, but his eyes were mesmerizing… slate gray, and when he looked at her, it seemed to Kylie that he was looking into her very being, reading her thoughts. The amazing part was that Ryan seemed to notice her right away, too. The science wing of the high school was at the opposite end of the English wing, where Kylie taught, and she had doubts about whether she would see much of him. Much to her surprise and delight, Ryan kept making excuses to come to her classroom, once for tape and another time for directions to the library. They had found they shared the same taste in music and a love of science fiction. They both even had the same quirk about adding cookies, nuts, or other chunky things to ice cream: it was not a food to be chewed. Ryan was charming and funny. By the end of teacher prep week, the other faculty members had labeled them an “item.” Her best friends and fellow teachers, Julie Waters and Sharon Hopkins, had thought he was an answer to prayer. They had both been trying, unsuccessfully, to fix Kylie up with any available man they could find. Both happily married, they also wanted Kylie to find Mr. Right. The only problem with that was that she kept finding Mr. No Faith or Mr. Who Needs God. Her relationship with Christ was the most important thing in her life, and she knew that God had a special man out there for her somewhere, and Kylie had hoped that Ryan might just be it. He said all the right things and claimed to believe everything she believed. It was like God sent him for her.

❖ ❖ ❖

Kylie took another cleansing sip of tea and tried to stop the flood of feelings that threatened to spill over and drown her in their path. There was a place in Kylie’s mind where all the hurt and resentment got pushed to a place deep inside of her. The place that had existed since childhood, where she kept all the feelings and pain that could never be expressed. It was like now, in the quiet of the morning, Pandora’s box of emotion burst open and refused to be ignored any longer; an explosion of memories was about to be unleashed. Tears were running down Kylie’s cheeks before she even realized they had been shed. All the insecurities she had, all the doubts and negativity she felt, were flooding her mind before she could stop it. The same voice that she heard on repeat if she made a mistake or something went wrong, screamed inside her head, “I told you you couldn’t do it, who would ever want to be with you. Since when did you think you could ever amount to anything?”

Kylie let the voice march unchecked across her mind, feelings she had pushed away while dating Ryan had center stage. She knew that things were not as perfect as she wanted to believe. Every prick of conscience had been filed away and ignored. She didn’t want to see the flaws and the cracks because she so desperately wanted to be with someone, to be in a loving relationship like her friends. She had invented a fairy tale. The sadness and guilt of that reality overwhelmed her.

It was there in the sobs that threatened to break her body that she felt healing begin; nothing in the room had changed, but she felt a shift in her attitude. She felt that God was in the room with her, whispering peace to her heart, quieting her sobs, and calming her with his loving presence. It was like a warm blanket had been put over her shoulders, and she rested in the blissful, incredible peace. Kylie felt strength again. She would be able to get past Ryan and move on with her life. Ryan. She would be able to get over Ryan. As she sat there, more memories washed over her.

❖ ❖ ❖

“So, talk,” Julie demanded. “We haven’t seen you or talked to you since you and Ryan started dating.” The three of them were enjoying the early fall weather during their lunch period.

“Yeah, and you haven’t been to church either. Come on, Kylie, talk to us. If Ryan is as wonderful as you’ve been saying, then why haven’t you brought him to church? Or why have you totally stopped coming?” Sharon piped in. “We just want what’s best for you.”

Kylie sighed and stopped to think for a moment. Was that really true? Had she stopped doing things with her friends? How many services had she missed…Kylie thought back quickly over the weeks, and to her surprise, it had been over a month since her last attended service. She was suddenly annoyed that so much time had passed without her realizing it, and was about to apologize, but when she saw the looks on her friends’ faces, she changed her mind. Frustration and anger over her friends’ judgmental comments took over her mood, “Look, I’ve been busy. I meant to come, but I just had other things to do.”

“Busy with what? Are you writing again?” Julie asked excitedly. “What new project are you working on? Please say it’s another story with more robots?”

Her question sounded sincere, but it angered Kylie further. Kylie had had some success with getting a few sci-fi short stories published in a national magazine, and even the local paper had written an article about it. Her dream was to write a book and become a fully published author. It was a dream her friends were aware of and supported. Now their comments seemed like salt in a wound. Since the start of the school year, and meeting Ryan, that interest took a back seat, and she had not written anything…at least not anything for her.

“Ryan is involved in this project on the dangers of chemicals and food growth. He thinks what is added to the soil leaches into our food and will affect public health. He thinks this could be a major public health issue and wants to create awareness. There is a foundation that is offering research money to study issues like this, and Ryan wants to get a grant proposal written so he can get grant money and continue this research on a bigger scale.”

“But he teaches Biology,” Julie interrupted. “What experience does he have with this kind of stuff?”

“When he did his master’s, he emphasized in Earth Science as well. With the growing usage of pesticides in commercial farming, he’s concerned. What’s with the interrogation?”

“No interrogation,” Sharon said calmly. “Just curious about what got him started in this line of research.”

“Oh, he’s pretty passionate about it, and I’ve been helping him,” Kylie replied defensively, and then sighed when she saw the hurt on her friend’s faces and changed her tone. “He recognized my name from the magazine when we met. Can you believe that? He’s actually seen some of my writing; he subscribes to that magazine, thinks I’m talented, and wanted my help. We usually work late on Saturday nights, and I just end up oversleeping. Really, that’s all. I’ll be there next week. At least I have someone in my life now, which should make you happy.”

Julie put a hand on Kylie’s arm and told her gently, “We do want you to be happy, but we want you to be totally happy. I just don’t think that if Ryan was the man he said he was, he would feel right about missing Sunday fellowship, or you either. That project sounds exciting and is worth thinking about, but I still think you are putting too much of yourself aside for what works for Ryan. You’re super talented, but I don’t think Ryan should take advantage of your talent or your kindness to monopolize all your free time. It’s not just missing church. You’ve also stopped the women’s group and the rec center. You loved being with those kids on Saturday afternoons and helping at the center. I just don’t want you to lose who you are or what you believe in to please someone else.”

Hearing her friend’s words, Kylie felt tears slip down her cheeks. She knew that she was losing track of her schedule, but Ryan was so wonderful, and he had so many of the character traits that she had been praying for in a man. The only downside was that he just liked having her available when he wanted to do something, especially when that something was working on his grant. There was a prick of conscience that Kylie pushed away. Ryan was nearly perfect, but just liked his own timeline. He was driven; there wasn’t anything wrong with that. He wanted to help people! He did support her dream of being a published writer, at least he said he did, but it was always in the context of his grant and his project. When she talked about her book idea, he just laughed and thought it was cute. His work was important, but her work seemed small in comparison; after all, his research could help people live healthier, better lives. That was more important than another work of fiction lining a shelf of a bookstore, or at least that was what Ryan said. Seeing the compassionate looks on her friend’s faces frustrated her again, and she wiped her eyes and felt the need to defend her relationship.

“Look, I know I’ve been busy, Jules, but I really think this thing with Ryan is going somewhere. And you’ve both told me before that I tend to push men away with my priorities and commitments. I don’t leave time or room for anything else. I’m just trying to follow your advice.”

Sharon hugged them both and, with her gentle way, said, “We’ll pray about this, ok? I love your heart and passion for helping Ryan and his work. Just remember that we never told you to leave God out of your priorities. Make room in your life, but don’t lose yourself for someone else.”

❖ ❖ ❖

The phone’s ringing brought Kylie out of her thoughts and back to reality. She quickly got up and reached for the phone on the table.

“Hello?”

“Hey, who is game for a hike?” Julie’s voice came bouncing over the line. “Sharon and I are going on a picnic and hike this afternoon, and we’re making you come with us. We’re coming to get you in one hour, so be ready.”

With that last comment, the line went dead in Kylie’s hand. She put the phone back in its cradle and swallowed the rest of her now cold tea in one gulp. It would be good to see her friends again…and with a sigh, she pushed herself off the couch.

“I guess I should get ready then, huh?” She thought to herself and went back upstairs to shower and dress.