“I kind of think that you’re perfect, Kyle.”
“No!” he declared, his insecurity gone but something of even more concern replacing it. “I’m not. Only one man was.”
“Jesus?”
“Yes, Jesus. He was the only truly perfect man. The Bible says so, and I have never felt otherwise.”
“What about me? Is there something that I have a tendency to do that annoys you, Kyle?”
“Nothing, really.”
“But you said I wasn’t perfect.”
“You seem edgy now.”
“Edgy? What do you mean?”
“As though you’re waiting.”
She was now the one to face insecurity, regretting that she had ever gone in the direction of what the two of them were discussing.
“You’ve lost me,” Carla spoke.
“Waiting for me to let you down.”
She was silent for a moment, then nodded grudgingly.
“So it’s true!” Kyle exclaimed, surprised at himself.
“Yes, it is,” Carla admitted.
“You must have been hurt real bad in the past.”
“I have been.”
“You think I’m too good to be true, is that it?”
“Pretty much.”
“I’m real, Carla. I don’t have time for subterfuge, you know. The games that people play with one another. I hate that sort of thing. I live life with more urgency than a lot of people because none of us know what tomorrow will bring.”
“So do I. But it seems to be all that I have ever known. Few quiet moments, not much occasion to trust in the Lord, as you would say.”
“How sad.”
“Oh, yes, sad is the right word.”
“Not knowing who to trust—what that must do to your emotions!”
“But it’s typical of my profession. Phoniness is common. And actors are good at this, good at being convincing. They rope you in, and then when they are through with you, they cast you aside.”
“Have you done that to others?” Kyle asked.
She looked at him, having hoped that he would not ask her anything like that but now that he had, she struggled with an answer.
“I have,” she acknowledged. “There have been relationships built on pretense and deceit.”
“Is the one between us any different, Carla?”
“Of course.”
“You say that easily.”
“I meant it. I think that I am—”
She stopped herself.
“Go ahead,” he encouraged her.
“It’s hard,” she said.
“Hard to be honest?”
“Very hard, Kyle.”
“I’m willing to listen. I won’t pull away, Carla. I’ll stay right here and you can tell me whatever it is that you want to say.”
“Falling in love with you,” she said, forcing the words out.
He smiled in his most sensual way.
“I’ve got something to tell you,” he said, his voice not much above a whisper.
His gaze did not waver. She felt as though he were looking right into the center of her soul.
“Carla, it’s the same with me,” he finally told her. “I think I’m beginning to fall in love with you.”
Part of her rejoiced at hearing him say that but another part did not, the part that had felt so much hurt over the years, so much disappointment in her relationships with men.
“You don’t know what you’re getting into,” she admitted.
“I think I do.”
“You can’t possibly know!”
“You’re an actress. What more is there?”
“I’ve not been as pure in my life as you have.”
“Do you think I’m naive, Carla? I have friends who have been in show business for many years. I know what goes on.”
“I’ve not been as bad as some women I know. My involvements…never with married men. I—”
“Shush!” he told her. “None of that matters.”
“If you only knew!”
“I don’t need to know.”
“But—”
“But nothing, Carla! Last week, you and I went to church. And you walked down the center aisle when the invitation was given at the conclusion of the service.”
It had been a remarkable experience for her. She seemed to have been lifted up out of her seat and nearly pushed down the aisle.
“The sermon seemed to be about people like me,” she recalled.
“I think it was, Carla…about people who are convinced that they have led a life so sinful that there can never be forgiveness for them, not ever, as though God has written them off. Do you feel the same way now?”
She felt some resentment at how he was categorizing her feelings but not enough to contradict him, at least not then.
“Not as much. But you can’t expect me to change in an instant.”
“That’s right, I can’t. Yet I want you to know right now that since God has forgiven you, and forgotten your sins, so have I. As far as He is concerned, they never occurred. They are gone, totally, eternally gone. It’s that way with me as well, Carla.”
“Are you sure?” she pressed. “Are you absolutely sure, Kyle?”
“As sure as I am of my Lord Himself.”
He reached out for her, and she moved a few inches into the circle of his arms.
“It’s as though I have never lived before now,” she whispered, hating to feel so emotionally naked at that relatively early stage of their relationship, but unable to restrain herself, unable to slip into some kind of deception.
“The difference is that you now have something really worth living for,” he told her. “It makes all the difference in the world.”
She wanted to dispute this young man named Kyle Rivers, to tell him how close to arrogance that statement was, but she stopped herself, because she realized that he was not talking wholly about himself but, rather, Someone else.
“I do…” she continued whispering.
“You do what?” he asked.
“I do love you.”
She smiled at him.
“I want to kiss you now,” Carla said, “the longest, sweetest kiss in history!”
“You expect me to object to that?”
“Not one bit.”
“Well, I don’t.”
…the longest, sweetest kiss in history.
It probably did not come close to achieving that