“She was okay. The doctor is confident she’ll be ready to come home on Monday.”
“Did you get some homecare help worked out?” Sammi knew that her dad had been trying to get that straightened out so that her mom could come home and be well cared for in familiar surroundings.
“I didn’t, but Max stepped in once again,” Steve said, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly. “He didn’t even know that we were having trouble getting it set up, but he called me today to say that there would be round the clock care available for Emily. Brent, Max’s assistant, had set it all up, and there will be someone here on Monday when your mom comes home.”
“Really? That is so wonderful that they’d do that for her.”
“I tried to turn it down, but Max said what was the use of having all the money in the world if he couldn’t use it to help friends and family.” Steve shook his head. “It’s kind of hard to wrap my mind around the fact that the salary of the nurses caring for your mom will barely put a blip in Max’s bank account. And it’s for your mom. I would do absolutely anything for her, including accepting the help that Max is offering us.”
The wealth of Maya’s family was rarely a topic of conversation even though the wealth was evident every time they visited their mansion. But when tragedies happened—such as recently with Emily or earlier with Gabe—their wealth came to the forefront again.
“I’m glad for your sake. It will take a lot of the strain off.”
Her dad looked up and met her gaze. “And for you too. I know that you were feeling the stress of having a medical background and feeling like you would have to step up more than the others in helping your mom.”
“I would do anything for her, too, Dad,” Sammi insisted.
“I know you would, sweetheart.” Her dad reached across the table and covered her hand with his. “I’m just glad that you won’t have to carry that responsibility in addition to your job and the baby.”
At the mention of responsibilities, Sammi’s mind went to Levi once again. He seemed willing to accept his responsibilities, no matter what they were. She didn’t know the financial situation of Levi’s mom, but Sammi wouldn’t have been surprised if he was covering the cost of her living in the care home. And if that was the truth, then it was even more sad that the woman treated him so poorly.
“I will still help however I can,” Sammi assured her dad. “But tonight, I’m going to bed. It was a long day.”
“You didn’t overdo it, did you?” her dad asked, his brow creased with concern.
Sammi shook her head. “It was just a busy shift. I’ll be fine once I’m back to my usual shift.”
She didn’t say anything to him about having seen Levi at the care home or that his mother was a resident there. Instead, she got up, gave him a kiss and then went up to her room. Once inside, she leaned back against the door for a moment before heading to the bathroom for a quick shower before crawling into bed.
The next day, she’d see Levi at church once again, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Before their earlier conversation had taken an awkward turn, she’d planned to invite him, but then she’d changed her mind when the topic of marriage had made things tense between them. However, she could hardly tell him not to come when he brought the subject up himself.
Hopefully, the awkwardness would have eased by the time they saw each other the next day. Once again, she found herself fighting the feelings of inadequacy like she’d experienced after Jayden had let her know there would be no marriage between them. Though technically, she had shared intimacy with Levi like she had with Jayden, it had been different. She couldn’t even remember much of the night they’d spent together, and there had been no promises made between them. Yet, his words earlier that evening had had the same impact.
He didn’t want to marry her.
Sammi shifted, wanting to bury her head in her pillow to stifle the tears that threatened to fall, but her stomach got in the way, reminding her once again of just why Levi was in her life. She flipped onto her back, frustrated with her emotions. Staring up at the ceiling, she blinked away tears.
Why did she keep letting stuff like that get to her?
She knew she wanted a marriage of love, not convenience, so why was she upset that Levi wasn’t wanting them to get married? He probably wanted to love the person he married too, and they weren’t in love. They’d moved from strangers to friends, and Sammi knew that she did care for him, but would it have been enough? Even if they cared for each other—and she was finding that she did care for Levi—there was a world of difference between care and love. Care might turn to love, but that was not a guarantee. She needed to keep that in her mind when dealing with Levi.
And she also needed to always remember that the baby was Levi’s responsibility, but she was not.
Though Levi considered canceling his plans to go to church, he pushed the thought aside. He’d told Samantha he’d be there, so he would be. He wasn’t as worried about attending this service as he had been the first time, but as he approached the building a short time later, there was definitely a flare of nerves within him. However, this time it was caused by the tenseness that existed between him and Samantha, not because of the church itself.
The overpowering need to fix things between them surprised Levi. Whenever things had gotten tense with Caren, when she’d get upset about something, Levi had known that they needed to talk to sort things out, but he hadn’t felt a huge need for it to happen right away. Eventually, they’d get together and talk it over, and everything would return to normal.
But he’d had a hard time falling asleep the night before knowing that Samantha had been upset because of something he’d said. The biggest problem he had right then was not knowing what he needed to say to make things better between them. He couldn’t say that he would marry her when he knew they’d only be marrying for the sake of the baby. That wouldn’t be fair to either of them.
If she wanted to get married to remove the stigma she apparently felt she bore, Levi supposed he couldn’t really blame her. But was that a good basis for a marriage?
He stepped into the foyer of the church and moved to the side, out of the doorway, so he could look around for a familiar face. Unfortunately, the first person he recognized was one he didn’t want to see. Jayden…Samantha’s ex. There was an angry look on the man’s face, and Levi felt his gut clench when he realized Jayden was talking to Samantha.
Moving quickly, Levi wove his way through the crowd to reach where they stood. He came to a stop behind Samantha in time to hear Jayden say, “But who else would have told them? Do you not realize what this means?”
As Levi stepped to Samantha’s side, he laid a hand on her back. He immediately felt the tension in her. She looked up at him, her eyes widening when she saw him. Levi moved closer to her so that her shoulder brushed against his chest.
“Are you okay?” Levi asked her, not at all happy with the strained look on her face that was obviously caused by her conversation with Jayden. He looked up at the other man. “What’s going on here?”
“None of your business, dude,” Jayden said, his anger not having dissipated at all, even in Levi’s presence.
Levi shifted so that he could block their conversation from prying eyes. “Oh, that’s where you’re so wrong. You’re upsetting Samantha, and that’s not okay with me.”
“Right,” Jayden said, sarcasm evident in the way he dragged the word out. “We all know that you were the rebound that forgot to use protection. You are not part of this discussion.”
Levi looked down at Samantha again, willing to push the issue with Jayden but only if Samantha wanted to. She was gazing up at him, her mouth pulled into a tight line.
“He’s not worth it,” she said softly and then, taking Levi’s hand, she turned and began to lead the way through the crowds to the open doors of the sanctuary.
Levi didn’t say anything until they were seated in an empty pew near the back. He slid his arm aroun
d her shoulders and bent his head down so the people around them wouldn’t overhear their conversation. “What was going on?”
Samantha stared straight ahead, her posture rigid for a moment, then it was like the tension drained right out of her, and she slumped against his arm. She still didn’t look at him when she answered.
“Apparently Jayden has lost his position here at the church,” she said, her voice low. “He seems to think I had something to do with it.”
“Did you?” Levi asked.
She looked up at him then shook her head. “No, but I might have been the cause of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I told my parents about what happened with Jay—” She looked around. “With him. I think my parents were alarmed by his actions, given his position in the church. Working with the youth. They might have talked to some of the church board members.”
With the explanation, Levi understood Jayden’s anger, but at the same time, the guy had to take responsibility for his own role in it all. If he hadn’t slept with Samantha when they weren’t married, he wouldn’t have ended up losing his position. Jayden and Samantha would have broken up and each would have moved on. It seemed that having a youth pastor who preached one message and lived another wasn’t something the church condoned.
Without looking at him, Samantha said, “Thank you for intervening.”
“You’re welcome.” He moved his hand to rest on her shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “Anytime.”
Her shoulders moved as she took in a quick breath. Rather than move his arm from around her, Levi left it there, feeling as if she needed the support. The protection. And he was more than happy to provide that for her. In truth, he felt compelled to provide it for her, and that had less to do with the baby than he might have thought it would.
The quivering inside Sammi that had started when Jayden had cornered her finally disappeared completely by the time they stood for the first song. It had actually started to fade the moment she’d looked up to see Levi, standing beside her, ready to take on Jayden on her behalf. Just knowing that Levi was there had helped to settle some of her anxiety.
They were just sitting down again when movement on the other side of Levi caught Sammi’s attention, and she glanced over to see Maya and Gabe settle onto the pew beside Levi. She hadn’t seen Gabe before she’d left that morning with Tristan so had assumed that he was staying home. Depending on the level of pain in his leg, some Sundays Gabe stayed home from church and just watched the service as it streamed on the internet. She was glad to see him there. It meant he was having a relatively pain-free day.
Last time Levi had attended church with her, Sammi had been nervous about the family gathering following the service, so she hadn’t thought too much about how he might perceive the service. This time, as he shifted more closely to her to make room for Maya and Gabe, she wondered what he thought of church—the songs they sang, the scriptures that were read, the terms that were used, the offering that was taken, the sermon the pastor gave.
It was all she’d ever known. It was very familiar to her, but what she’d learned of Levi in the past couple of months indicated that he wasn’t likely to know or understand much about church without some sort of guidance. Would he want something like that? Was he curious?
Sammi knew that he’d attended the Bible study group with Keenan and Bennett twice now. The first time might have been out of curiosity. Wanting to get to know her family better. Wanting to spend time with someone he admired as an athlete. Just like when he’d come to church that first time.
To return a second time to the Bible study and to church… Sammi felt herself hoping it meant something more. Was he still just interested in seeing the faith his daughter would end up being raised in? Or could there be something more? Did he have a personal interest in what was being taught at the Bible study and in church?
For Sammi, the church had become a place of conflict. After all, when she’d made the choices she had months earlier, she had gone against everything she’d been taught to believe. Not just the choice with Levi but also with Jayden. That knowledge burned within her each time she stepped into the church.
Sammi’s hand came to rest on her baby bump, listening as the pastor began to preach. Sermons rarely gave her hope for anything anymore. In some ways, she felt that her worth as a single Christian woman or as a potential wife for a Christian man had been diminished because of what she’d done. Though she knew, on one level, that wasn’t true, it was hard to shake years of being told that purity was the best gift she could give her husband only to no longer have that gift.
She couldn’t take back the decisions she’d made. And because she’d ended up getting pregnant, those decisions weren’t her private shame any more. It was out there for everyone to see.
During the sermon for that day, the pastor had zeroed in on the struggles people faced, whether it was with their marriage or children or their job, he pointed out that everyone faced difficulties. No one’s life was perfect.
Sammi’s gaze dropped as she recalled how she’d felt at the beginning of the year. After working hard, she had the job she wanted. She’d loved a man who wanted to marry her. Her dreams were all coming true. She had thought her life was perfect.
How quickly that had changed. And she had no one but herself to blame for that change.
“In this day and age when social media is the way we seem to connect the most with each other, people are easily led to believe that the picture a person has posted or a status that they’ve shared is a total reflection of their life. We see happy faces in selfies, but there may be—in fact, usually is—much more to be told of the person’s life. For a lot of people, if their Instagram or Facebook feed really is an accurate representation of the totality of their life, then we’d have to believe that they have very shallow lives.
“We all know this, but still we persist in looking at the good in another person’s life while focusing on the bad in our own. Those beautiful pictures and happy statuses may—and often do—hide struggles. And more than just struggles, they may hide sin. Sometimes people post a Bible verse even while they’re doing things that they know wouldn’t bring glory to God.”
The pastor moved from behind the pulpit, resting one hand on the edge of it. “I’m not saying this so that you begin to overshare about every little thing in your life, but rather as a reminder of two things. First, everyone—no matter how perfectly they may portray their lives—faces struggles of one kind or another. Second, even if we think we are able to hide the struggles and sin in our lives, there is someone who sees beyond it all. Beyond the pretty pictures, the happy statuses, the masks we wear. Beyond the doors we close before turning to our sin. God doesn’t view our lives just on the surface. The Bible says that man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart.”
Sammi could totally relate to everything he’d said. She had embodied everything he’d talked about, except that at one time, she’d truly thought the happy life she portrayed on social media was the life she was living.
It was likely no coincidence that after being super active on her social media, she’d rarely posted anything after Jayden had dumped her and she’d discovered that she was pregnant. There were no pictures of her baby bump like Makayla shared on her feed. There were no happy couple pictures like Grace or Tami had on their Facebook pages. And there certainly hadn’t been any happy statuses, and that included what had happened with her mom. That situation was finally what had gotten her to post another status after ignoring Facebook for months.
But there had been a point where she couldn’t pretend anymore. What did it matter? People could see her situation. Her pregnancy had not been an immaculate conception. There was no hiding what she’d done. So, she hadn’t bothered to try and pretend that things were like they once had been—at least in real life. But she also hadn’t wanted to parade it out for all to see online on social media either. Instead, she’d just gone silent.
&nbs
p; Sammi tuned out the remainder of the service. The pastor’s words resonated with her on one level, but they offered her no comfort or encouragement. All she was left with was feeling like she was the living embodiment of every bad example he’d given in his sermon. It wasn’t a very nice feeling.
“Are you okay?” Levi’s voice was low as he spoke to her.
She looked at him, realizing that the service was over, and people were standing up around them. Giving a quick nod, Sammi gripped the pew in front of her and pulled herself to her feet.
Gabe and Maya were talking to the people who had been seated in front of them, so Sammi gave Levi a nod of her head and began to scoot toward the other end of the pew that was open. Once they were in the foyer, she scanned the crowds, making sure that Jayden didn't intend to confront her again.
“Samantha.” Levi’s voice brought her to a halt.
She spotted Jayden across the open space just before she turned to Levi. “Sorry. Just a bit reluctant to run into Jayden again.”
“I think he’ll keep his distance. At least for today.” Levi must have seen Jayden as well because he maneuvered them so that his broad back was to the room, blocking anyone from seeing her. “Would you be interested in going out for dinner?”
“I was going to go up and visit my mom for a bit,” Sammi told him. “My dad is there with her now.”
“May I go with you?” Levi asked.
Sammi was surprised that he’d offered after their last conversation. “I was going to go home and get my car first. I rode with Tristan this morning.”
“I can drive you, if you want,” Levi said. “Save you a trip back to the house.”
“Are you sure you have the time?”
“Sundays are my days off, so I have nothing but time today.” He gestured to the cloakroom. “Did you have a coat?”
Sammi nodded, and when she turned to go get it, Levi kept close to her side. She didn’t miss the looks people gave them as they walked side by side, but she didn’t meet the gaze of anyone, not wanting to be stopped for conversation. That, too, was different from earlier in the year. She used to talk with any number of people on Sunday mornings or any other time she was at the church, but not anymore. She knew that some would have wanted to ask about her mom, but right then, she was just feeling too emotional—yet again!—to deal with questions about her mom or her pregnancy.
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