Clearly, Sam didn’t need a list. He loaded fruit and vegetables into his cart with speed and assurance but without consultinganything. Genevieve stood beside him, uncertain what to purchase.
“What were the downsides of the earthquake?” He placed a package of organic strawberries in her basket. Then blueberries, then mango, then kale.
“The trauma of it,” she said.
“Explain.”
“Before we were trapped down there, Natasha and I were these two happy, secure, protected girls. The worst thing that had happened to us was the time my mom got rear-ended when I was in first grade.”
He led her toward the dairy section. “And then?”
“And then I found myself buried beneath a pile of rubble. I knew we’d probably die and that others had probably already been crushed when the building collapsed. I can’t describe to you how jarring it was to find myself in that awful predicament ... to be that terrified.”
He added eggs and coconut milk to her basket.
“I had nightmares,” she continued. “Anxiety. Trouble sleeping. All of a sudden, school became a struggle. That’s when I started seeing Dr. Quinley.”
“Any other downsides?”
“Are you really interested in all this?”
“I wouldn’t be asking if I wasn’t.” He turned in to the paper towel aisle.
“My mom became very overprotective,” she said. “She’d almost lost both of her kids and was dealing with the aftermath of her own trauma. Her insecurity didn’t help matters. It wasn’t until I left for college that I realized I’d been carrying the burden of her mental health on my shoulders. She still calls me all the time. She still worries.”
“Other downsides?”
They walked down one aisle and up another.
“Gen?” he asked.
She’d been reluctant to text him earlier, but then she’d been tremendously glad she did. Should she tell him more? Probably.
When her silence continued, Sam stopped. He lifted her basket from her, set it in the child seat of his cart, and parked the cart next to a display featuring several flavors of coffee beans.
They stood to the side so that shoppers would have room to pass. Facing her, he crossed his arms and waited for her to say more. It was as if he’d positioned his big body to protect her from hurricane winds.
“Over and over again after we came home,” she told him, “friends and family and strangers and pastors told us that God had saved us for a reason. ‘He must have big plans for you,’ they’d say. And we’d smile and nod and agree, because He’d done something monumental to save us, so we obviously owed Him something monumental in return.”
Her mouth quirked into a frown. “It can be hard to undo things you internalize when you’re twelve. For goodness’ sake—”she flung out a hand—“one of my studies is calledThe Sacrifice You Can’t Repay. And yet in some way or another, I think I’m still trying to pay God back for saving me.”
His hat rode low over those haunting, pale green eyes. Compassion lived in the angles of his face. An invisible force was drawing her to him, sizzling the air with awareness.
“No matter how much I’ve done for His glory,” she confessed, “I’ve always felt as though it wasn’t enough.”
Time does not heal all wounds. Some things burrow into you like a splinter, and no amount of ignoring the splinter will help.
“I can’t imagine what you went through while you were trapped,” he said.
Memories seeped in, like black dye polluting clear water. Far worse than the nightmares she’d suffered afterward was the nightmare she’d lived. That was the one she hadn’t had the luxury of waking up from.
Eighteen years had come and gone, and here she was, still grappling with the ramifications of what had happened to her. The bad. And the extraordinary. She’d done the hard work necessary to heal when she was a child, and again more recently with Dr. Quinley. Yet nothing could change the fact that she’d been marked by disaster. The earthquake was part of her story. So was her phenomenal God, whom she’d been unable to find for months now.
Pressure built behind her eyes. Silently, she willed the tears not to come. Not here, in the coffee aisle, in front of Sam, who was reliable in a way she respected and practical in a way she trusted.
Sam moved forward, shrinking the space between them.
She pulled a rough breath inward. What was he—
