“I’m not,” she said finally, sniffing a little. “They thought of Matt as a mistake, but he’s not. He’s a Blessing, a Gift. If they can’t see that, it’s their problem. And if they hadn’t thrown me out, we wouldn’t have found our way here. And here is good.”
Kieran’s big hand stroked the length of her back, the gentle pressure keeping her tucked and sheltered against him. She curled her legs up, wanting to hide in the protection of his arms for a while longer.
“Fourteen and pregnant. What did you do?”
“Well, being the oldest of six, I already knew a lot about babies and kids and how to take care of them, just not how to do it alone and without food, money, or shelter. Thankfully, I found this great organization that took in girls like me. Pregnant girls who had been cast out by their families and had nowhere else to go. We all lived together in this big house. It was hard, but it was good, too. We had to hold down jobs, share the chores, and every one of us had to work on our GED. Matt and I stayed there till I turned eighteen, but then I aged-out and we had to leave.”
“What about Matt’s father?” he asked.
She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to talk about Nathan. “What about him?”
“Didn’t he try to help?”
Faith laughed, but it came out sounding more like a choking sound. “God, no.” She recalled the night she’d gone to Nathan Longstreet’s house in tears. She’d knocked on the door and asked to speak with him, only to see him emerge from the kitchen hand-in-hand with Carla Martin. How his eyes had widened in outright shock and fear, as if he sensed why she had come.
“Nathan refused to believe me, even though he knew I’d been a virgin.” He’d been seventeen to her fourteen, and her first real crush. So tall and handsome, a promising quarterback for their high school football team. Going into his senior year, he already had several scholarship offers. She couldn’t believe it when he actually smiled at her. And when he offered to walk her home one night after Bible study? She thought she’d died and gone to heaven.
“He’d just broken up with his girlfriend,” Faith said quietly, lost in her own memories. “He said I was a good listener. That when he was with me, he felt... different. That I was unlike anyone he’d ever met.”
Being so close to Kieran gave her the strength she needed. As much as she didn’t want to tell him, she had to. “It started off innocently enough. He held my hand as we took the long way home. We had a secret spot where we’d sit and talk, a small clearing in the woods...” She wasn’t even aware of the tears filling her eyes. “He told me how much he needed me, how I made him feel better, how I could make his pain go away.”
“Did he rape you, Faith?” Kieran asked, his voice low and deadly.
She pulled back enough to look in his eyes. This was the part she had been dreading the most. If she could have laid all the blame on Nathan, it might have been easier. But she couldn’t.
Her face had to reflect the absolute shame she felt down to her core. “No,” she whispered. “I knew what we were doing was wrong, but I let him. I didn’t say no.”
“Oh, baby,” Kieran said, pulling her close again.
“God, it hurt so much,” she sniffed, the tears flowing freely. “He was so rough, and all I could think of was how it was nothing like I thought it would be. And then, suddenly, it was over. I barely remember him walking me to my door, smiling at my dad when he actually thanked him for walking me home.”
“He avoided me like the plague after that. I was hurt at first, but I still had stars in my eyes and believed he’d come around. Right up until the time I saw him back with Carla. Then I knew.”
“You didn’t tell anyone who the father was?”
“No. But his dad knew. Nathan must have told him. Once word got out about me being pregnant, he went out of his way to be kind to me. I think he was grateful that I didn’t ruin Nathan’s chance for a scholarship by publicly naming him as the father.”
“What about you, Faith? What about your chances?”
“I was a nobody, Kieran. And I don’t think anyone believed my family would react the way they did. People of God and all that.” She smiled sadly. “Unfortunately for me, my father was more of an Old Testament kind of guy than New Testament. Fire and brimstone over turn-the-other-cheek, if you know what I mean.”
“I’d get envelopes with money sometimes,” she said. “Sometimes they made the difference in whether or not we ate or had a warm bed to sleep in. There was never a name or a note, but I knew it was from Nathan’s father. Sometimes he’d come by and ask to take Matt fishing, or to teach him how to shoot. I couldn’t say no. He never told Matt who he really was, though. Neither did I.”
They were silent for a long time. Faith kept her head against Kieran’s chest, feeling the strong, steady beat of his heart beneath her cheek. His shirt was wet from where she had been crying against it.