Who: Ginny and Logan What: A helping hand When: About three years ago, maybe four. Where: Somewhere in Texas Status: complete Rating: PG-13; tw abuse
She’d spent most of her life in pain. Ginny had known very little else. And there was the anger too. An anger that festered inside of her like rot. It had grown, day by day until it felt like she was going to burst.
But it burst inside mama first. She’d stood there passively, while her mama pushed daddy down the stairs. She’d felt this indescribable relief and joy when his neck had snapped on the way down. Her daddy hadn’t been a very good man. By all rights he’d been a terrible one, and it was only in the years since that Ginny had fully understood just how bad he was.
Ginny’s mama was a beautiful woman. Still young. She’d barely been a woman when Ginny had been born. Barely been a woman when her daddy twisted her into marriage with sweet sweet words. A bit obsessive her daddy had been. But he was gone now, and it was just them.
The police hadn’t dug too deep. Everyone knew the kinda man daddy had been. Everyone pitied Ginny and her mama.
Ginny was fucking sick of pity. But she was real hungry, and her mama was too.
The roar of a motorcycle snapped her out of her mind, and she looked out from under a threadbare blanket. She was sitting by the side of the road with a sign. Begging. For food, for booze, she didn’t really care about herself. She just had to keep her mama going. Ginny looked up at the man on the bike. He had a handsome, grizzled face.
As she got on his bike, she wondered what she was doing. Her nails dug into his sides the whole way...but instead of to a motel or something, he took her to a cafe. He sat her down to eat. Ginny didn’t question it, or think about what she’d have to do to him to pay him back. She ate, she ate her full and squared away a good portion for her mother. So it really wasn’t her full, but she wasn’t going to tell him that.
“Eat up, darlin’,” He said, gesturing to her plate.
“I...there’s someone else needs fed.”
“Then I’ll get somethin’ for them to go.”
Amber eyes searched brown ones, and then Ginny nodded, before she dug in and inhaled the rest of the meal.
The man paid, and true to his word had a to-go plate for Ginny’s mama. She clutched it as she settled back on his bike. He drove them to a motel nearby. It was a bit run-down, and her heart started racing.
She couldn’t. She couldn’t do this. Hands shaking, she set the food down on the desk in the room, and searched for some way out of this. Her voice betrayed her. “What do you...what do I owe you?”
“Not a damn thing. Rooms paid up through the week.” the man tossed some money onto the bed. “That’ll help you, too. There’s a couple places hirin’ down the road. If you get cleaned up they won’t ask many questions. Now who’s the extra meal for, an’ I’ll go get them.”
Ginny stared at the man in disbelief. She looked at the money, she looked at the food, then she looked back at the man. “I don’t want your pity. Rather just pay you back somehow.”
“There’s a difference between pity an’ compassion, darlin.’ You don’ need to run up nature’s credit card.” The man pulled a cigar out of his shirt pocket, and lit it up. “Who do you need me to get.”
“...it’s for my mama.”
It was the longest twenty minutes of Ginny’s life, but sure enough, the man came back with her mama. As she watched his bike fade into the distance, she didn’t know if she hated the man or not. She didn’t know how she felt about anything, because she’d never believed a man could do good by her before.
“Ginny, what did you do?”
She turned back towards her mama. “Nothin’. He didn’t ask for a damn thing.”