Bullies Sla-pped New Girl Cheerleader — Unaware Her Father Is A Hell Angels
Chapter 36
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She looked at it for a moment. He unclasped the original bracelet from her wrist. The one she'd worn for 7 years. He held it in one hand. He held the new one in the other. Then he looked at her."The old one did what it needed to do," he said. "Kept you going. Got you here." He turned it over in his hand. "It's earned its rest."She didn't say anything. He slipped the new bracelet onto her left wrist. His hands were careful and precise, the same hands that had been fixing engines and cutting leather for 30 years. He fastened the clasp. It closed with a solid click. He looked at it for a moment. Then he looked at her.She looked back at him. She was 19 years old, standing on the steps of a community college in a small town in Tennessee, and she had spent 6 days being very careful not to need anything she hadn't earned. She felt her face do something she hadn't let it do all week. Not collapse, not fall apart. Something smaller and more honest than that.Ray put one arm around her shoulders. He didn't say anything. She didn't cry. She came close and then she didn't. She just stood there with her father's arm around her and breathed the cold evening air and let herself be still for 30 seconds.That was all it took. She straightened. He let his arm drop. They stood side by side on the steps."You did good," he said. Quiet, even."Amber did good," she said. "Coach Reeves did good.""They did," he said. "And you gave them something worth doing good for."She thought about that."You didn't have to bring everyone," she said. "That was...""I know I didn't have to," he said. "Walt wanted to come. They all did." A pause. "That's what you get when people know you'd do the same for them."She looked at the line of bikes across the street. Walt was leaning against his, talking to two other chapter members. None of them were looking at the building. They'd already moved on from it, the way men do when something is settled. They were talking about something else now. She could see Walt laughing at something."What happens to Greer?" she said."His call to make," Ray said. "He'll have decisions to sit with. That's usually consequence enough." A pause. "The kind that comes from inside tends to last longer."She looked at the old bracelet in his hand. "What are you going to do with it?"He looked at it, too. "Keep it," he said. "It's part of the story."He put it in his vest pocket. They stood for another moment.