In Their Eyes

A month has past and still Ginger hasn’t apologised, it’s really not a hard thing to do but hey it’s down to her. Me and Ella are really close now, Jake finally officially asked me out, not that my mother knows because she would kill me and I openly told Jake that. Ginger quit cheer leading for some reason and now she spends most of her time somewhere else because Ella told me that she’s never home until just before me.

I walked through the front door to find mother yelling at Ella about not getting the right produce from the store, ‘do it yourself then it would get done the way you want it’ I thought to myself, feeling really bad for Ella who was close to tears but she refused to let them full and she was right too, Mother hated tears, she thought it made you weak, what would she know.

***

Tonight was family dinner which is never fun, Ella is made to waitress us like some sort of servant girl and as much as I want to thank her I can‘t, but I gave her a few grateful smiles when mother wasn’t looking. We all sat in silence for half an hour eating, I kept glancing at the bruising on Ginger’s neck but I wasn’t going to bring it up, then Ginger did something dangerous, she asked a question and I was shocked by the anger behind it.

"Why are horrible people aloud to have children?"

I looked at her, my eyes wide in shock and fear creeping through my body.

"What would make you ask that? Are you trying to imply something, dear ?"

"No, it just makes no sense that people would be given children when it could ruin both the mother's and child's life, but not give children to couples who desperately want them and can give them a better life."

I sat staring at the table unsure of where I should rest my gaze, as they continued their discussion, I could hear the malice in my mother’s voice but then again that was nothing new.

"Where did all of this come from?"

Ginger shrugged obviously deciding not to respond but changed the subject instead and announced that she would be moving away for university.

"I've just had a lot of time to think lately. I got accepted into Georgia Southern University, I got the letter today."

"Georgia? That's so far away; you don't want to be with your mother anymore." My mother replied acting all shocked.

"It would only be for a couple of years, I'd be back sooner than you know it." Ginger replied although I could tell that that wasn’t what she wanted to say.

After dinner I decided to stay in my room, mother had been called out to work so when someone knocked I assumed it was Ella and invited her in.

“Come on in, Ella”

The door opened, but it wasn’t Ella who walked in, it was ginger, I frowned at her unsure why she was standing in my room and simply watched her.

"If you keep that expression for much longer you'll get stuck looking that way forever," Ginger said, I remember our dad saying that to us all the time, but I didn’t smile.

"What do want, Ginger?" I snapped still frowning.

"You think I'm a horrible person don't you?" She asked laughing before adding. "Of course you do, everyone else does," She continued pointing at her neck where I had seen the bruises.

"If you already knew the answer why'd you come?" I growled trying my hardest not to yell at her.

"I've never asked anybody." She whispered looking down at the ground as if ashamed. "I've just always let everything happen, you know, never questioning it. And, look at you; you've gotten so much stronger without me. I never would have thought I'd be the weak one without you, I always thought it would be the other way around."

"You didn't have to be there for me, I could've taken care of myself!" I yelled. "I'm not always going to be the one."

"I know that," she yelled back at me just as loudly, then dropped her voice to barely above a whisper. "If I was strong then Todd wouldn't have raped me."

"What?" I inquired, concern suddenly rushing through me, "When?"

"Which time?" She asked smiling bitterly. "The first was the night after prom. I tried to be normal that weekend, but Todd suspected I liked Donovan and told me he would hurt him if I didn't separate myself from him. The second time was that night I had gone for dinner at his house. You remember when I was so dressed up and we argued? There were so many times after that in the last month, and I gave up. I just started to let it happen."

I walked over to her, wiping at the tears, that she obviously hadn‘t noticed, falling down her face. "Is that where you go during Cheerleading practice?"

"No. I go down to dad's grave, and talk to him." I looked at her sadly. "He's the only other person who knows."

"That you were raped?"

"That and the fact that I'm pregnant." I gasped.

This was bad, really bad, but I had to help her, as much as I sort of hated her for the way she had been acting, I wouldn’t turn my back on her and I knew Ella would help as well.

“It’s okay I’ll help you through this, me and Ella will” I said grabbing her and hugging her tight, this wasn’t going to be easy but if we all stuck together and helped each other out then it would be fine.