Facing Kindness

There was a lot of panting before there was any talking.

Cheryl dug into one of the many heavy bags hanging off her and threw out a handful of tokens.

“Leave me and my brother alone. Never talk to us again. And you can take all that.”

Frankie eyed it temptingly. It actually looked to be more than they’d even lost from the now-desperate young woman.

Katie began to lean down to grab it before her sister spoke.

“No. Those tokens are yours.”

Cheryl swallowed, bringing back her persona. Emotion began to drain from her childish face, her strong jaw stiffening as she stared through Frankie.

“What the hell do you want?”

“You heard me. I wanna say thanks.” The blonde rested her posture like a reversed mirror of the stiff gunslinger. “That could’ve been real bad.”

“You taking my brother could’ve been, too. Consider us even.”

“We’re not.”

Cheryl felt just as ready to snap as she did ready to lie down and cower. Suddenly she missed a metal thing in her hands, in her arms, between her legs. She missed a bed beneath her back. She grit her teeth.

“What do you mean?! I’m giving back your tokens…”

Frankie shook her head.

“What are you doing leaving your brother out there like that?” 

With no guts left to reply, she could only allow the tourist to continue.

“You don’t have a home, do you?”

Still, she was seriously pissing her off.

“If we needed one, we would!”

The yell didn’t scare Frankie for some reason. Like she could tell it wasn’t genuine. Her conversation partner was vulnerable and defensive, not dangerous. She continued to try and reason with the cooler-carrying cowgirl.

“Listen, we-“

“You tried… to kidnap… my brother. Go away.”

Saint hid behind her leg, flinching when she stomped her old leather boot. Frankie felt like giving up.

“Are you… scared for your brother?” Katie stepped in, ignoring the coins in the sand. She faced Cheryl unwaveringly, her soothing voice washing over the prickly girl.

“You… you tried to kidn-“

“We weren’t trying to kidnap him! I’m sorry. I was just- I tried to cheer him up. That’s all I was doing. I’m sorry.”

Cheryl found herself panting again even though they’d stopped running plenty of time ago.

“You… what?”

“Well… yes, what was I supposed to do? He looked sad.”

Cheryl looked down to Saint, speaking quietly to him.

“What was making you so sad?”

He was sad now, too. But to Cheryl, he was only making the same face he always did.

“I was… uh… lonely.”

Cheryl hugged the boy, starting to feed him fries from her cooler. In an instant, she began to completely ignore the girls.

“I’m Frankie.” One introduced.

“I’m Katie.” The other.

Snapping out of it, Cheryl rose to her feet- a faint blush on her weary face.

“Okay. And I’m… Cheryl. You… know our names now. You got what you wanted. We’ve all explained ourselves. So… we’re even.”

“Right?”

Katie shook her head.

“No, not really.”

“What?”

“Let’s all go on a ride.” She made the one proposal that always made people like herself happy, even if it didn’t always make sense to strangers. “Then… maybe if me and my sister can figure out how to help you, we will. Deal?”

Cheryl had never felt more insulted in her entire life.

After all she’d been through- everything she’d worked for to earn herself, and now this? That stupid girl made her sick. She should go and die.

“I don’t need your damn-“

Saint tugged on her shirt.

Begrudgingly, she diverted her eyes down to his. Immediately, she could see what he wanted. But it took him to say it out loud for her to listen.

“I want to go… on the ride with Katie.”

Cheryl cursed under her breath. She subtly rubbed her boot in the sand. She twitched her fingers and rubbed on the straps of her bags. She felt like running again.

“Please?” Katie asked, deftly noticing the shooter’s discomfort as she pushed through anyway.

Cheryl dropped her stare to the ground.

“…Let me pick up my tokens.”

Afterwards, the four of them all went to pick a ride together.