The biker started pumping gas into the crying girl’s car and she begged him to stop before her boyfriend came back. I was filling up my Harley at the station when I heard her panicked voice. “Please, sir, please don’t. He’ll think I asked you for help. He’ll get so angry.”She was maybe nineteen or twenty. Blonde hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. Mascara running down her face. Standing next to a beat-up Honda with an empty gas tank, counting coins in her shaking hands. She had maybe three dollars in quarters and dimes.
I’d already put my credit card in her pump before I walked over. “It’s already going, sweetheart. Can’t stop it now.”
“You don’t understand.” Her voice dropped to a terrified whisper. “My boyfriend, he doesn’t like when people help me. He says it makes him look weak. He’s inside getting cigarettes and if he sees you—”