Zac dropped Ginger back off at her place without another word spoken between them. She was too afraid to speak and he�he was just pissed off. He let her out of the car and she went inside with not even a goodbye. She pushed it away as soon as she got in the door. It wasn't worth worrying about until she knew what exactly had happened.
She went into the kitchen and looked around. Alex wasn't home yet. Once her eyes landed on the living room, she began to panic. "Oh shit," she whispered. "Not again, they did not do this again!" The living room, that had been clean when she left the house not long before, was completely ransacked. The cushions were thrown off the couches, the television turned over and on the floor, everything in the drawers in at the desk was thrown all over the place and it looked like a window was broken. She turned around and ran up the stairs. It was the same situation in both her room and Alex's room. All of their clothes were thrown everywhere; the drawers emptied out and dumped all over the place.
As she began to sort through her things, she found absolutely nothing missing in both her and Alex's room. This had happened before. The last time Social Services came by they'd just had this happen. Ginger didn't know the whole story but it had something to do with Alex and either his affiliation with a wrong crowd or drugs. She didn't know and frankly she didn't want to know.
"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?"
Ginger stood up. "Oh my God," she said, looking around at the mess in her room. "Oh my God." She ran into the closet and forced herself into the corner and closed her eyes tight. She heard her brother calling her name throughout the downstairs part of the house, until he pounded up the stairs and burst into her room. A violet eye peaked through the crack of the closet door and she saw him sorting through the mess in the room. He left the room, allowing her to let out the breath she'd been holding. She relaxed a bit when he came back into the room, heading straight for her closet. He threw open the door and saw her standing there in the corner.
"What the hell happened to the house?" he yelled, violently pulling her into the chaotic room.
"I don't know!"
"Then why are you hiding from me?"
"Because I knew you would come home and yell at me! I came home and the house was like this."
"Where did you go?" he demanded. She could almost see steam coming out of his ears. His face was red with anger and he had a vein looking ready to burst that always popped out when he was livid like this.
"I went out to breakfast�"
"Did you lock the door?"
"Of course I locked the door!" she yelled. "I'm not stupid, Alex!" He slapped her across the face and she cried out in pain.
"Don't talk back to me! If you were so smart and locked the door, how did they get in, huh?"
"I don't know!" He slapped her again.
"How did they get in the house, kid?"
"I don't know!"
"Well you fucking better find out and you better have this house clean by the time I get back home. If I find even one thing out of place I'll beat you bloody, you got me?" Ginger nodded, holding her cheek. "And don't you forget that." He left her room and went down the stairs. She fell into a chair, shaking. She looked at her hand and saw blood on it. She ran into the bathroom to clean herself up.
Ginger was finishing up the living room, a bandage on her cheek, when the phone rang. She ignored it. Whoever it was, if it was important, they'd call back. Otherwise she didn't want to speak to anyone. The living room was hell. So many things had been trashed and all the crap and clutter that had been in the drawers was everywhere. She had a hard time remembering what went where, and remembering how to stuff it all into the drawers without them overflowing. She ended up cleaning them all out, throwing away stuff that was hers and she didn't need anymore (she knew never to throw away anything that belong to Alex or he'd beat her again) and organized all of the drawers. She was on the final one. It'd taken her longer than she thought and she had little time to clean up Alex's room and her room before he got home.
The phone stopped ringing and whoever it was didn't leave a message on the answering machine. She closed the drawer and walked towards the stairs when the phone began to ring again. Getting frustrated, she ran over to the cordless phone and picked it up. "Hello?" she said, making it very obvious she didn't want to be disturbed.
"Hi."
It was Zac. She closed her eyes and sunk into one of the chairs at the counter. "Hi," she said. Her eyes flickered to the clock. It'd been about eight hours since he dropped her off. Alex would be home in about two hours. "Listen, Zac, I can't�"
"I called to apologize."
"All right," she said, getting off the chair and going to the stairs. "All right I'll talk with you." She went up the stairs as he began to speak to her.
"I didn't mean to completely shut down on you like that, but I was kind of upset." She went into Alex's room and began to pick up the scattered clothes.
"I know, I know. I gave you every reason to be."
"Will you still go out with me tonight?"
"Um�when?" she asked, looking around at the mess that lay before her.
"I don't know. Why, are you busy?"
"Well I'm just cleaning and it may take me a while to do. This house is a mess," she said.
"It was just fine when we left this morning."
"Yeah�that was this morning." She folded up some of his clothes and began to put them away in the dresser drawers that were thrown on the floor. "It's like a tornado hit it or something. I may not even be able to go out tonight."
"Well I was leaving tomorrow and I wanted to see you again�"
"Tomorrow?" she asked. "Already?" She sighed. "I want to see you again too. I don't know, Zac, I�"
"I could come over there and help you clean up."
"No, I don't think that would be such a good idea. You know what, this can wait until tomorrow. Come and pick me up and we'll do something."
"All right. I'll be there in�in about a half an hour."
"Okay, I'll be waiting." She hung up the phone and quickly continued to work. Alex wouldn't mind too much if her room wasn't orderly, but if his were to remain the way it was, he'd beat her for sure. She was already cruising for a bruising by leaving before he got home, but maybe if she stayed out long enough he'd forget about it.
She'd managed to get his drawers into the dresser and most of his clothes into them when Zac got there. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and saw the bandage on her face. She pulled it off and it didn't look too bad. She ran down the stairs. "Coming!" She opened the door, part of her hair hiding the split near her ear. "Hey," she said, smiling.
"Hey. Are you ready?"
"Yeah�"
"Great. Let's go." He took her hand and led her away. She closed the door behind her and they walked to his car.
"Where are we going?"
"I don't know. Where do you want to go? Are you hungry? We can go to dinner." She nodded, pausing to give him a kiss.
"Dinner sounds lovely."
"What happened here?" he asked, pushing her hair out of the way. She was wondering how long it would take before he realized she was hiding something with her hair. She looked at her reflection on one of the side mirrors, looking over the gash as if she hadn't seen it before.
"�I don't know."
"That's pretty nasty; doesn't it hurt?" She shook her head. "All right. Well, let's go." They got into the car. Zac started it and they left. She leaned back, smiling a bit. For the moment she'd gotten away with it. She wouldn�t be there when Alex got home, probably piss drunk and fuming, and Zac didn't suspect that the gash on her face was because of him.
Along the ride, the two ended up deciding on the Olive Garden for dinner, and Ginger told him where to find one. He pulled into the parking lot, and for an evening during summer the wait wasn't too bad. It was a Monday anyhow, so the place wasn't entirely crowded, although they still had to wait about fifteen minutes outside before they were seated.
"Of course you take me to the one place where they completely stuff you full of food for dinner," Ginger kidded, picking up the menu and looking through it.
"You were the one who picked the place," Zac said, doing the same. "If you would like, you can order an appetizer and not get a meal. Then you won't have to eat so much."
"I always end up stuffing myself with breadsticks, that's why I never have room for the main course."
"Then we'll have to keep you away from the breadsticks, my dear," he said, giving her a grin.
"My dear? What happened to angel face?"
"I grew tired of it."
"Good."
"You know what I realized?" Zac suddenly said. Ginger looked up from the menu, a perfectly sculpted eyebrow raised in question. "You're a punk." She began to laugh, but quickly stopped herself, looking around at the quiet people about her.
"Excuse me," she said, still grinning and laughing a bit to herself. "A punk? That's a choice way to put it."
"Well you are. You're not the kind of person I could bring home to mom and say 'this is the chick I'm dating, ma, don't you think she's a nice girl?' As soon as she sees that tattoo she'll freak and forbid me from seeing you ever again."
"What makes you think she'll ever see it?"
"It's kind of hard to miss and you don't exactly do much to hide it, dear," he said, smiling. "You don't seem to mind that you're not exactly America's sweetheart."
"I never have been, Zac. I've always been a step away from the crowd and I like it that way. But this way I know exactly who I am and I know exactly what I can do with myself. I'm the better for it. I'm not Little Miss Conservative because I've never been that way. I'm very much a Democrat."
"I can tell."
"So what are you?"
"What do you mean?"
"Are you conservative or are you liberal?"
"I'm dating you. Doesn't that answer your question?" She shook her head. "Although I may not completely show it, I'm very liberal. I'm open to everything and it's obvious because I don't shun away at the fact that my seventeen-year-old girlfriend happens to have four tattoos and a tongue ring."
"Do you really think I'm your girlfriend?" she asked, dropping her tight fa�ade. "That's so sweet!"
"Well�not really, but what else am I supposed to refer to you as?"
"You can refer to me as your girlfriend," she said, smiling. "It's not like I have anybody else lined up, you're pretty much it."
"Thank you. I feel so loved."
"Damn straight." She paused. "Now that I'm your girlfriend, do you think I could meet your mother?"
"What did we just talk about?"
"I'll wear a shirt with longer sleeves and I'll make sure she doesn't see my tongue�" He shook his head. "Why not?"
"Well, unless you want to stop off at home and change you probably won't be able to see her now, being that we're leaving tomorrow and all," he told her.
"Oh yeah," she said, slumping in her seat a bit. "I forgot about that. Well, I guess I'll have to wait to meet her. But I do want to meet her. You met my brother. He sort of is like my father�in a weird sort of way. If I had a sister I'd have you meet her."
"Well the next time we see each other you can meet the entire family." She smiled.