The ten thousand dollars? I never asked for it back. Used it to help Macy. First month’s rent. Security deposit. Books. Whatever she needed.
“I’ll pay you back,” she said.
Macy has a photo in her apartment. Me standing next to my bike outside that gas station. She took it years later when we went back.
“Why’d you want to go back?” I asked.
“To remember. This is where I died and got reborn. Where someone saw me as human instead of property. Where a biker with ten thousand cash chose to save me instead of use me.”
The caption under the photo reads: “My hero. My savior. My dad.”
That last word gets me every time.
I never had kids. Couldn’t. Medical issue. It haunted my marriage. Part of why my wife and I never fully connected. Part of why I rode so much. Running from that emptiness.
Then a sixteen-year-old mouthed “help me” in a gas station at 3 AM.
And I became a father.
Macy Rodriguez is my daughter now. In every way that counts. She calls me Dad. I call her my kid. We’re family.
And it started because I was too tired to ignore evil.
Because I heard trafficking happening through a bathroom wall and I refused to look away.Continue reading…
