Chapter Text
When Jessie ran away from home, she was seventeen. She had come out to her parents, and while her Texan mother was fine with this, her very Christian father had gone into a rage. He started beating her and her mother, so she got out.
She was prepared for this of course, so now with a bag of her stuff, her trusty Mustang, Fyre, and dressed in her favorite outfit, she was off. Her hat a was black, matching the black bandana around her neck. Her button up was a rich red, more of a maroon than anything, but it paI red so well with her blue jeans and black boots with silver stars, not to mention the black of her previously mentioned accessories.
She had made her way off on her own, leaving the town she had grown in, leaving her old life behind her. She left the years of playing football with the boys, of wrangling up the stray cows that drifted too far for the pack on their ranch. She left ot behind, traversing the backroads, all dusty and such. She luckily had some bread and jerky with her, and she had money, at least for a bit until she found a new job.
The next town over, another kid was struggling. Eric Derekson, son of Derek Derekson, was sick of his life. Of course, what could he do about it? Born and raised in a tourist trap, the young man lived in the pretty well known Old West styled town of Knowensboro. His brothers all dying in the Strang High Bus inccident, and his mother having died giving birth to him, he was the last child in the family.
Eric could usually be found in his father's tavern, keeping up the bar, usually cleaning up with the yellow rags they kept in a cup off to the side. Normally bot wearing a hat he did have a red bandana round his neck along with a spiffy looking green button down his brother Terrick had given him. The button down had a pocket where he typically kept a spare yellow rag that, when not in the tavern, could be found in his hands.
The poor kid had been bullied by his dad from the week his brothers had died, holding the pressure of his father and being the last one to help run the tavern on his shoulders. Derek made sure he never quit, planting the words in his brain to make him think he couldn't survive anywhere else, that he had to stay. It didn't help that his legs had been lost in the accident, leaving him with the need for prosthetics.
Because of these, he couldn't go too far, the pain too much. Thus, he was stuck, stuck in this painful life with no escape, or, at least without help.
All this was true until Jessie Jones came into town.
She had hoped to enter and make a living her, but hadn't realized it was so full of pain. No jobs were open except in the tavern, which she had heard about the incident. So, of course she went and offered her services to the owner. She had walked in and accepted the immediate interview, but had noticed the young man lurking in the background. She was hired after little negotiation, and had been given a room across from Eric's. Jessie had of course been introduced to Eric, and then the two went to bed to prepare for work the next day.