The Girl and the Cobra

Chapter One – Mabel

You never realize how loud you are when you’re breathing until you have to be quiet and it’s all you can hear. How your lungs seem to turn into blow horns and no amount of air inhaled is enough. As you sit there, trying to stifle yourself, all you can think is: is it going to give me away?

You can put your hand over your mouth to try to make a barrier, to block out the sound, but does it really work? Once the terrifying moment is over, how you breathed will be the last thing on your mind.

Because you might not survive. You might die. You struggling with your breathing might just be the last thing you’ll ever do.

It’s funny, in a not-so-funny way. In that moment, when your heart constricts so tightly in your chest you think you’re having a heart attack, you don’t even realize that your body keeps going. Your blood keeps pumping. You keep blinking.

And breathing. You keep breathing even though you’re worried one stray breath might give you away.

It’s not something most people will ever have to think about. But that moment sticks with me, even now. When I close my eyes, it’s like I’m back there, thrown into a time I’d rather not relive—but reliving it is all I can seem to do lately.

It’s instinctual. The other students and I huddle together in the far corner of the library, near the computer lab. The librarian is scurrying around, shutting off the lights and locking both sets of doors. There’s only so much she can do; the library is full of windows. In an L-shape, the computer lab off to the side is the only area where we might survive, where we have any hope of not being seen by anyone walking by in the halls.

No one speaks a word. Words would give us away.

But it’s not the unspoken words or even the loud breathing that eventually guides the shooter to us.

It’s me.

I must doze off in the car, because the next thing I know, I’m jerking myself awake as I hear my dad’s voice: “We’re almost there, Mabel.” He’s trying to sound excited for this new chapter in our lives, but I can see through it.

This new chapter is forced. We literally had no choice. Although, as I glance around at our surroundings, I wonder if my dad could’ve found us a better place to live.

It’s the opposite of what I’m used to. A dreary sky full of gray clouds over a small mountain town whose temperature never gets too hot and whose winters are long and miserable. A place where, during those chilly winter storms, you have to learn to be self-sufficient in your own home while the roads are piled high with snow and ice.

Honestly, I don’t know how we’re going to survive here. My dad’s not really the outdoorsy type, and neither am I.

I pick at the sleeves of the hoodie I wear—another article of clothing I’m not very used to. Back home, there was hardly any time of the year where you could be comfortable in a hoodie. Some people, the ones who didn’t mind being a little warm, did it all the time, but me? I’d rather be cold than hot. I’m only wearing it now to keep my dad happy.

This is all for him, anyway. The move and everything that’ll come after. I’m doing it for him. No way in hell am I doing any of this for myself. If I had the choice… well, if I could do what I really wanted to do, I wouldn’t be here right now.

My dad glances at me. He wears a smile, but I can tell it’s strained. A man who just turned fifty, his blond hair has started to turn gray. His eyes are a watered-down blue, more gray than anything else, like mine. “This is exciting, isn’t it?” He does his best to sound genuine, like he’s really trying to be excited about this move.

He’s been through a lot. We both have. He’s trying. I think trying comes easier to some people than it does to others. It doesn’t come easy to me.

That’s what people just don’t get. Sometimes what doesn’t kill you doesn’t make you stronger. Sometimes it breaks you, shatters you so completely that when the smoke clears, you’re left as nothing but a shell of the person you used to be with no hope of ever being that person again.

“So exciting,” I mumble, not sounding too excited at all.

And how could I be excited? We’re moving to the middle of nowhere in hopes we can start over. The thing my dad doesn’t get is that there’s no starting over. No new beginnings here. My hope for this place to heal the wounds we still carry is nonexistent.

Nothing can heal the wounds inside me.

The face my dad gives me is one of despondence. “Give this place a chance. Please, that’s all I ask.”

I want to ask him what he thinks I’m doing—coming here with him is giving this place a chance. Agreeing to move with him when I could, in reality, walk away from the shattered remains of this family and never look back, is giving this whole thing a chance.

I’m eighteen. I don’t need any of this. I could run away and disappear into oblivion, and the only person in the world who would care is my dad.

“I am,” I say, although it’s half-hearted at most.

“Wait till you see the house. It’s much better in person than it looks in pictures.” He starts going on about how rustic it is, how he’s always loved fireplaces and is so excited to finally have one. Blah, blah, blah; nothing I really care about.

I don’t care about anything, really. That’s just how it’s been since that fateful day when everything changed.

It’s a strange thing. You never think anything terrible is going to happen to you. You never get up, get ready for the day, and think it might be the last time you do your morning routine. Each and every day, you feel like you’re invincible, like all the horrors on the news are taking place in another reality, so far removed from you.

But the hard truth is it can happen to you, to your loved ones. It can take place anywhere. Your small, quiet town or the next town over. Death, blood, pain; it’s all a drop in the bucket where humanity is concerned. The day that inevitably comes and forces you to reckon with your own mortality is the day your life either ends or changes irrevocably, and if you survive the person who does the surviving is not the same person who walked into that day to begin with.

We turn off the road and travel down a long driveway that winds through a small grove of pine trees. The house we pull up to is hideous, to say the least—all wood siding, some of it stained. Not a picturesque house at all, but it came cheap. My parents were fortunate enough to be young adults in a time where they could afford a house and they worked hard to pay it off early. My dad was able to sell it for a hefty profit and buy this place with all cash and still have some money left over.

A brightly-colored moving crate sits near the garage; it got here before us. Dad pulled an enclosed trailer with everything else we were bringing with us. We threw out a lot and sold some other stuff. We really are starting new.

We get out of the car, and Dad swings his keys around his finger, glancing at me. “Ready for the first walkthrough?” He grins, but I don’t return his enthusiasm.

“Sure,” I whisper, my shoulders slumped.

Let’s get this over with.

After the walkthrough, it’s time to unload. It’s just my dad and me, and even though we got rid of a lot, it’s still quite a bit to move on our own. We focus on getting the necessities done—the day is already late. It’s about dinner time. We get our beds set up in our new rooms and unpack the kitchen stuff, and then Dad makes some pasta.

I take the pasta to my room with the excuse that I’ll start unpacking the few boxes of clothes that were already brought in, though it’s mostly so I don’t have to sit cross-legged near him and listen to him try to act like everything is fine.

Everything is not fine. Nothing is fine anymore, and I don’t think it’ll ever be fine again.

It’s only been four months. Four months since everything changed. Four measly months since the day I woke up, thinking it would be just a normal day. Four achingly-painful months where I honestly don’t know how I survived.

I know why we’re here. I know why my dad is in my business. He doesn’t want to lose me like he lost Mom.

That day, four months ago, our family fractured and broke. My dad and I are strangers to the people we used to be. Dad wants us to go back to the way things were, but without Mom and Jordan, it’s just not possible.

I know it’s a mistake to think of my brother’s name, but the moment it happens regardless, and I lose all my appetite, what little there was to begin with.

Jordan . My heart constricts as his name echoes in my mind.

I can picture him clear as day, like I saw him mere moments ago instead of four long months. I can hear his smile when he laughs, the way he stupidly winks at me when he’s saying something funny and trying to get me to cheer up.

My whole life, my brother was more than a brother to me. We weren’t like those siblings who fight and bicker all the time. No, we were the opposite. We were best friends, always in each other’s business, protective to a fault. We were like two halves of the same whole.

And now he’s gone, and I still feel empty inside.

I don’t know how I’m supposed to make it.