4. Sable
SABLE
After one last longing look aimed at the sleek building, I turn to greet the driver. Instead, my eyes meet the grain of a raised leather partition. I swallow, preparing to speak, but the car pulls away, and I’m so stunned by the sudden movement that I just stay quiet.
My fingers find the seat belt, clicking it into place, with a heavy breath.
Sometimes I think it would be better not to wear it in case I hit the water again, but I would have died from smashing against the windshield had I not been wearing it the first time.
So even though it feels like a boa constrictor tightening around my body, I wear it.
At least it's one small amount of security I can offer myself, much like working out and running.
Hopefully, all my small efforts will keep me alive.
Next, I search the cab for a switch to drop the partition myself.
This is too quiet and formal for the day I’ve had, and I need to know who's driving me. Snacks, drinks, even a TV, but nothing that would let me see who’s sitting up front.
I don’t think this is a self-driving car, so why would there be a partition?
Why can’t I see who’s driving? Paranoia turns my imagination against me, filling my mind with images of my father’s waterlogged corpse driving the car—the way he looked on the autopsy table when I had to identify him.
My gaze sticks to the city passing, but I can’t breathe no matter how I coach myself.
The water is more than a mile away, but the pane of glass would scar me the same if I needed to break out again.
My skin burns with phantom slices, and my scars ache even though they’re healed.
My eyes flick back to the partition and the mystery driver.
Would Uncle Carl orchestrate all this just to torture me?
He liked to pinch me and pull my pigtails since I was a kid, and I never felt it was fun.
Is this another more nuanced way to prick at me?
Is he punishing me for not being willing to fuck him?
My heart pounds, and real fear takes over, not the familiar anxiety I’ve lived with since the incident.
Who the hell is sitting behind that partition?
My interactions with Parker have left me shaken, but maybe they were meant to distract me.
The hardest lesson I’ve learned in the past few months is that people don’t just want my downfall, they want blood too.
Was he one of them? Someone could be recording right now, hoping for a Sable Briarwick freak-out to sell to the media.
Undoing the belt, I move along the seat and perch on the edge. I lean forward and press my ear against the divide. The seconds turn into minutes, and the leather cools my overheated skin, but my racing heart is the only sound.
“Hello?” I finally ask, but no one responds. Silence stretches, and I try again. “Can we talk, please?” Not a word so I drop back to the seat, possibilities running through my head. How do I know this car is taking me to Bellthorn?
“I’m car sick. I’m going to puke, and I bet you have to clean it up,” I nearly shout.
Silence follows, but this time, my mysterious driver doesn't leave me unanswered. The engine speeds as a response, and my fingernails scratch the leather under me. If there's one thing I learned from my father trying to murder me, it’s that I’m not good at going down quietly.
Rage and fear mix into a toxic cocktail, and my hands close around a thick-walled bottle of champagne.
Adrenaline courses, my ears ring, and I suck in a breath before I swing it into the divide.
There’s a hard pane of glass between us, but at this point, I’m willing to break that too.
I can at least cut the leather and see who's driving the car if the glass won’t give.
I swing twice more, hoping for the glass to crack like I did under that river.
Part of me hopes someone will give up and answer at this point because who wants someone smashing up their car?
The bottle finally gives, but it snaps at the neck where I’m holding it.
“Fuck!” I shout at the top of my lungs as blood drips down my hand and alcohol sprays over my body, soaking my clothes and shooting up my nose.
The pain takes a second to register, but the wet, burning sensation is exactly how I remember it.
My hand shakes as I dig the glass into the leather, but it’s thicker than I imagined, and the blood is starting to make me squeamish.
I push harder, trying to cut, but the pain builds, and I’m too afraid to keep fighting.
I can’t see the sun overhead to hold my course straight.
I’m drowning in that river. Sable is gone.
The broken glass falls to my feet, and I give up without having permitted myself to do so.
I’m drowning, and I can’t swim my way out this time.
My eyes swim, the colors blur, and I think I pass out for a second before my vision returns.
No one is going to answer my questions, not even in exchange for blood.
Tears burn my eyes as I sit back and cradle my wound.
The worst of the panic is passing, my body too weak to stay that worked up.
The wet and sticky coating of champagne dries over my skin like glue as I breathe and return to myself.
A bottle of water rests beside me, missed in my tantrum.
I pick it up and take a long sip, returning the cap before I turn it around to read the label.
Bellthorn Academy Spring Water.
The Gothic logo with the letter B is plain for anyone to see.
This is obviously a Bellthorn ride and not an attempted kidnap.
I don’t know why they won’t talk to me, but suddenly, I’m sure they’re not allowed to.
I should feel relief, but instead, the insidious dread I’ve been nursing for weeks grows from a simmering stomachache to certain dread.
This was all a mistake.
Should I have just fucked my uncle? I wonder.
We’re not related by blood. It’s only sick because he’s known me my whole life and should care about me.
I wouldn’t need to leave the city I love.
What’s a little sickness to go along with all this pain?
I shake my head. It doesn’t matter what I regret or what path I should have chosen because the driver never answers, and I don’t get a chance to beg to go back.
I stuff napkins against my wound, sure there are chunks of glass deep inside.
Hours pass as we move away from the West Coast city and east into the mountains.
Watching the country change as it rolls past me only drives that anxiety higher, so I stare at my phone and my social media accounts, where everything is still right in the world.
Words like car and suicide are keyword blocked on all of my accounts, and I look happy in my posts.
There’s a smiling one of me on a run a few mornings ago, talking about mind-body balance.
What they say is true. Social media is so very fake.
If you look at my pages, absolutely nothing has changed.
Except for one lonely memorial post about my mom only.
Sable Briarwick is exactly who she’s supposed to be, and she hasn’t seen the tabloids.
But how long can that last when I’m actually falling apart?