Page 15 of The Girl and the Cobra

But I’m here, and so I might as well go to the stupid coffee shop.

We finish cleaning the kitchen together; I think my dad wants to see me off. After dinner is cleaned up, he comes with me to the garage door and plucks his keys off the small hook he hung beside it.

“Remember,” he starts.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll send you a message when I get there and when I leave,” I say, already knowing that’s what he was about to say. As if I’d forget. I’m already wearing a hoodie—a pretty much permanent fixture on my body since we moved here—so all I have to do is slip on my shoes. I reach out my hand, palm up, waiting for the keys.

This is a momentous day. The first time I’ve gone out by myself in a long, long time, and I know my dad probably doesn’t want me to go, even though he’s supportive. He worries too much… or maybe he worries just enough.

It takes him a moment, but he drops the keys into my hand with a sigh. Before I can turn away and, you know, leave on my mission, he pulls me in for a hug. “Be safe, kiddo,” he whispers, and then he lets me go.

Ironic that we only became huggersafterwe lost everything. We never hugged before it all went to shit.

“Bye, Dad.”

“Bye. Love you.”

The last words out of my mouth before I leave are “I love you, too.” I know why he’s extra huggy and sentimental: it’s because he regrets not saying it more to us as kids. Maybe, just maybe if he would’ve, Jordan never would’ve done what he did.

My dad doesn’t know, though. He doesn’t know the whole truth.

I’m out the door and in the car in the next moment, pulling out my phone for directions to this coffee place. My phone is basically a useless accessory now; I had to change numbers and get rid of all my profiles on all the social media sites—it wasn’t that I used them lots, it’s more that people kept finding me and sending me hate messages on them, after the shooting.

The Drip is seventeen minutes away. The perks of living in the middle of nowhere mean nothing is close. It also means the roads are pretty empty as I drive along—and that’s something I won’t complain about. It’s been a hot minute since I’ve been behind the wheel.

It feels… too normal. Like everything is fine when I know it’s not. Honestly, I don’t understand how we’re supposed to go on acting like life is normal when everything is still so topsy-turvy. It doesn’t feel real.

I turn the radio up and try to find a station that plays songs I recognize that are from this century. My dad loves the nineties, but I just can’t do it.

The roads are dark thanks to the lack of streetlights. No sidewalks, the houses are pretty far apart. So not what I’m used to. The days are getting shorter, the nights longer; the air itself is getting a bit too cold for just a hoodie, but I’m one of those people that hates big jackets and refuses to wear them under any circumstances… but then again, that could be just because I never really had to wear them growing up.

I nearly miss a turn thanks to not knowing how to drive these roads. I have to slam on the brakes to make it, and let’s just sayI’m glad there are no other cars around to witness the terrible turn. I’d describe the drive as interesting, but I make it to The Drip in one piece.

The Drip is indeed a small coffee shop on the main road in town. It looks like it was taken straight out of the movies or something, with a full wall of windows and old-timey architecture beyond. It has parallel parking in front of it, but it also has a small parking lot behind it—that’s where I park. No way in hell will you catch me parallel parking in public.

Once I pull into a parking spot, I turn the car off. I don’t get out right away. I sit there for a while, hyper aware that, while the parking lot isn’t jam-packed with vehicles, it’s still full enough. People around here don’t have many places to hang out, so I bet some of them frequent The Drip regardless of what hour of the day it is.

This is the first time I’ve been in public without my dad at my side. The first time that I’m alone. I honestly don’t know if I can do it.

But I’m here. I said I was going to attempt it, so let’s just get it over with already.

I heave a sigh before getting out of the car, and I lock its doors as I walk away. My feet take me along the sidewalk that wraps around the outer edge of The Drip, and soon enough I’m standing before the glass door.

Here goes nothing.

Gathering myself, I push inside. The door swings shut behind me on its own, loud enough to make me jump out of habit. Stepping into The Drip is like walking into another world, a world that I never saw myself in before. There are maybe half a dozen or so other people scattered amongst the seating areas in the front of the shop. Most are in pairs, but there are two individuals sitting by themselves, one working on a laptop andone reading some book while sipping on an iced coffee of some kind.

I’m slow in walking to the counter, my eyes wide as I take in the menu. I’m not really a coffee drinker. I don’t like the taste. Maybe I’ll just get a pastry.

A young woman stands at the ready, a dark brown apron covering most of her clothes. Her brown hair is drawn into a tight ponytail, and she gives me an easy smile as she says, “Hi! What can I make for you tonight?”

I take a tiny step forward as I pull out my wallet from my hoodie—no purses, ever. Not my kind of thing, kind of like coffee. “Could I just, um, get one of these?” I point to some chocolate-filled pastry that actually looks yummy. “Oh, and can I get a cup of water with that, please?”

The girl doesn’t blink at my request. “Of course!” She sounds peppy. Happy, even. As she grabs a piece of wax paper to grab the pastry, she says, “I don’t recognize you. New in town?”

Talking to a stranger: yet another thing I’m not used to, let alone a stranger that sounds so stupidly happy just to exist. I have to force myself to speak, “Yeah. My dad and I just moved here, actually.”

She slides my pastry into a bag and folds the top down. “No way! You guys moved into that house on… oh, where was it? Over on Elk Creek?”

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