Page 18 of The Girl and the Cobra

Having her so close… it’s an odd thing for me. Her hand feels so soft compared to my calluses, and in mine hers is so goddamn small. I can smell her, too. She carries a faint whiff of strawberries. Something fruity and sweet.

Too sweet for someone like me, and yet…

Wolf comes down the stairs from the second floor, and I react instinctively by pulling my hand out of hers and taking a step away from her to put some distance between us. I don’t want to, but it would be for the best if I don’t lose myself in this girl.

Bad, bad things happen when I get obsessive.

“Mabel,” Wolf says as he approaches us. “What are you doing here so late? Are you all right?”

My attention is solely on Mabel, which is the only reason that I watch her glance at me before telling him, “I couldn’t go home. I… I went to The Drip like you told me to, and I—the door was too loud. It was like I was back there, reliving that day.”

She squeezes her eyes shut, and what stuns me the most is the fact that a single tear falls from the corner of her eye. It trails down her cheek, moving along her jaw until it reaches her chin, where it pools, not enough density for gravity to bring it down further.

I’ve never seen anyone cry before. My parents were hard people, and Shay is far too strong-willed to ever let something hurt her so bad. This girl… she’s fragile, and that makes me want to do something strange.

Protect her.

I want to protect her, to fix whatever pushed her to this point and do whatever I can to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

“It’s okay,” Wolf says as he adjusts his glasses. “You—”

“I almost drove myself into a tree because,” she pauses and shrugs her thin shoulders, “because I could. Because it could be an accident. Maybe a deer jumped out in front of me or something. It’d hurt my dad less that way, I think.”

Suicide? I knew Mabel had to be fucked up to be accepted as a client of Wolf’s, but I didn’t think… it’s difficult for me to comprehend the fact that the girl standing in front of me has debated on killing herself.

It’s not right. It’s not right at all.

Wolf stares hard at Mabel, and he doesn’t say anything right away. Then those perceptive eyes of his flick in my direction, and he must see something on my face, because he says something I never would’ve guessed he’d ever say, “Tristan, why don’t you take Mabel out back? I’ll make us some tea.”

Telling me to take Mabel outside? Basically giving me the okay to be alone with her? What…

No. You know what? I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

The way Mabel looks at me after Wolf suggests that is unlike any other look I’ve ever received before. I wordlessly gesture for her to come with me, and as I walk around Wolf, she walks with me, not saying a single word more.

As we walk through the house to the back, what she said earlier swirls around in my head. She nearly killed herself by driving into a tree. She wants to die. It’s a feeling I know well. I tortured myself for years—both physically and mentally—because I failed the only person that truly mattered to me. I look like a scarred monster now because that’s what I felt.

I wanted to die, yes, but I wanted to make myself hurt. Pain is preferable when the other choice is nothing at all. I’d rather have pain than nothing.

Once we’re outside on the back patio, Mabel doesn’t go to sit on a wicker chair. She goes to the edge of the stamped concrete and sits down, cross-legged. I stand behind her for only a moment; I hesitate only because comfort is not something I’m used to. Not used to receiving or giving.

I’m slow in lowering down to her level, though I don’t sit like she does; I extend my legs off the edge, onto the grass. I don’t wear shoes, nor do I wear socks. My feet are bare beneath the bottom hem of my pants. I set my arms on my knees and lean slightly forward, staring straight ahead, as she does.

She’s the one who breaks the silence: “Did you do all of that to yourself?”

The only thing I can do is nod.

“Why? I… I know it’s none of my business, but… there are easier ways to kill yourself.”

Long sleeves cover most of the scars on my arm, including the one I carved time and time again in my sister’s name. I’m sure the rising moon in the dark sky highlights the scars on my face well enough. “I didn’t want to kill myself,” I whisper. “I wanted to die.”

I’m measured in meeting her stare, and I can tell by the look she gives me she doesn’t understand the difference.

“I wanted pain, not for the pain to end,” I say, struggling to find the right words. I’m not good at putting words to feelings, or feelings to words. I’m a loner. One severely fucked-up individual.

Mabel is quiet for a few moments. “Dr. Wolf said you’re violent. Are you?”

Yes. But perhaps that’s not something to say to someone like her, so I settle for saying, “I was.”

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