Page 1 of 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 hisbest 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.

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