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Two: Swerve
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Sierra's vision blurs. She feels like a dead king.
Something moves beneath her feet. It's dark outside, rain slashing the car. A jewelry box plays Swan Lake, but is it there, in the car with them? The ballerina spinning mechanically in brisk circles? No... no. She can picture it, in a haze, but is it there? She doesn't know why she sees it, or thinks it, the jewelry box. Her hand grips the steering wheel.
It's raining. Sierra can't remember where she is supposed to be going. Are you okay? Are you okay? Are you okay...?
"Sierra," Darling Hunter shakes her right shoulder. "Are you okay?" Sierra can't remember where she's supposed to be going. She can't remember why she's in a car... her car? In a car with Darling Hunter. She doesn't see Darling's little sister in the back, sleeping.
"Did you... did you take something?" Darling looks afraid. She might be. It's happening again. She remembers hours before, watching her beautiful friend. Sierra was dancing in a way Darling knew she never could–she had seen herself dancing before, stupidly, she had watched herself in the mirror, arms flailing, arms awkward, arms like vines.
She does not know why she's remembering this now, in the car with an obliviated Sierra.
She knows Sierra took ballet lessons as a child, but so did Darling, and this does not explain Sierra's confidence. She knows Sierra is loved. She maybe shouldn't be, no definitely. She shouldn't be loved. She is, though. As a child, Darling Hunter did not raise her hand in class. She was obedient, she was good, she was quiet, so why did everyone ignore her? Sierra raised her hand in class and ran wild, ran and yelled and tried new things. She's not afraid to fail, maybe she's even a little excited to fail. Sierra Greene is not boring. She's reckless, she's stupid, she's so so beautiful, and she's not boring. Darling Hunter may be beautiful too, but does it matter anymore?
She's eighteen now, and she's learned the language of disappointment and disappointing and gained a new fear, a faux pride. She chases Sierra around, trading herself off, doing stupid, reckless, Sierra things because now boys kiss her and adults are afraid of her. Do they see through her?
But attracting attention only gets you so far as it is. Drowning, the tide pulls you in deeper, and you're closing your eyes, but you can still see the beautiful green of the bloodthirsty marine that's dragging you closer. In this metaphor, Sierra Greene has already gone to her watery grave. Darling sees her body and she flails around, trying to get to the surface, but it just makes it worse, she's too far under. Because in this ocean, you are naked and vulnerable. It pulls your skin off if you aren't careful. This is how she feels on that dance floor, but not just the dance floor, everywhere. She'll do drugs on Montana Nuevo's dirty bathroom floor, as Sierra did, and she'll have sex and do things that girls do, but it's different for Darling. She feels sick. There are times where you should be having fun but instead you are wishing that your arms were not your arms. I don't know.
Sierra is rubbing her collarbone like a rabbit's foot. They drive past real bloody roadkill. Gnats above it form a loose question mark.
"I wish people would stop asking me that," she croaks. Her grip on the steering wheel tightens. Darling notices. She holds her stomach, keeping all of her organs in, everything that wants to come up. She does it exceptionally well. Other dancers seem better at dancing. A teacher once said to her, You're going to be roadkill forever if you keep letting people walk all over you like that. Letting them. She's right. Darling will be roadkill forever.
She wants to ask Sierra, Where do you put the pain? Where do you leave it when you lie down to sleep? Do you sleep? Have you been sleeping? Or is everything too much? Are you still you?
Darling snaps up at a sound so shrill, so dragged-out, something she remembers the feeling of but can't remember happening. Brown, thick sap slides out from Sierra's lips, her head thrashes against the horn, her foot on the gas, her eyes dead. Darling makes a quiet choking sound. She goes to take the wheel, her eyes wide and and dark, but her neck is thrown back into the seat. She whines, and it feels like something shatters. The world? They're flying in the blue-black night, rain slashing the car. Trees become hands, become fingers, become teeth reaching out for them.
Darling is unconscious for at least two minutes. She doesn't know if they make sounds, because her heart is in her ears, drowning her. The car is weightless and heavy at the same time as it smacks against the earth, bounces, rolls and rolls, and Sierra Greene is still barely alive in the driver's seat.
She says her sister's name, but there isn't any answer.
Her hands feel around the seat for the belt lock, but they quiver so badly they can't settle down. Her stomach clenches. Dark, watery liquid trickles from her mouth and onto her shirt.
In the lopsided rearview mirror, her sister, Frankie Hunter, is a useless thing in the backseat.
Darling says her name.
She has to get out of this car. She has to tell someone. She has to get help. She has to leave this place of shattered glass and crunched metal and Sierra Greene's unconscious body, but she can't move. She can't get out. Everything's too fast.
She drools and her face clenches, but she can't cry. The ocean pulls her in, she chokes, struggles in the water, but it's not something you can fight anymore.
She falls into the back seat, her body transforming into a different kind of substance she doesn't recognize. She wheezes as she watches Frankie's head roll around. Her arms are splayed. Frankie is crying, barely conscious. Her eyes are wide and she croaks, I'm scared I'm scared don't kill me.
"Wake up, Sierra," Darling cries out.
The car isn't moving anymore when Darling wakes up. Sierra Greene is half in, half out of the splintered window, her sneakered feet dangling at strange angles. There is something Darling feels, but she can't tell what it is. Something in her body that is not right. Something different.
There is blood in Frankie's hair. Darling says her name. She's is still scared to say what her sister was doing. D-Y-I-N-G.
The sounds that come from Frankie are not words. They're raspy and wet, full and thin all at once.
Through the broken window comes a howling in Mirkwood. There's howling, and maybe it's Darling, and then she realizes it isn't. It's the howl of sirens, and beams begin to fill the broken car with light.
