Save Her, Abigail Osborne [ebook reader for surface pro txt] 📗

away. Cecelia pulled out her phone and ordered a ‘clean-up’ crew. When she was done, she knelt down close to Sophie. ‘Don’t worry, Sophie. I’ll look after Flora now. It’s the least I can do.’

68

To the world, Sophie Cavendish is dead. This was one of the last things Cecelia told me. But I’m not. I am rotting away in this godforsaken place. I don’t even know where I am. I can just make out the sea from my window, through the bars. No one will tell me. I see no one. My meals are delivered through a letterbox. I have a toilet and a bed and my memories. My memories are all that sustain me.

Each day I choose a new memory to devour, to help me escape the confines of my cell. Today I conjure up the day that Flora’s parents had died. It was regretful but I had always known that it was for a reason. I didn’t mean to run them off the road. That part really was an accident. It was down to fate. I’d always believed in fate ever since I was a child.

Until that day, I thought fate had forsaken me. She had always shown me the path, but Flora moving away, my only friend in the entire world, was unbearable. She was the only person who didn’t judge me for my alcoholic mother. It was Flora who had helped me clear up the sick and hide my mother’s neglect from social services. The one who let me into her home and made it so I was a part of a different family. A better family. She was my entire world. She was the reason I got up in the morning and practically ran to school. My life was only bearable because she was in it. But then it seemed she was going to be taken away. Her dad had been offered a new job and they were going to relocate. I cursed fate. I yelled and I screamed. I was going to be abandoned. Left to deal with my disgusting mother on my own. Who was I if didn’t have Flora? I would have no reason to live. No reason to smile. Nothing.

But fate was there to step in and help. The memory overtakes me. I had learnt to drive by the age of twelve at my mother’s insistence for those times when she’d had too much to drink. It was her fault I was driving that day.

It is supposed to be a shopping trip, not a drinking trip but like a moth to a flame, Mother finds her way to the vodka and begins to drink before we have paid. We are asked to leave and as my mother stumbles her way back to the car like a baby deer walking for the first time, I have no choice but to drive us home.

She is trying to look in the back for more drink, convinced there is something she has missed, stupid woman. I turn away to see what she is doing. I only glance at her for a few seconds but when I look back, I am on the wrong side of the road driving at a red car. I yank the wheel hard.

In my peripheral vision I see my mother flung into the back seat, I hear a clunk as her head hits something. I slam on the brakes and pump the clutch. I just manage to stop the car teetering over the edge into the ditch that runs either side of the road. In my rear-view mirror, I can see the red car has not been so lucky.

I undo my seat belt, rubbing at my neck where it has almost strangled me. I clamber down the ditch towards the red car. It is upside down. I can hear screaming from inside. I kneel down and to my horror I see Flora’s mum, Mrs Harper. I have run my best friend’s parents off the road. Mr Harper is on the other side. He isn’t moving and there is blood all over his face, making him barely recognisable.

I reach for the handle and try to open the car door, but it won’t budge. Flora’s mum is screaming for help. She can’t get her seat belt off and is frantically pulling and pushing at it. Then, she realises I am there and looks at me. Recognition lighting up her face.

‘Oh, Sophie. Thank God it’s you. Help me. Please, I can’t wake up John and I can’t get my seat belt off.’ Tears are mixing with the blood on her face. A small cut across her temple is still bleeding. The blood drops to the ceiling.

‘I can’t get the door open,’ I say.

‘Smash the window,’ she says.

I turn to find a rock and a thought occurs to me. Flora is leaving with them. They are taking Flora away from me. Then it dawns on me. Everything happens for a reason. I can’t open the door for a reason. I am not meant to save them. I stand stock-still and examine the thought further. If I saved them then Flora would move away. Fate does not want that to happen. Why else would it be her parents’ car that I run off the road?

‘I’m sorry. I can’t help you,’ I say to Flora’s mum. I take a step back. She looks confused. Yanking at the door handle, she thrusts her body weight at the door, but it is stuck fast. Her hand moves out of sight, but I can see she is winding something. The window in the door begins to move but then it jams. She can get only her fingertips through it. She lets out a howl of anguish.

‘Sophie, please,’ she begs. ‘Flora needs me.’

‘No, she doesn’t,’ I cry. Tears running down my face. ‘She needs me.’ I’m about to walk away when there is a whooshing noise.

Flames spring up and engulf the back of the car. Panic consumes Mrs Harper and