Page 39 of Swallow Your Sorries

Gant

W-what happened to Madame?

This whole time she’s been blissfully unaware, and I’ve been trapped in a fucking loop that’s slowly deteriorating my sanity.

Curses and horns blare all around me as I make my way across three lanes of heavy traffic to the dance studio. I’m one lane away when the doors fly open and my mother sprints down the steps into the dark car park. Her heavy wool coat is balled beneath one arm and the falling snow is coating her bare shoulders, soaking her sheer tights, and seeping through her satin pointe shoes, but she doesn’t seem to feel it. Her Birken’s hanging off her wrist by one strap, the contents ready to slip out at any moment. Not that she’d stop to retrieve them. She’s on a mission to get the fuck away from the dance studio.

Away from town.

Away from me.

“I didn’t leak the tape,” I say breathlessly as I sprint to catch her. At the last word, she shuts the driver’s door to the Flying Spur. When she got it a month ago, I’d teased her about why a ballerina needed such a fast car. Now it seems ridiculously fitting.

Too bad it wouldn’t allow her to escape her own skin.

That’s what I’d thought, at least.

She ignores me as the engine roars to life. A cold sweat trickles down my spine as I spot the name lighting up her phone she’d tossed on the dash. It doesn’t say any term of endearment, not even something as basic as ‘husband’. It doesn’t even say, Bart. It reads, Mr. Bart Emery Auclair.

My father.

“I didn’t do it!” I pound on the window with one hand, begging her to roll it down while my other fingers jiggle the door handle. But she doesn’t spare me a glance. I’m intentionally invisible to her as she presses the gas.

The air knocks from my lungs as I toss myself onto the hood, digging my fingers beneath the metal to stay attached.

Through the glossy windshield, her red, shocked, and furious eyes lock on mine as she gently pumps the brakes, trying her damndest to stop me from flying off.

Why is she so shocked? Doesn’t she realise I won’t ever be ignored?

We stare at each other for what feels like centuries, her fingers gripping the steering wheel turning as white as the snow falling.

Then she snaps.

I can’t hear her, but it’s pretty clear she’s screaming. “Get the fuck off, Gant!”

“No,” I mouth, not bothering to say it audibly.

Something behind her head catches my attention, just like it caught that cunt’s attention on the steps. Clouds. I can see the cloudy sky behind her head through the opened moon roof she always forgets to shut. Even in the winter, she liked the wind rustling through her hair after a full day of wearing it slicked back.

I seize the opportunity, climbing the windshield and diving straight through the opening.

I’m halfway through when the car lurches and she books it out of the car park. Climbing into the passenger seat, I just stare at her all over again.

And she pretends I’m invisible all over again.

“I didn’t leak it.”

Silence.

One corner passes. Then two. Then three.

I know I shouldn’t push her. She needs time to process, but the silence is unbearable and I can’t breathe until she acknowledges me.

“Mum—”

The word snaps something inside of her and she pounds a fist on the steering wheel.

“Why?” it comes out so hoarse. So broken. “Why Gant?”

---