“You buried Sabrina here?”
He nodded. “And the baby. I thought they would like it here. I didn’t want to just throw them in a swamp, or weight them down and drop them out in the Gulf, although I considered doing both.”
“Is Sabrina the S on your tattoo?” I asked.
“Yeah, she is.” Jake held me tighter and kissed my head.
“Who is the L then?” I traced the intertwining letters on his forearm with my fingers.
“Sabrina’s mama had died a few years before, from some sort of cancer. Her name was Laurelyn. While she was in labor, Sabrina told me if the baby turned out to be a girl, that’s what her name would be.”
“Wow.” It was all I could manage. The mystery of the SL tattoo had been solved and the truth behind it was more incredibly sad than I could have imagined.
“I should have gone for help, and I regret it every day that I didn’t,” he admitted. His usually strong voice was weak and mild.
“It was what she wanted Jake,” I said. “You were young. You did what you could.”
“No, I could have done more. I could have done so much more.”
“I think what you did was brave. Anyone could have just called an ambulance and gotten her to the hospital. What she asked of you was not what was expected. But it was what she wanted. I think it took a lot more strength for you to honor that.”
“I don’t know about strength. I was scared shitless.”
“What do people think happened to her?” I asked.
“They think she ran away. It was well-known that her dad was a really strict religious sort, and from her constant bruising I suspected he beat the shit out of her on a regular basis, but I was too much of a coward then to even do anything about it. Sabrina’s brother had run away when he was fifteen, so her dad assumed she either went to find him or followed his lead. Honestly, I don’t think he ever really looked too hard for her.”
“I know what that feels like.”
“Why do you say that?” Jake asked.
“Right after Nan died, if I’d just disappeared people may have wondered what happened to me, more for the sake of the gossip. But, no one would’ve looked for me.”
“If you ever disappear on me, I would track you to the ends of the Earth and back. I will always find you, Bee. Always.” He held me tighter.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I assured him. And it was in that moment that I meant it. I wasn’t going anywhere... though Jake would be. I had to remind myself again and again that our time together had an expiration date.
“I would kill for you, Bee. Happily.” He ran his fingers down my cheek. “I need you to know that.”
“I know.” Not only did I know, but as odd as it sounds, it flipped something on inside me. I suddenly had a deep and powerful need to be taken care of by someone who would do anything for me—even if that meant taking a life. It may have been there all along, but only now that I had someone who actually felt that way would I allow myself to feel it.
Sick, twisted Abby was in love with the sick, twisted, beautiful Jake.
Jake ran his fingers through the grass beside him and patted the ground.
“The first blood on my hands was theirs. Somehow I knew it wouldn’t be the last.” He took a deep breath. “Which reminds me of something else I need to tell you.”
“There’s more?” There had already been so much. “If you tell me more now, what will we talk about tomorrow?” I smiled. Jake laughed.
“Sort of. I have to leave next week.”
I knew he’d be leaving, after I’d heard him on the phone, but I hadn’t known when it would happen.
“Leaving?” The word still made my heart jump. It was too soon. He couldn’t leave yet. This was why I shouldn’t have let him break through my barriers. This was why I should have stayed numb at all times. I felt myself putting the walls back in place, brick by brick.
Stupid, stupid Abby.
“Not leaving leaving. I have to go do a job, I was going to back out, but they’ve already sent payment and cut communication, so saying ‘no’ at this point really isn’t an option, unless I want people looking for me.”
Apparently, I was just overreacting. Stupid Abby.
“How long will you be gone?”
“There is some tracking involved with this one. The guy isn’t exactly on the radar. Could be a couple weeks. Maybe a month.”
A month?
“Then, what?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean after you come back. How long until you leave again? You’ve told me Coral Pines isn’t permanent for you. I can’t help wondering when you actually do plan on leaving leaving.” I needed to prepare for when that time came. I needed to be numb Abby for it.
Somehow, I knew I was fucking kidding myself.
“Not too long,” Jake said. “This place doesn’t exactly have long-term appeal for me.”
“Where will you go?”
“It depends.” He leaned in and rested his cheek on mine. His breath tickled my ear when he spoke.
He wasn’t going to make this easy on me. The little hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention. “On what?”
“On where you want to go.” He kissed my neck, getting bolder with each one. Closer and closer his little kisses crept towards my mouth and the excitement over my very first real kiss grew in the pit of my stomach.
Wait.
Where I want to go?
“Me?” I asked.
He nodded. “I’ve been thinking that this is my last…gig, for lack of a better word. At least for a while. It’s not exactly a permanent job. After time, people find out who you are and what you do, and they come looking for you. The amount of payback and retaliation start to add up after a few years. So do the amount of people gunning for you.”
An orange fell from the tree next to us. One little bounce, and it gained enough momentum to roll right out of the little orange grove.
“I have money—from this gig, and the money I’ve saved from the others. It should last us a long time. I don’t generally stay in the same place for too long, but we could go somewhere and stay for as long as you want. You could take a photography class, or we could rent a place by a school and you can do the traditional college thing if you wanted to. I’ve got it covered. I just need you with me.”
My heart was stuck so far in my throat I didn’t know if I would be able to shake it back down into place.
“I don’t need an answer now. Think about it while I’m gone. Use my laptop to look up some places you might want to go. I don’t take electronics or phones with me when I ‘m working anyway. That’s how people fuck up. The computer is all yours.”
Jake yawned and stretched. After such a heavy conversation, his mood was surprisingly laid back and casual. He spoke of us leaving town together like he was talking about the afternoon rain. “My only requirement is that we have to be able to ride there by bike. We can go to Canada and Mexico, too... eventually. But it’ll take a while to get you a passport. Since you’re traveling with me, you’ll need a fake. Even though I’ll be technically retired, I don’t like to take any chances.”
“You want me to go with you?” My attention was still at the beginning of what he’d just said. It was still sinking in.
Jake cocked an eyebrow at me. “You’re not a very good listener.”
That wasn’t true. I’d heard everything he said. It was more that I wasn’t a very good believer.
“Once I’m eighteen, you won’t be legally responsible for me anymore. You’re not obligated to take me with you.” He’d already done too much. He didn’t need me in his way any longer than he had signed up for.
Jake laughed. “I don’t give a shit what my legal obligations are, Abby. Do you think I wanted you to stay with me because I felt it was my civic duty or something? I wanted you to stay with me because the second I knew you needed that—the second it crossed my mind—I couldn’t think of you staying anywhere else.”
He wanted me with him.
It would have been so easy to say yes, so easy to jump on the back of his bike and leave everything behind. Then, what? What would happen when he realized I was incapable of a normal relationship, incapable of something so basic like sex? What would happen when he got bored and tired of my sickness, of my sadness and sorrow?
All I knew is that I didn’t want to find out.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE WEEK FOLLOWING JAKE’S REVELATION flew by. We fell into a comfortable routine. Jake made dinner, and I did the dishes. Then, we’d watch a movie on the couch before going to bed and falling asleep in each others’ arms. He never tried for anything more. He was giving me time, but he didn’t understand that even a lifetime may not have been enough. I wasn’t ever going to be normal. No amount of time could make me that. From the outside, we looked like quite like a regular all-American couple.
The very opposite of what we really were.
After a long day of sorting through purchase orders and receipts at the shop, Jake brought me to the beach so I could take pictures of the coming sunset. It was the third time we’d gone for that reason. My camera quickly became an extension of my arm and my vision. I took it everywhere.