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Something inside me started to change during Jake’s confession. He had embraced me by force like Nan had, wrangling me into emotional and physical submission. I knew he hadn’t done it to hurt me. He’d done it to wake me up, to make me feel, even though it had been against my will. Anger, rage, sadness, hopelessness—so many emotions I hadn’t processed for years, if I ever had at all, came crashing together at once within me, all of them occupying the same space inside. After Jake’s confession, it felt like all those feelings began moving around, searching for their proper places in my body, and in my life. I could still feel their presence, but they weren’t trying to pull me under the surface anymore.
I didn’t feel suffocated by them any longer.
Jake talked to me quietly until our exhaustion started to take over. When I could see his eyelids getting heavy, he stood and lifted me onto the bed, setting me under the covers. Just when I thought he was about to leave and go to his regular spot on the couch, he surprised me by sliding under the covers behind me, still fully clothed. He dragged me into his chest and wrapped his arms around me. “I didn’t want to tell you this way, Bee. I had another way in mind. I swear I was going to try and ease into it. It obviously didn’t work out that way.” Jake sighed. “You know too much already, but there is so much more you need to know.” He pulled me closer, pressing his lips to my forehead. The burn was gone, and for the first time in my life I felt what a kiss was like: warm softness against my newly cooled skin. “There’s somewhere I want to take you tomorrow. I want to show you something,” he whispered.
It was the last thing he said to me before surrendering to sleep. Shortly after he drifted off, I gave into my own exhaustion.
I fell asleep that night in the arms of a killer.
I’d never slept better.
CHAPTER TWELVE
IF RIDING ON JAKE’S BIKE without touching him had been the thrill of a lifetime, then riding on his bike with my arms wrapped around him under his leather jacket was fucking extraordinary.
The bright light of day faded into a hazy dusk. The once-enjoyable breeze became frigid as Jake wove his bike down the unfamiliar back roads. They were uneven and most of the time unpaved. There was hardly a stop sign or street light to guide our way as we drove, seemingly headed nowhere.
The last road we turned down was more of a path than a road, just dirt and weeds, barely wide enough for one car. Both sides of it were overgrown with palmettos and weeds. Some of the branches were so long they looked as if they were reaching out to connect with the foliage on the other side.
Jake was quiet, but determined. I had no idea where we were going, but it really didn’t matter. All I knew was that he had something to show me, and if it was located at the end of the world, I would gladly follow.
Jake brought the bike to a stop and punched down the kickstand with his foot. "We have to walk from here,” he said. “The ground is too soft for the bike.”
We walked hand in hand in silence for about ten minutes, down the path that continued to narrow until there was no longer room for us to walk side by side. Jake let me pass him and rested his hand on the small of my back, guiding me forward.
I smelled the orange blossoms before I saw them. We reached a small clearing surrounded by the fragrant citrus trees arranged in a circle. Purple flowers covered the ground below. Rays from the coming sunset traveled through the branches and lit up the clearing. The only sound was the breeze rustling the leaves, sending a wafting of sweet scent into the air.
“It’s beautiful here.” I said, admiring how the tops of the trees created a small canopy. When I turned to face Jake, he wasn’t there with me. He was on the other end of the clearing, kneeling at the bottom of the largest tree. I approached him slowly and put my hand on his shoulder. Without turning, he took my hand in his and squeezed. “Why are these trees in a circle?” It seemed a little unnatural for them to not be in the shape of an actual orange grove.
When he started to speak, his voice became strained. “I think one of the locals may have wanted to grow and sell oranges and probably didn’t have the land to plant the trees, so he just came out here and did it where he thought no one would ever find them. I can’t really think of any other reason myself. I came across them when I used to ride four wheelers out here with Mason.” Jake turned to face me. “I wanted to choose a beautiful place for her.”
“Who?”
With his hands in his pockets, Jake dropped to his knees and pulled me into the same position in front of him. He cupped my face in his hands, touched his forehead to mine and took a deep breath. “I don’t know what you think of me now, but I know after what I told you yesterday you might not even want to look at me anymore. I wouldn’t blame you if you decided to hate me for what I am. I just need you to hear all of it, and if you want to run away as fast and as far as you can once you know everything, then that’s something I’ll just have to deal with.”
“I’m here.” I placed my hands over his. “I’m here.” I don’t know what I was trying to tell him. I didn’t know if that meant that I was there to listen, or that what he was going to tell me didn’t matter. Honestly, I didn’t know if it would or not.
He looked into my eyes, then started his story.
“This is where I buried my first body.”
He watched me intently as he waited for me to react to what he’d just said. I was waiting for the shock to settle before saying anything back. Questions sprang up everywhere.
He killed someone here, in Coral Pines?
Who could it have been?
Does it even matter to me?
I already knew what he did. Would the details make a difference? “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” What I didn’t tell him was that my understanding of what he did scared me. What was wrong with me that I was so willing to accept someone in my life who admitted to killing people on a regular basis?
“Yes, I do.” Jake sat down under the tree and pulled me into his arms like I was a small child. “You need to know all of it, Bee.” He rested his chin on my head. “I was fifteen, and Sabrina was sixteen. We weren’t in love. We weren’t even dating. We just fooled around after parties sometimes. I was a stupid kid obsessed with girls. She wasn’t even the only girl I was messing with at the time.”
He took a deep breath and looked up to the sky. The moon was already showing through the trees, though the sun hadn’t fully set. They were sharing the sky.
“She got pregnant, told me it was mine. I believed her because I was her first, and I’d known her most of my life. She wasn’t a liar. We didn’t know what to do. We were just kids. She said she wanted to keep it. I kept telling her that it would ruin her life, but being a stupid prick, I was more concerned that it would ruin my life. Sabrina finally made up her mind and told me she wasn’t getting rid of it. I panicked. Even though I knew better, I told her it probably wasn’t mine anyway and that I didn’t want anything to do with her.”
“I didn’t talk to her for months after that. I saw her at school, wearing baggy sweatshirts to hide her stomach. I’m pretty sure she was keeping it from her dad because I know he would’ve been banging down my door and beating in my head if he’d known. I was such an asshole to her, and I regret that every day of my life.”
I could feel his tears pooling on the top of my head as he silently cried into my hair.
“One night, Sabrina knocked on my window. She was freaking out. The baby was coming, and she didn’t know what to do. She was only seven months along. I told her I was calling an ambulance, and that she needed to go to the hospital. She refused. She didn’t want anyone to know. She made me promise I wouldn’t take her there, no matter what. Her face was so pale already and all she wanted was my help. So, I helped her.”
“We went out back to my dad’s shed, and I put down a blanket. It was hours of her screaming and wailing. I held her hand all the way through. It was almost light out by then, and there was still no baby. I told her I was done. I was taking her to a hospital. She screamed at me, told me the least I could do for getting her into this and being an asshole all those months was to listen to what she wanted.”
Jake wiped at his eye with his sleeve.
“So, I did as she asked and stayed put.” He shivered now, both his words and his body. “When the baby finally came, it was a girl. She was so small, and I could practically see through her skin. She was so quiet…so still. I knew she’d probably been dead long before she came out. I think it was just Sabrina’s body finally giving it up.”
“I wrapped the baby up in a grease towel and handed it to her. Sabrina was so pale, and there was blood everywhere. I panicked. I told her she needed help and now, but when I got up, she grabbed me by the shirt. She said, ‘Jake, when I die, don’t let them find me. I don’t want them to know.’ Then, her eyes rolled back in her head and the baby’s body fell from her grip onto the floor. I was alone, fifteen, and incredibly stupid. I had done her wrong in every possible way. I used her, ignored her, and when she needed me most, I left her to suffer alone. The least I could do for her was honor her wishes.”
