AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Beth frowns. But she does not look up from her phone. “It’s too late to take the boat out, darling.”
“Nah.”
“You’ve been drinking.”
“You drive.”
She uses her toes to point at the wine glass on the coffee table. “I’ve had a few glasses myself.”
“Tom can drive.”
Beth lets out a heavy sigh. “You’re relentless.”
“I hate boats. I can’t swim,” Melanie says.
I know what she is thinking. We’ve had this talk before. Once when we were first together. When our relationship consisted of hotel rooms and time constraints. Her teaching me, me teaching her. Never let them take you to a second location. I give her a look that asks her to trust me. I can see she doesn’t.
“That’s okay,” Mark tells her. “We won’t be doing much of that.”
Mark goes over the boat in great detail, which under normal circumstances I would appreciate. Here and now, it feels like overkill. After he’s taken nearly an hour of my time explaining boating terminology at length, all the while he and the rest of the crowd consume another bottle of wine, I am finally allowed to stretch my sea legs. “Stay in the middle,” he instructs, and you’d think I’d never been on a boat before. “We’ll take her over to the cove.”
Beth and Melanie sit up front. I’m in the driver’s seat. Mark is to my left.
I start out slow at first. Get my bearings. Then I push faster. Use barriers. Make them guess wrong. I want my happy ending. It is a speedboat, after all. I push it to the limit. Mark smiles. He likes his toys. Melanie’s hair whips in the wind. It’s a lovely night, save for what I’m about to do. She glances back at me. I mouth the word jump. She shakes her head slightly. Mark looks at me. We’re going so fast he has to yell. He gives me the thumbs up. “She’s really something isn’t she?”
“She is,” I say. I know he’s talking about his plaything. I’m talking about mine.
“Jump,” I mouth to Melanie. I slow a bit, and then I push the lever all the way down. She doesn’t listen as usual.
I correct my steering, wavering just a little. Beth glances back. Mark holds his palm up. He wants me to slow down.
I overcorrect hard to the left. My gut sets.
“Sorry,” I yell in Mark’s direction. There’s an icy burn in my throat. I didn’t have to speak to know it was there.
I realize this is it. It’s now or never. I want him to realize what is about to happen. I want him to get a feel for having a dead wife. It’s still revenge, no matter how short-lived.
His face is contorted as his mind works to slowly piece together his future.
My eyes dart toward Melanie as though to say, what choice did I have?
This is for June, I tell myself as I line up the proper angle. And then, all of a sudden, everything is happening in slow motion. Life is on pause, in rewind, before it is in fast forward. Somehow this does not seem like enough for all he’s put me through over the years. I want to dig a hole and put him in it. Alive. I want to set fire to his feet and watch it rise until it engulfs the rest of him. I want to starve a pack of dogs and feed him to them limb by limb. There are a million ways I’d like to kill Mark Jones, and I die a little inside knowing that I have to settle on one that will be quick.
I take a hard left straight into the side of the cliff.
I bail, hitting the water hard. Given my speed, I knew I would. I call for Melanie, hoping she managed to make it off in time. Whoever was still on that boat when it hit is no more.
The boat itself is mostly no more. What’s left is a blur of fiberglass and aluminum twisted around itself. It’s sure to catch fire.
I swim hard. I call for her, searching the water out in front of me. There’s nothing but darkness.
After what feels like an eternity, I feel a tug on my arm. My heart leaps into my throat. “Tom!”
“Melanie?”
“Oh my God,” she cries. “What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking I don’t want to die.”
