Dark Needs(19)

"Fuck the rumor mill," I said. And I meant it. Anyone who came between Jake and Georgia doing something they loved together would have to answer to me.

"Yeah, f*ck them, baby," Jake said, adding the smaller bucket to the boat. He lifted the panel cover for the electric to the lift and hit the switch to lower the boat into the water. It creaked and groaned, the sound of metal on metal made the hairs on my arm stand on end as the heavy wires that held up the boat slowly uncoiled from the spinning wheel at the top of the lift.

"What exactly are we doing?" I asked.

Jake ignored me and pointed to the back of the boat once it was fully floating on top of the water. "Do you think she'll like it?"

"Of course, you know she loves the boat. You put a lot of hard work into it and..." I stopped myself from saying anything else because I realized that it wasn't the boat he was talking about. It was what was written on the back of the boat. In bold cursive lettering to one side of the motor it simply read 'Gee'.

My throat felt like something was caught in it. "No Jake, she isn't going to like it. She is going to love it and freak out and not be able to stop talking about it for days."

Jake lit a cigarette. He looked pleased with my reaction and with himself. "That's what I was going for. You know it was between that and buying her a pony. I'm not cleaning up horse shit."

Jake smiled and stepped down into the boat, holding out his hand to help me onboard. Jake fired it up, and I took the seat next to his. He turned on the spotlight and backed us out of the dock. We puttered down the canal, the spotlight shining off the eyes of a few alligators, and scattered the iguanas lining the seawall, some of them diving into the water, others found refuge in the mangroves.

The open waters of the Coral Pines River shone orange with the glow of the full moon. Jake pressed down on the throttle, and it felt as if we were skating on top of the calm waters, the warm salty air skipping over the front windshield, tangling in my hair.

With all the ugliness I'd experienced here, it was easy to overlook how beautiful the place really was.

We were only on the open water for a few minutes before Jake slowed the boat in the middle of the river. He pulled to the side of a marker, killing the engine when we were hidden between the mangroves of a small cove. He tossed the anchor.

"Why are we out here, Jake?" I asked. It was so quiet my regular tone of voice sounded like a scream.

"I told you why, baby. I figured out a way to help you." He lit another cigarette, rested his elbows on his knees and leaned toward me. "And this is where I think I should do it," he said so quietly it was almost a whisper.

"Do what?" I whispered back. My heart now firmly in my stomach.

"You trust me, don't you?"

"Why do you keep asking me that?" Yes, of course I trusted him. I would trust him with my life and Georgia’s, but it was the second time he'd asked me the same question, and that was making me nervous.

Jake put out his cigarette in an old soda can and stood up, holding out his hands to me. "Come here," he said. Pleading with his eyes.

I stood and took his hands. He pulled me into him and pressed his warm lips to mine. I was so caught up in the kiss that I hadn't noticed the small knife in his hand. He pulled back from our kiss and held up the knife between us.

"What is that for?" I swallowed. My heart beating loud enough for fish to hear.

Jake kissed that magical spot behind my ear and whispered against my neck. "I want to cut you."

"What?" I breathed. His words frightening, his touch tempting. I didn't know which way was up. I didn't think I'd heard him right, because he couldn't have just said that he wanted to cut me.

"You say that you look at your scars every single day, and you remember what happened. You feel the hurt all over again, and as much as I want to, I can't take that away for you, but I can do something else." Jake took a deep breath. I can give you a new mark, a new scar associated with a good memory so that when you see your scars, there will be a tiny bit of good mixed in with all the bad."

There was a reason why I loved Jake, why I was drawn to him from the get-go.

He f*cking gets me.

No shrink, no meditation, no standard orthodox method of mental repair was going to fix me, and Jake knew it. So he offered me what he could.

"Do it," I breathed. I hated the idea of being cut, but I loved what he was offering me. The scars had me trapped in my own mind. He was offering me freedom. "Do it."