The Distance Between Us(24)

“Hey, Caymen.” He holds two shovels. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yep.” I grab the shovels.

“Okay, I got it started for you so that you could get a sense of the dimensions. It’s past that oak tree down there.” He pulls a walkie-talkie from his back pocket and hands it to me. “Let me know if you have any questions.”

I hand Xander a shovel. “Okay.”

“Gravedigger?” he asks as we walk toward the site. “Really? You thought this was a serious option?”

“It’s not just grave digging, Xander. It’s about this whole place. Living a quiet life surrounded by peaceful death.”

“You are morbid.”



Dirt clings to his hair and is smeared across his cheek. But even in his present state his confidence and stiff posture come through. “We’re not going to be buried in here, right?”

“You caught me.”

“You didn’t think I’d do this, did you?”

Never in a million years. “I had my doubts.”

“I wish I would’ve brought some gloves.” He opens one of his hands and I catch the glimpse of a bloody blister on his palm.

I gasp. “Xander!”

“What?”

I grab his hand and study it closer, gingerly touching the broken skin. “You didn’t tell me it was killing your hands.” I had pulled my sweatshirt sleeves down over mine. His sweatshirt was a little on the small side.

“It’s not too bad.”

I unclip the walkie-talkie from the pocket of my jeans. “Mr. Lockwood, I think we’re done.”

“This hole isn’t nearly deep enough,” Xander says.

“I know. I just mean that we’re done.”

There’s a burst of static on the walkie-talkie, then Mr. Lockwood says, “You ready for me to send the tractor?”

“Yes.”

“Wait,” Xander says. “A tractor is going to come dig the rest of this hole?”

“Yeah, they haven’t hand dug graves in years. I just thought it would be fun.”

“I’m going to kill you.”

“This would be the perfect place.”

He charges me, sweeping my legs out from beneath me with one of his feet but catching me then lowering me to the ground gently. I laugh as I struggle to get free. He pins my wrists above my head in one of his hands and uses his legs to pin mine. With his other hand he scoops up a handful of dirt and smashes it into my hair.

I laugh and continue to struggle but then realize he has gone still. I suddenly become very aware of every place his body presses against mine. He meets my eyes and his grip on my wrists loosens. A sense of panic seizes my chest and I grab a handful of dirt from above my head and smash it against his cheek. He lets out a groan and rolls away from me, to his side, propping himself up with one elbow.

I lay there in the soft dirt for a while. It’s cool against my neck. I can’t decide if I just prevented something from happening or if it was all in my mind.

Xander lets out a large sigh. “I needed this after a week with my dad.”

“Is he hard on you?”

“He’s hard on everyone.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I can handle him.”

I’ve seen the way Xander “handles him.” He shuts down, becomes hard, closed off. But if that’s what gets him through, who am I to argue? I don’t deal with my mom in the healthiest ways either.

My back aches and lying down feels great. I close my eyes. It’s fairly peaceful, the silence seeming to press against me being surrounded by dirt walls like I am. Maybe here I can forget all the stress in my life. Forget that I’m a seventeen-year-old living a forty-year-old’s life. Thinking about it makes it feel like someone dropped two tons of dirt on my chest that I wasn’t expecting.

“What’s wrong?”

I open my eyes to see Xander staring at me. “Nothing.”

“It doesn’t seem like nothing. You’re off your game today.”

“What game is that?”

“The one where you take every opportunity you can to make fun of me.” He looks at his hand. “There were a million jokes you could’ve made about this.” He shows me his blister again.

“I know. I really should’ve gone off on your soft, under-worked hands.”

“Exactly.” He brushes a piece of dirt off my cheek. “So what is it? What’s wrong?”

“Sometimes I just feel older than I am, that’s all.”

“Me, too. But that’s why we’re doing this, right? To have fun. To stop worrying about what’s expected of us and try to find out what we want for ourselves?”

I nod.

“My dad would die if he saw me here.”

“We should’ve invited him, then, right?”

He laughs. “He wouldn’t be caught dead out here.”

“Well, actually, that’s exactly when he’ll be caught out here.”

He laughs again. “You’re different, Caymen.”

“Different than what?”

“Than any other girl I’ve met.”

Considering most of the girls he’d met probably had fifty times as much money as I did, that wasn’t a hard feat to accomplish. Thinking about that makes my eyes sting.