The Distance Between Us

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.
    “It’s refreshing. You make me feel normal.”
    “Huh. I better work on that because you’re far from normal.”
    He smiles and pushes my shoulder playfully. My heart slams into my ribs.
    “Caymen.”
    I take another handful of dirt and smash it against his neck then try to make a quick escape. He grabs me from behind, and I see his hand, full of dirt, coming toward my face when the warning beeps of the tractor start up.
    “Saved by the gravediggers,” he says.

Chapter 17

    X ander hops up and helps me to my feet. We throw our shovels out of the hole, then he gives me a boost out and hefts himself out after me.
    As we walk back toward the funeral home, our shovels propped on Xander’s shoulder, he says, “So this is where your best friend lives?”
    I nod.
    He laughs a little. “You live above a porcelain-doll store; your best friend lives in a cemetery. You’ve pretty much grown up surrounded by creepy things. Is there anything you’re afraid of?”
    You.
    He meets my eyes, almost as if he had read my mind or maybe my thought is written all over my face.
    I clear my throat. “Dogs.”
    “You’ve been bitten by a dog before?”
    “No. But the thought of them biting me is enough.”
    “Interesting.”
    “Oh, please. Don’t analyze the statement. Dogs have sharp teeth. They bite people.”
    He laughs.
    “What about you? What’s your biggest fear?”
    He twirls a shovel on his shoulder once, thinking. Either he doesn’t want to tell me or he doesn’t have a strong fear of anything because it takes him a while to say, “Losing. Failure.”
    “Failing at what?”
    “At anything. Sometimes it’s hard for me to start something because I’d