The Distance Between Us

I stayed in the water.

Didn’t move toward the edge and didn’t swim away either. Just floated there, arms loose at my sides, legs kicking slowly like I wasn’t sure if I wanted to stay above the surface or not.

Eli hadn’t moved.

He was still crouched near the ridge, elbows resting on his knees, eyes on me like he was trying to place a memory that wouldn’t settle right. He looked like someone who hadn’t unpacked all his bags yet... or maybe someone who never planned to.

The sun caught the side of his jaw. He had faint stubble now. A shadow that made him look older than he should’ve. His collar was buttoned to the top. Same damn way he wore it in church when we were kids.

"You always come out here just to stare at nothing?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I could ask you the same."

His voice hadn’t changed much. Still smooth and careful. Like he tasted every word before letting it out. The kind of tone that made you feel like you were being sized up even if he was saying nothing at all.

"Are you back for good?" I asked.

He didn’t answer right away. Just picked up a rock beside him and turned it over in his palm. Didn’t throw it. Didn’t squeeze it. Just held it.

“Didn't know people here kept track of that sort of thing,” he said finally.

I huffed, water curling at my lips. “We don’t. But you being back... it sticks out.”

He looked down at me again, a flicker of something across his face I couldn’t name. Not exactly a smirk. Not quite anger either.

“A lot of things stick out in this town,” he said.

And just like that, the silence snapped back into place.

I let myself drift in a slow circle, eyes still on him.

He didn’t move. He didn’t leave.

Not yet.

I finally started paddling toward the ledge, slow and easy. Not because of him—just because my legs were cramping.

Eli stood up as I got closer. He wasn’t tall back then, but he’d grown. Now he looked like someone who didn’t get shoved around anymore.

“You look different,” he said, like he didn’t care, but he said it anyway.

“You don’t,” I said back, pulling myself onto the rock shelf. My shirt clung to me, heavy and dripping. I didn’t stand... just sat there, bare feet on the stone, water running off my elbows.

“You still got that smart mouth,” he muttered.

“You still got that preacher’s son glare.”

He almost smiled again. Almost.

The query wind moved between us, just enough to make the silence itch.

“You come back for the funeral?” I asked, not looking at him.

Eli didn’t answer right away. Just let that hang.

“You already know,” he said.

“I figured.”

He exhaled through his nose. Quiet. Not tired, exactly... just emptied out.

“I didn’t think anyone would remember me.”

I glanced up at him then. “This town never forgets anything. That’s the problem.”

His jaw flexed a little, like he was chewing on something he couldn’t swallow.

“You still draw?” he asked suddenly.

That caught me.

I didn’t answer.

He noticed.

He stepped back once, just one footfall, but it felt like a retreat.

I stood up too fast, water pouring off me in sheets. “You still pretending to be something you’re not?”

That did it.

His eyes snapped to mine... brighter now, a little wilder. Not angry... not quite.

“Still waiting on you to figure out what you are,” he said.

And then he turned.

He didn’t say goodbye.

Didn’t even give me a last look.

Just walked up the ridge path and vanished behind the trees like he’d been smoke the whole time.

I stood there dripping, the wind slicing at my wet clothes, stomach hollowed out like I’d missed a step on a long staircase.

The quarry water lapped against the rocks behind me, slow and lazy. I could still hear his voice in my head... the sharp edge in it when he said that last part.

Still waiting on you to figure out what you are.

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

I bent down, grabbed my shirt, and wrung it out hard. Water poured onto the rock like blood from a gut wound. My fingers were shaking, and I hated that. Not from the cold. Not from the climb.

Just... hated it.

I shoved the shirt on, soaked or not, and sat for a second longer on the ledge. Not thinking. Not moving.

Just sitting with it.

The way he looked at me.

The way he didn’t look back when he left.

I didn’t want to care.

I really didn’t.

I grabbed my boots, shoved them on barefoot, laces dragging, and started the walk back down the ridge. The heat was back now. The sun was up high, burning hot through the trees, turning the dirt path to something thick and mean.

By the time I hit the edge of the yard behind our house, my throat was dry and my stomach twisted like it wanted to say something I didn’t have words for.

I didn’t stop.

Not even when I passed the mailbox.

Not even when I saw the snake, coiled back up under the porch again.

The house was still dark inside.

Dad hadn’t moved. Same chair, same bottle, same half-open mouth. The TV was fuzz now, grey static buzzing like it was chewing glass.

I slipped past him into the kitchen. The fridge light flickered when I opened it. We were out of milk. Half a can of store-brand chilli sat in the back. I took it and ate it cold with a plastic spoon over the sink.

The house creaked once, like it was breathing.

The silence wasn’t empty here... it was thick. Crowded. Heavy with everything we never said and everything I was too tired to think about. You’d think you’d get used to quiet like that, but you don’t. You just stop fighting it.

I rinsed the spoon and dropped it into the sink without bothering to wash it.

In the hallway, I paused by the crooked photo again... me and Mom.

I touched the frame with two fingers, then let them fall.

Upstairs, my room smelt like pencil shavings and stale smoke. I cracked the window and sat on the bed. The mattress springs let out a groan like an old man standing up.

I kicked my boots off, one thunk, then the other.

Eli’s voice was still bouncing around in my skull, impossible to shake.

Still waiting on you to figure out what you are...

I rubbed my forehead, palms over my eyes, like I could squeeze the memory out.

Didn’t work.

I lay back and stared at the ceiling.

The fan spun slowly.

Everything else stayed still.

I don’t know how long I lay there. Might’ve been an hour. Might’ve been five minutes.

At some point, I sat up and reached for the sketchbook under my bed. It was duct-taped along the spine, bent from too many nights shoved under mattresses and behind drawers. Half the pages were torn out. Some of them I’d burnt out back last fall, when I got too scared of what I was drawing.

I didn’t even think about it.

Didn’t plan.

Just picked up the stub of a pencil and started dragging lines.

At first it was nothing. Just the shape of a face, blank and smooth. A ridge of hair. The arch of a brow. The way a shadow falls just under a cheekbone.

Then I caught myself.

My hand was sketching his mouth.

That almost-smile. That sharp corner at the right side that always looked like it was about to say something cruel... or worse, honest.

I paused. Jaw tight. Chest full of gravel.

I could lie to myself about a lot of things, but not this—not the way my hand remembered his face better than I wanted it to. The slope of his nose, the exact tilt of his eye when he looked down on me from the ridge.

Like I’d studied it every day for the last four years without meaning to.

When the drawing was done, I stared at it.

It wasn’t perfect. But it was him.

And that made me hate it.

I tore it down the middle.

Then again.

And again.

Until I was left with scraps in my lap and the sound of my own breathing, too loud in the quiet room.

I shoved the pieces under the mattress, stood up, and shut the sketchbook without looking at it.

That should’ve been the end of it.

But it never is.