Dating After the End of the World - 40

I pause for a moment, catching my breath as I lean against the old shovel to keep myself upright. My arms are weak, almost like noodles, barely doing what my brain tells them to. The palms of my hands are raw, blistered and torn open. But I don’t feel the pain, because it pales in comparison to the anguish inside me. It’s all consuming. My eyes go to the horizon just as the sun starts to dip below. The sky is a mosaic of pinks and oranges, splashed in every direction. It’s as though Dad painted it on his way up there, leaving something beautiful in his wake—a final lesson from him. Just because the world ended doesn’t mean yours has to end too.

I shake out my tired hands and get back to work, gripping the handle of the shovel and tossing another spade of loose soil into the hole I dug myself. My father lies at the bottom of it, wrapped tightly in the blanket he and my mother used to share. Everyone wanted to help. They insisted. But no, this was my hole to dig, and it’s my hole to fill. Dad would have wanted it that way, just him and me, like it always used to be. So I keep shoveling, even when I want to stop, because Pearsons don’t quit until the job’s done. A cry starts deep in my gut, climbing upward as it grows. It stretches my esophagus, pushing its way out of me. I have no more tears left. I’ve either cried them all out or my body is too dehydrated to make more.

“Are we almost done yet, Dad?” I whisper through a sob, wishing and hoping he’d answer me, even if to tell me, No, Casey. We’re just getting started. Because that’s truly what I wish. I wish we were just getting started, and I know now that was the point of everything my dad did, everything he had us do. The time we spent prepping and working and all the blood, sweat, and tears we shed. None of it was for the end. It was for a beginning. My father didn’t prepare me for the end of the world. He prepared me to start a new one. And I just wish he were a part of it.

The final spade of soil falls onto his grave, and I pat the blade against it several times, flattening out the dirt, wanting to keep him safe and secure in there. I chose this spot beneath the apple tree, the same one he and I used to sit under eating our sandwiches on a break or ice cream after a long day of hard work. I figured this is where he’d want to be if he couldn’t be here with me.

The grass crunches behind me, and I turn quickly to find Blake approaching, a solemn look plastered on his face. I know it matches mine.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hi,” I say, leaning the shovel up against the tree and dusting my hands off on my damp shirt.

He pulls his hand from behind his back. Clutched in it are two ice cream Drumsticks, the same kind my dad and I used to enjoy after a long day of work. I’m surprised. I didn’t think any of those were left in the world. The wrapper crinkles as he extends one to me.

“Your dad was saving these,” Blake says. “And I thought you might like to have one with me.” His eyes are glossy, but he holds in his grief.

“You thought right.” I take it from him and grab a seat in the grass beside my father’s grave.

Blake hesitates for a moment, like he’s waiting for me to tell him to go away or that I want to be alone. But I don’t. I smile up at him and pat the earth beside me. He takes a seat, pressing his shoulder into mine, leaving not even a centimeter between us. We unwrap our Drumsticks and bite into the chocolate coating, sinking our teeth into the vanilla ice cream trapped beneath it. It doesn’t taste as sweet as it used to, but I don’t think it’s the ice cream that’s lacking flavor. It was the moments I shared with my dad that made it sweet.

Blake puts his arm around me, pulling me into him. I lean my head against his shoulder, licking at my ice cream cone while staring out at the sunset. Every ending precedes a new beginning, and there’ll be plenty of sweet moments ahead, regardless of the ones that have already passed.

“No matter what this new world throws at us, we’re gonna be okay,” Blake says.

I lift my head and look to him, taking in those bright-green eyes, the same ones I used to imagine spiking a shovel through. Now I can’t imagine them any other way than staring back at me.

“I know, Blake. Dad made sure of that.”

A tear falls from the corner of his eye, and he holds me a little tighter. I lean in, planting my ice cream–coated lips against his. They’re extra sweet, and they might just be the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted.