Free The Healing (The Things We Can't Change Book 3) by Kassandra Kush

firm press now and then. Got it? We’ll water it all together later on.”
    “Got it.” I nod and set to work on the second tree, the one closest to Zeke so he can correct me if I fail at the simple task. Silence stretches out between us, a little too heavy for comfort. I don’t know Zeke well enough to feel that easy camaraderie within a silence. I decide if I’m going to help him all summer, that has to change. Today.
    “So,” I begin, and have to pause and heave some dirt into the hole, since it’s much heavier than it looks. “Coke or Pepsi?”
    Zeke stops all movement and looks over at me, and I give him the wide-eyed innocent look I would always use on my dad for something he hesitated to give me.
    “Coke,” he finally replies. “But Dr. Pepper above all. Never liked Pepsi.”
    I can’t hold back a ridiculous giggle because we have it in common. “Jeans or sweatpants?”
    “Jeans,” Zeke grunts, handling a huge shovelful of dirt with ease and making me feel like a weakling.
    “Chocolate or vanilla?”
    “Vanilla.”
    “Sweet or sour?”
    He appears to think this one over, not an instant answer, pausing as he prepares to drop another tree into his next hole. “Sweet, I guess.”
    I scramble to think of more questions as I gently press dirt down around my first filled hole. My arm muscles are already twinging a little bit and I’m only just beginning to realize how little physical activity I’ve had the first month of summer. “Television shows or movies?”
    Zeke shrugs. “Dunno. Depends, I guess. Shows are only cool if you can watch them all at once. I hate waiting for the next part. Cliffhanger every episode.”
    “True,” I say, because the same thing annoys me. I’ve run out of questions and fall back on one as generic as the first. “Black or white?”
    He looks over at me with a mock-accusing face. “Is that supposed to be a racist comment?”
    “No!” I gasp, horrified. “Zeke, I-” But he’s cracking up before I can even apologize. “Jerk,” I mutter, and throw a pebble at him, though it bounces off harmlessly.
    Zeke finally stops laughing and only says, “I guess I have to say both.” And then he’s laughing again.
    I just keep filling my trees, rolling my eyes. When he’s quieted down for real, I manage to ask an actual, legitimate question, something I’ve always wondered about Zeke and only just occurred to me could maybe be asked under the guise of this game. Or at least, wondered ever since that day in the studio where I had seen him drawing Cindy. “Painting or drawing?”
    He had been shoveling dirt, his movements automatically slow and seem to become uncertain when I voice the question. “What makes you think I do any painting aside from graffiti?” he asks in an even tone.
    “I saw one of your paintings,” I say bluntly, and get satisfaction when he whirls around to look at me in surprise. “I took ceramics sophomore year, and the painting you did is hanging in the art room because it won the art show freshman year. It’s the one of the ballerina and I always thought it was beautiful, but I never really paid any attention to who had done it. When I saw you drawing that one day, I couldn’t figure out why the picture looked so familiar. Then the next week at school I was walking by the art room and remembered that painting. I checked the signature and sure enough, it was yours.”
    I pause, because I’ve somehow stumbled into uncharted territory, memories that I know are better left untouched. Still, I can’t help it. “It was Cindy, wasn’t it? The girl in the painting?” My voice is soft, tentative. I try to let him know, by the fact that I keep working and don’t even look at him, that Zeke doesn’t have to answer me.
    There’s a very long pause, but finally I hear a quiet, “Yeah.”
    Zeke clears his throat, and then says in a louder voice, “It’s kind of a tie, in all honesty. I always liked the surprises you got with painting, the colors