The Sandbox

Dear Jordan,

If you are opening this, it means I am no longer alive. It means my cancer finally got the best of me, and I’ve been put to rest.

I’m sorry you had to find out this way. But I could never tell you. I mean, would you? You’re so full of energy and life and vigour –how could I ruin all that?

Anyway, now I’m gone, there’s no one for you to compete with. But I want one last game: my dying wish, if you will. The prize? If you win, you get to beat me, forever. You outlast me. You finally get to triumph over me, even in death, even when there’s only one of us left to play.

There’s a box. That’s the prize. You’ll find it where it all began. Do you remember where it started?

Wishing you the best,

-Liam

Sand was in my eyes, ingrained in the crevasses of my hands, lodged under my fingernails. I could even taste it, gritty and course, coating the back of my throat.

And he was laughing. He was laughing while holding the treasure.

‘Not fair,’ I whined, pushing my dark hair behind my ear. Somehow, more sand fell from my head. I was at least half sand at this point. ‘You cheated! You used a shovel!’

The boy, taller than me, with eyes like the sky on a summer’s day and hair that was the colour of the sand but somehow completely clean, grinned. ‘It never said I couldn’t.’ He replied. A small box was tucked under his arm, clumps of sand clinging onto the intricate wooden design. The treasure.

‘Cheater,’ I repeated, my blood boiling. Anger clamped down on my stomach. He would never have found it if it wasn’t for me, anyway. I was already digging when he came along with his shovel. He used me.

‘Jordan, it’s okay.’ I felt a warm hand placed on my back. ‘You all get a prize, anyway. Come along. Be a good sport, now. Tell him good job.’

I bristled. Why should I tell him good job? I was the one who solved all the clues, led him right to the end. I was the one who got dirty digging the hole. He was the one who appeared with a spade he’d stolen from the sports shed and beat me to the treasure.

‘No.’ I spat indignantly. ‘I should have got the treasure. I solved all the clues. I am the winner.’

The boy poked his tongue out at me, wedging it between two teeth that he’d recently lost.

‘Jordan,’ the teacher said, a little more sternly. ‘Don’t be a sore loser, now. Let’s go inside. Everyone gets a prize.’ She guided me, nudging me along back towards the classroom. I felt my heart, thrashing against my ribcage, as if it could sense the injustice. I didn’t want any prize. I wanted that prize. The one I’d worked for, the one that was tucked under the boy’s arm, grimy and sandy. But what could I do? I didn’t have a choice.

‘Fine,’ I muttered.

I sniffed, the letter crumpling in my hand. How could Liam think he couldn’t tell me he was dying? How could he keep such a secret from me?

I noticed I was crying when I glimpsed my reflection in the small vanity mirror on my desk. My eyes were red and puffy, and my cheeks looked like someone had dragged their fingernails across my skin, not just tears. There were lines around my mouth from my face being pulled into a frown, hiccupping sobs escaping my lips.

He was gone. Gone. Forever. This wasn’t another one of his games. He wasn’t coming back, no, not this time. Soon, his body would be placed in a coffin and lowered into the ground. People would cry and mourn and grieve about how tragic and how young, but then they’d move on. In ten years no one would remember him except his close family. In twenty even they’d stop visiting. In thirty ivy and moss would overtake his gravestone as his coffin collapsed in on itself, whatever was left of his body getting eaten by insects and bacteria until nothing of him but his bones remained, deep beneath the surface. Only people he’d loved in his short life would even remember his name.

What about me? Would I forget? Would I ever move on, or would I be haunted by his memory, unwilling to let go?

My chest clenched, red-hot anger pulsing just beneath my skin. How could he do this to me? How could he die, just like that?

‘You dropped it.’

Liam’s face was stale, deadpan. The tennis ball, as if on a leash, rolled to a stop beside my shoe. I gripped the other two, one fitting snugly in each hand.

‘I guess so.’ I replied. Liam stopped the timer.

‘Thirty-four-point-two seconds,’ Liam said.

Instantly, I knew I won. He hadn’t cracked thirty.

‘So that means I won,’ I said, my voice laced with ecstasy. ‘You got less than that.’

Liam scoffed, ‘barely. Five seconds. I declare a rematch.’

I grinned smugly, ‘Nope. I’m retired.’

In truth, I’d only learned to juggle because Liam said he could, and I couldn’t let him beat me at anything. He challenged me to a juggle-off, a competition to see who was better. I’d stayed up until one in the morning practicing, my eyes growing fuzzy and my cheeks hot, tennis balls strewn across my room. And I’d managed to beat him. Just.

‘Of course you are,’ Liam grumbled sulkily.

I wore a long, black dress to the funeral. It swished around my ankles and I was worried I’d trod on it when I was walking, so I kept my eyes on the floor.

It was hot, stifling, really. I could feel sweat growing in patches around my armpits and neckline. But I kept my clammy hands clasped in front of me, inside, the note. Folded up so delicately as to preserve it for as long as I could. I wanted so desperately to talk to him, to ask him, what does it mean? Where did it start? To shake his cancer-ridden body like a ragdoll until answers were forced out of him. But I couldn’t. I could only stare at the grave, made of dark, polished stone, jutting out of the earth, engraved with his name. Just a tiny marker among hundreds of others. Insignificant, like a singular fish amongst the school.

The proceedings were long and arduous. Voices were punctuated by sobs, whispered apologies or I love yous. Crying and hugging each other, taking turns to leave a bundle of flowers or a small trinket by the grave. As if he could take them now that he was gone.

Once everyone left, I knelt down beside the stone. It was cool, refreshing in the heat. My fingers slid along the engraved letters: In loving memory, Liam Campbell. It didn’t do him justice. No words could, not now, not ever.

‘What is the answer?’ I whispered, choking out the words like they sucked the air from my lungs. ‘Where did it all begin? Where is the box?’ I couldn’t finish the words; they got stuck in my throat, caught behind the lump of sorrow and anguish that was growing, blocking my airway.

It was too late. I’d never figure it out. He would never be there to give me the answer.

Never, never.

‘I’m going to be valedictorian.’ Liam had grown up to be tall but lanky, his face gaunt and hollow but always with a pasty grin on his face, sandy blond hair that had grown into a light brown now covered by a knit beanie.

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Go for it. Over my dead body.’

He laughed, which quickly morphed into a spluttering cough. ‘Sorry. You want to be valedictorian? You?’

‘What’s so funny about that?’ I snapped. ‘You don’t think I can do it?’

‘Well, you didn’t have a chance once I arrived.’ Liam said. I rolled my eyes.

‘We’ll see about that. I’ll enjoy seeing you in the audience when I receive my award.’

‘Likewise.’

I’d read the note so many times that the words were burned into the back of my brain, like a hot brand, unable to be washed away by the murky lake of time that was piling on top of it. How had I not been able to figure this out? I was valedictorian of my high school –the award ceremony was in barely a month. Yet Liam had been able to trick me, so easily. He was dead and still winning, still beating me at something. I could still picture him, but the memories became grainier with each time I looked back at them, like an old video tape. The young, energetic version of him was long dead, and now all I could see was the one who looked so frail that I worried a strong gust of wind could blow him away, the one who always wore a beanie because he had a ‘bad haircut’, even in the middle of summer. How had I not noticed? How had he been able to keep it from me, all the way to the end?

I thought back: where had it all began? Where I had met Liam, in our Prep class? When our mothers had become friends, and we were subjected to each other’s houses on the weekends?

Or was it something else?

Just then, something inside me clicked. A memory resurfaced, dug from beneath the guilt, the shame, the grief. Something I’d long forgotten, hidden amongst the sand.

Dear Jordan,

Congratulations! I didn’t doubt for a second that you would find me here, in the sandpit. This box, the one I left just for you. This means you win. But you always do, don’t you?

I know, at times, you’ve hated me. Sometimes, I hated me too. Sometimes I wished that the cancer would take me faster, so I wouldn’t have to walk on eggshells to make sure you didn’t find out. But I’d do it all again in a heartbeat. You know why?

Because you’re valedictorian. You got accepted into your dream university on a full scholarship. You’re a state cross country runner, a star. You’ve accomplished amazing things, Jordan.

I’ll never accomplish anything again. I’m gone, after all. But you will. When I was tired of keeping up the charade, of studying in chunks between throwing up, in going to school after I lost all my hair, I thought of you. You’ve always been incredible. You just needed a little nudge, and, well, that was me. I was your nudge. And look where it’s gotten you.

I’m so proud of the person you’ve become, Jordan. You’re everything I could have ever wanted in a friend, and more. I only hope when you’re famous you’ll remember me, remember where it all started.

Take care, Jordan.

-Liam