Thin Space (12 page)

At the end of the day, she finds me at my locker. I’ve agreed to let her drive me home. She waits while I rummage around for my stuff. I’m making an attempt to pack up the proper materials. Since I’ve woken up to reality, I realize that I’m behind in everything. I’ve waded through somehow. Gotten through my classes without failing, but I have no idea how I’ve managed that. This whole semester has been a fog. I,
we
—my brother and I—used to be good students. I guess that counts for something around here. Like I’ve stored up some goodwill along the way. The teachers have let me slide.
Maybe they’ve all done what Logan said—they’ve let me do what I’ve had to do. But that can’t go on forever.

I shove some books into my backpack and then turn to Logan.

I’m trying to keep my eyes on her face, the way a normal person would. Jeez. I forgot how pretty she is. Her face is rounder than Kate’s. Her hair is fluffier than Maddie’s. It’s blond too but with streaks of lighter color. Her eyes are green. She’s got a beauty mark perched above the corner of her mouth.

She smiles at me. Her teeth are very white and perfectly straight. I remember she had braces for a while, all through middle school, now that I think about it. We walk outside, past the buses lined up, across the student parking lot. She stops in front of a sporty black car.

“Yeah,” she says, and laughs. “My old car finally died about a month ago.”

I climb in, wedging my backpack between my legs. The car’s low to the ground, cramped inside. My knees bunch up in front of me.

“There’s a button on the side,” she tells me. “You can move the seat back.”

I do that while she watches. The seat groans into another position. Now my legs are sprawled out, my head’s tilted up, like I’m lounging in a lawn chair. I stare at the car ceiling. It’s too hard for me to look at Logan. I remind myself of the point here. Reality. Truth. Or a version of it. All of which, unfortunately, includes dealing with her.

“So what do you think?” she says.

“Think?”

She flashes her white teeth. “Of the car. Do you like it?”

“Oh, yeah. It’s great.”

“I know. But sometimes, wow, I miss my other car. A lot of memories in that car.” She edges her way into the stream of cars leaving the lot. Around us, horns honk. Brakes squeal. Tires crunch over the packed snow. “I know it’s silly. The thing was a piece of junk. Do you,” she says, her voice faltering, “ever think about . . . that car?”

“Yeah. Sure.” I can’t picture it, though. The only clunker I can see is the one my brother and I drove. In Andover a lot of kids get brand new cars—nice cars—when they turn sixteen. We were just happy to drive anything. The only annoying thing about it was sharing. But that’s reality when you’re a twin. You share.

“I’m sorry I lost it today,” Logan says. “Outside English. I promised myself I wouldn’t do that. I promised myself I’d wait until you were ready to talk to me.”

I don’t know if I can handle this. A confrontation with Logan in her new sports car.

“But yesterday, when you got in a fight with Brad, and then today when I saw you sitting with that girl—” She pulls a hand off the steering wheel, jabs it toward me so I have to press back into my seat to avoid injury. “I just couldn’t stop myself. You looked so, I don’t know, sad.” Both hands on the steering wheel again, and I let out a relieved sigh. “You have a reason to be sad, I’m not saying that. But today, for some reason, I just felt like I had to see you, get through to you, you know?”

We’re stopped at a red light, only four blocks from my street. Logan tilts her head, and her mouth turns down. “Please, Marsh. Can we keep talking? Can we go somewhere? Cup o’cino’s, maybe?”

Coffee. Great. “Yeah,” I say, shrugging away the stutter in my voice. “That would be great.”

She exhales a sigh and smiles. She likes me. It’s crazy. Why does this girl like me? I lean my head against the window. The glass is cold on my face. If I still believed in thin spaces, I’d be praying for one to be here. Inside this car. What I wouldn’t give to be sucked out of my life right now.

Cup o’cino’s is warm, crowded. A lot of kids meet here after school, but of course, lately, I haven’t been one of them. I scan the menu board while Logan sways next to me. She keeps bumping into my side.

“Let’s get the usual,” she says. Before I can say anything, she chirps right up. “Two large caramel lattes.”

I fumble for money, ignoring the driver’s license as I flip through—didn’t I mean to take that out yesterday, tuck it away in a drawer? Somehow a couple of twenty-dollar bills are folded up in one of the wallet pockets. I hand one to the clerk, get my change, and then follow Logan over to a table in the corner.

“Remember how we came here for that all-night study session?” she says. “And we drank so many lattes that our hands were shaking?” She leans across the table so our heads are almost touching.

I pull back, take a sip of coffee, and try not to shriek at how hot the damn thing is.

“And that night when you bought me that giant heart cookie. We sat right here at this table.” I can’t figure out how her voice manages to come out both high and breathy at the same time. “You were so sweet, having them write our names on it in that pink swirly frosting. And then that day—”

She’s launches into another story, another coffee shop memory. I’m getting the gist of where this is going, but I have no idea what to do about it. Logan is a nice girl. I don’t want to hurt her. But it’s clear, to me, at least, that we’re not going to be able to pick up where things left off last August.

“You had that foam mustache, and you were walking around like you didn’t know, and . . . ”

I grab my cup to give my hands something to do. Take a sip, try to ignore the fact that a layer of skin’s been scalded off the roof of my mouth.

“—that time you built the tower out of milk containers and the owner took a picture.” She hops up, dances over to the counter. “Wow! It’s still there, Marsh. Look!”

I do. It is. A face that doesn’t look anything like mine smiles at me from behind the milk container creation.

I head back to my seat and study my coffee cup. There’s a little saying written on the side. “The truth shall set you free.” What the hell is this, some kind of conspiracy?

I know I have to do it. Tell Logan what she thinks we had is over, that things—that
I’m
different now. Courage, though, it isn’t one of my stronger qualities.

She plops down next to me now and her ponytail whips my face. I can smell her shampoo. Some kind of fruit scent.
“Remember when we drove up to the lake and it was so dark you could see, like, every star?”

Her voice flutters over me, and I make myself nod. Because I do remember that night. It was the four of us. My brother. Kate. Me. Logan. It must’ve been end of July, right before football practice started, I’m thinking now. He drove and I was a little pissed off about it. But then I didn’t care anymore because I could sit in the back seat with her. Kiss her. We didn’t mind either, that they were in the front seat. It was kind of crazy, how caught up we could get in each other. Like all you can think about are your hands on her and her hands on you.

Logan’s right how we could see the stars that night. Ten miles out of town and it’s like another world. The girls spread out a blanket in the grass and we curled up on it, joking about how squished we were. Once, I turned my head and checked out what my brother was doing. He lifted up a little and we grinned at each other. He wasn’t thinking about the stars either. And then she was pressing her lips against my neck.

“I’m sorry,” Logan says, and I jerk my face toward her. “I shouldn’t have brought that up, that night, because he—you probably don’t want to think about—”

“No, I mean, yeah.” I take a glug of coffee. Somehow it’s still burning my throat skin. “So,” I say, because a thought occurs to me, “you ever see Kate anymore?”

Logan sighs. “Not really. She’s kind of . . . I don’t know.”

I do know. Even lost in my fog, I’ve caught glimpses of Kate stumbling around the school hallways. And now I know
she’s been out there haunting the accident site too. The love of her life is dead. Without meaning to, I let out a strangled moan.

“I know. I feel horrible for her,” Logan says. “She’s a wreck. Have you seen her? She’s like a skeleton.” She purses her lips together. “I tried to talk to her. I mean, she was my best friend. I didn’t just drop her. But she’s the one who won’t talk to me, you know?”

I nod and swallow more coffee. I can’t even feel the inside of my mouth anymore.

“I get it. She lost him, and then she looks at us, and she’s probably, like, sick about it.” Logan shakes her head and her fruity hair odor swirls around me. “I know it’s not the same thing, but I miss Austin too. Remember how we were the love square? The four of us?” She presses closer, grabs both of my hands. “And you and me, Marsh. Are we—do you still—”

“Logan,” I say. She’s squeezing my hands and her hair is making me dizzy and I can’t look at her. I’ve got my face turned toward my coffee cup, the stupid saying about truth blurring in front of my eyes. The only thing I can manage is, “I don’t know.”

She drops my hands, shrinks away like I’ve slapped her. And then I just sit there while she’s hunched over, sucking in her breath, fighting off tears. It’s like my mother in the kitchen yesterday. I should say something. Do something. I don’t think hugging her is the right thing though. Honest to God, I don’t know what the right thing is. Truth, though—I sure as hell know it isn’t that.

Truth means telling Logan I don’t like her. That I don’t want her telling me funny stories about cookies or coffee or milk containers. Truth means something else too—something that I can’t even say to myself, let alone to Logan.

I tell myself it’s okay to pat her on the back. It’s the least I can do. So I do that, and I count to twenty before dropping my hand.

We don’t talk on the drive home. We both stare straight ahead. I’m thinking about reality and how much it sucks. Logan’s thinking about who knows what.

Me, probably, and what an ass I am.

L
ogan’s cell rings, a snippet from some lame love song. She rummages in her purse, flips open her phone. “Okay,” she snaps. “I’ll be home soon. Right.” She rolls her eyes. “My mother. She wants me to pick up a couple things at the grocery. Do you mind if we stop there before I drop you off?”

I shake my head. “No problem.” The car screeches, skids a little when she turns into the parking lot.

She circles around, frowning, then wedges the car into a space about halfway down the center row. Arctic wind whips inside when she opens the door. “Wow, that’s cold,” she says. “Just stay in here. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Before I can say okay, she slams the door. I sink into my seat. I don’t know if I can feel any worse about my life. It was a stupid idea to go out with Logan today. I can see that now.

But it’s reality, which is what I have to keep reminding myself. I lean my head against the seat, stare out the window.
Mucky snow crisscrosses the parking lot. I shift around, kick at my backpack on the floor between my legs. I’ve got too much junk in my head. I start ticking it off. The reality of homework. The reality of grieving girlfriends. The reality of lacrosse players who want to kick my ass. The reality of—

I press closer to the window, squint through the glass. Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?

About ten yards away, a girl is pacing back and forth in front of the store entrance. I glance up at the Goodfoods sign and back down at the girl. I take in the blond ponytail, the thin jacket. When she turns her head and starts sliding in the other direction, I see a flash of pink face. Maddie.

What the hell is she—

And then I’m opening the car door and clomping through the crust of dirty snow. I see her boots clutched in her hand, and my heart starts hammering in my chest.

“Maddie,” I call out.

She stops dragging her feet, scowls, and goes back to sliding.

“What are you—stop! Put your boots back on.” She pushes past me. I can’t keep my eyes off her feet. They blaze up red, half-covered in snow chunks.

People tromp by us with their groceries. Some of them look our way. I grab her shoulders. “Maddie, come on. What are you doing?”

“What does it look like?” She tries to shrug me away.

But I’ve got the flimsy material of her jacket bunched up in my hand. I can feel her shivering. I tear my coat off, wrap it around her shoulders. “Put your boots on.” I try to say it
in a nice way. “It’s freezing out here.” I grab the boots and squat down in front of her. She clutches my shoulders and lets me push a boot onto her foot. “How’d you get here? Did you walk?”

She sniffs. “Yeah.”

“You didn’t walk here barefoot, I hope. You took your boots off when you got here, right?”

“What do you care?” she says.

I sigh. Some guy walks out through the glass doors. He passes by, grins at us. Who knows why?

“Nothing happened.” She swipes her nose with the back of her hand. “I stepped over this whole section of the parking lot.”