Thin Space (13 page)

“Well, you knew it was a long shot, right?” I pick up her other foot. It’s ice in my hands. I try to be careful stuffing it into the boot. I know what that feels like, the burning skin. “Your feet, Maddie,” I say, shaking my head. “Can you even feel them? You’re going to get frostbite.”

She sniffs again. “You didn’t worry about that.”

“Because I was an idiot.” I stand up. The wind’s whipping at us. I tug at the corners of the coat I’ve draped around her, try to cover up her neck better.

“So you quit looking?” she says. “That’s it? You’re giving up?”

“Yeah. Pretty much.” I stuff my hand in my jeans pocket, find a crumpled napkin from the coffee place. I hand it to her and look away while she blows her nose.

“Why?”

“Because I’m sick of it. Okay? I’m tired.”

“But you still believe,” she says in a small voice. “You still believe in thin spaces.” Her cheeks are streaked with sleet. It’s
so freaking cold out here I think any minute she’s going to have tracks of ice on her face.

“No. I don’t know. Look,” I tell her, “I’ve been doing this for too long. Two months. Since Mrs. Hansel died. Yesterday, in your house, I really thought it was going to happen.” I suck in my breath. “But Mrs. Hansel got it wrong. She must not have come through in front of the fireplace like she thought. So that’s it. Reality. I get it. Whether there are thin spaces floating around somewhere out here or not, it doesn’t matter. I’m never going to find one. It’s over.”

Maddie’s eyes scrunch up and for a second I think she’s going to start crying, but then she rallies. “But your brother,” she says. “Austin.”

My stomach clenches.

“Well, I want to find one.” She juts out her chin. “I’m going to keep looking.”

“Jeez,” I say, and against my better judgment, I have to ask her, “why?”

“You’re not the only person who lost someone, you know. There’s someone I—”

Then she’s reaching for me and somehow I’m reaching for her. We’ve got our arms wrapped around each other when Logan comes out of the store.

I let go, take a step back. “Logan, uh,” I clear my throat, “this is Maddie . . . ” I can’t remember Maddie’s last name. Which shouldn’t be too surprising. It’s hitting me that I don’t know a hell of a lot else about Maddie either.

Logan pulls her shoulders back, makes her mouth stretch into a halfway believable looking smile. “Wow, hi,” she says.
“I’m Logan Gleeson, Marsh’s”—she pauses for a beat—“I was going to say girlfriend, but I guess I don’t know anymore. Marsh—if you haven’t figured it out yet, Maddie—is very confused lately.”

“Logan,” I start, but then I let it go, because it’s too cold out here to get into a big discussion about it. “Could you, uh, give Maddie a ride home? She lives a few houses down from me.”

“No problem.” Logan marches toward her car, swinging her grocery bag like she wants to whap someone—me, most likely.

Maddie climbs into the backseat. I get into the front and push the seat up so she’ll have more legroom, ignoring the fact that my knees are knocking into my chin.

“Wow,” Logan says, back to using her chirpy voice. “You just moved here, right? From Nashville? So what do you think of Andover?”

“Oh, it’s nice,” Maddie says.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Logan flashing her white teeth. “That’s really cute. Your accent. Nice.” She draws out the word, trying to say it like Maddie does.

I stare out the window at the gray sky and the mud spattered snow clumps on the side of the road while Logan keeps up her interrogation.

“You’re Sam’s little sister. He’s in a few of my classes. Seems like a cool guy.”

“Yeah,” Maddie says.

“So, why’d you move here? Any special reason?”

I hear Maddie shifting around behind me. “My mother’s job.”

Logan’s turned onto our street, thank God. “The gray house,” I tell her. “Where Mrs. Hansel used to live.”

“The old lady?” Logan says. She slides around, barely missing a snowdrift at the end of the driveway. “The lady you used to help every Saturday?”

“Yeah.” I heave myself out of the car, knock the seat forward so Maddie can get out.

“Thanks for the ride,” she says. She shakes out of my coat, hands it to me without looking. “Bye, y’all.”

I watch her trudge up the walk, her shoulders hunched over, her ponytail drooping against her neck.

“Cute girl,” Logan says. “That little accent of hers. If you like that kind of thing.”

The wind lashes my face.

“Hey, didn’t that old lady die?”

“Yeah. September.” I climb back into the car, slam the door.

“Wasn’t she kind of crazy? I remember you saying—”

“I never said that.” My voice is loud in this cramped space. “Can you drop me off now?”

A minute later, we’re in front of my house.

“Marsh,” she says. “Look. I’m sorry I pushed you again. I shouldn’t have—”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Maybe later, when you’re ready, we can . . . ?” She’s struggling with the question and I’m struggling with the answer.

I clear my throat but my words still come out thick. “I can’t do this, Logan.” And I’m out of the car without looking back.

I head upstairs and dump my books onto the bed, grab the book closest to me—trig—and dig in. Convoluted equations are easier to deal with than anything else.

I can’t think about my other issues. Maddie tromping around the supermarket parking lot barefoot. What just happened with Logan. I might as well throw Kate in here for the hell of it. Three girls I’ve managed to hurt recently—and I’m not even sure how it happened. Okay, Logan’s deluded, but she has good reasons, which do essentially lead back to me. And Maddie, the mistake there was opening my big mouth, telling her about thin spaces, not realizing she’d believe me. Kate, I don’t want to get into. Anyway, if I’m trying to face reality, I’ve got a more pressing concern. Homework.

I don’t even notice my mother until she sinks down at the bottom of the bed. “Dinner will be ready in about thirty minutes,” she says.

“Okay.” I tug my English book out of the pile, flip open to the story we’re supposed to read.

“I fixed spare ribs,” my mother says. She’s looking like she wants to say something else.

What kinds of conversations did I use to have with her? We must have talked before. I must have done more than grunt out one-word answers. I try to remember something, anything. But all I can pull up are times when my brother was there too.

“You like those, right? Spare ribs?”

“Yeah. Sounds great.”

“Marsh.” My mother squeezes my leg. “I was thinking maybe it’s time to pack up some of those . . . mementos and
maybe some of his other . . . things too.” She tilts her head back, squints at the ceiling. I look up too and for a few seconds I guess we’re both lost in my brother’s rocket ship poster.

I turn back to my book. Watch the sentences stretch across the page until they’re just black lines.

“Would you be okay with that? If your father and I went through some of that stuff?”

“That stuff?” I drag a finger over one of the lines. I can’t see words anymore.

“I’m not saying we’d pack up everything. You could see if there’s anything you’d like to keep.”

“I don’t know,” I hear myself say. My English notebook is on my lap. It’s open to a mostly blank page, except for one word scrawled across it:
Truth
. It’s like it’s mocking me.

“Only if you’re ready. There’s no rush.”

I don’t know what my face looks like, but she hugs me. “It’s okay, Marsh. We can talk about it later.”

After she leaves, I slump against the wall, blink up at the rocket ship poster again. Then for a change of pace, I study his bookshelf. The books are in alphabetical order, something I never noticed until I started sleeping in here. I don’t know why it would surprise me. He was very organized. All of his clothes hang neatly in the closet. No stray papers on his desk, just his computer, phone charger, an alarm clock. Nothing shoved under the bed except a pair of slippers.

For three months, I have worn his clothes. I set his alarm clock. I make his bed. I don’t like to think about why the hell I’m doing this. It’s a way to be closer to him is what I tell myself. But the truth is it reminds me what I’ve done, forces
me to remember how much of a complete and total mess-up I am.

On that happy note, I return to my English book. The story doesn’t make sense, but somehow I manage to answer all the questions at the end of the section.

When my father calls me down for dinner, I stop on the landing, poke my head into my old room. It’s frozen too, stuck the way I left it in August. In the dark I can make out the piles on my desk and the dresser—the mementos my mother wants to pack away. Half-deflated balloons, dead flowers, mud spattered stuffed animals. A blown-up picture and the word
Austin
looping around the face. A glance at my clothes draped over the desk chair, a balled up sock, the rumpled bedcovers.

I can almost see my old self now, stepping out, ready for the double date with Kate and Logan. I was so smiley, so sure.

I wish I could go back in time. I wish I could smack that stupid grin right off my face.

A
nother morning. I don’t even know what day it is. Friday? When I pass Mrs. Hansel’s house, I get the familiar urge to smash a window, but it’s a thought that’s easy to push away. Even when I believed in thin spaces, I was too much of a coward to ever do something like that.

At the bus stop, Lindsay and Heather are deep in conversation.

“I bumped into him in the hall. And he looked at me.”

“Get out.”

“No, I’m serious. He totally knows who I am.”

“Oh, hey Marsh.”

I offer the girls a polite nod. This is easy too. The version of myself that existed in August never did much more than that with Lindsay and Heather.

School. I pass Mrs. Golden, who squints at me through her office window. She’s probably wondering what’s on my agenda for today. Fights? Frostbite? I feel like I should salute
her, kick up my legs so she’ll be sure to notice my boots.
Hey, Mrs. Golden,
I want to yell.
Reality. I get it now.

First period. I copy hieroglyphic-like equations off the whiteboard.

Second period. Class discussion about a battle. I can’t figure out which war we’re on, but I nod along at what I hope are the appropriate moments.

Third: pop quiz. I fill in all the blanks. Write
Marsh Windsor
next to the word
Name
on the top of the paper and am surprised to feel only a twinge of self-disgust.

Lunch, I clomp toward my usual seat. I’m really not looking for Maddie, but when I pass the lacrosse table, I catch a glimpse of her drooping over her lunch tray. Sam’s hovering close, his face just a muted red today. I glance back to see if Maddie’s wearing shoes. She is, her designer boots. So that’s good. Brad’s at the other end of the table, his bottom lip almost back to normal. I get the feeling that any minute he’s going to come charging across the room at me.

I sit with my back toward him, face the wall, eat my tuna on whole wheat and try not to think about it. If it happens, what am I going to do? Try to get in a good punch, I guess, or just zone out and let him go at me.

Someone drifts through the lunch line doorway, and I brace myself for Logan. But lucky guy that I am today, it’s Kate. She’s wearing an oversized black hoodie that hangs on her like a garbage bag. We lock eyes for half a second then she whips her head to the side.

Hey, Kate, I hear you. I don’t want to look at you either.

“Marsh,” she whispers. Her knuckles are white against her tray. “I’m sorry about—I need to stop doing—I need to get—” She looks like she might keel over.

Against my better judgment, I stand, lift the tray out of her hands. She’s got only three items on it: a little plastic container of fruit cocktail, a spoon, and a cup of ice. She crumples into the seat across from me. We look past each other for a few minutes. I try to swallow some sandwich.

Then she bursts into tears.

Oh, for God’s sake.

“I know,” she says. Whatever that means. She keeps sniveling, dragging the sleeve of her baggy sweatshirt across her face.

A part of me wants to shake her, scream in her face. A bigger part just wants to disappear. But manners and common decency seem to require something else. “Hey,” I say, pushing my napkin toward her.

She crushes it in her hand, blinks at me for a second, and then falls back to crying.

I’ve done my share of crying. Once, in the hospital as I watched my father sign my discharge papers. Once, here at school, my first day back after the accident, the first time I ran into Kate over by the lockers. Of course Logan was right there too. Because back then the two of them were practically joined at the hip.

I twitch around in my seat, catch Logan’s eye over at the football groupie table. Heave out a sigh then force myself to look at Kate.

She’s fiddling with her fruit cup. She doesn’t eat, just twirls her plastic spoon around, pulling up fruit chunks and dropping them back into the syrupy gloop.

I’ve lost my appetite too. Now that I’m face to face with her, only a foot away, I feel my stomach lurching, my head pounding. This is worse than drinking scalding coffee while Logan babbles on about the good old days.