The Space Between Us Read Online Free PDF Page A

Meredith’s perfume clinging to me, felt the softness of her sweater against me. With a low, muttered groan I twirled around in the desk chair with my head tipped back and only my feet moving. Round and around, the ceiling twirling above me until I dug a toe into the carpet.
    I stopped. The room kept moving. If I stood, I’d stumble, probably fall. It was not quite enough to make my stomach sick, though in retrospect the tuna hadn’t been the best idea. As I turned back to the computer, my eyes still trying hard to focus on one unspinning thing, I heard the front door open and the sound of little shoes on the tile entryway. Then voices. Simone, shrieking at her brother, who was giggling like a lunatic. Their mom, Elaine, admonishing them without much force. Then the diversion of the noise from the den, up the stairs and presumably toward the bathroom, where the kids would be bathed, toothbrushed and pottied before being put into their beds.
    I closed down my windows and cleared my history before logging out, and was just turning in the desk chair to face the doorway when he came in. “Hey, Vic,” I said.
    “Hey.” He looked tired. Kids could do that to you. Vic pressed the heel of his hand against his eye, then focused briefly on the computer. “Didn’t think you’d be home.”
    “Not everyone has a blooming social calendar like you,” I teased.
    His smile quirked faintly on one side. Just the one. “We took the kids over to Elaine’s mom’s house for Nancy’s birthday. If I’d known you were going to be home I’d’ve told you.”
    “It’s okay. I had stuff to do.” Elaine’s mom and sister had never been mean to me, but they’d never gone out of their way to be nice, either. We had a policy of neutral ground when it came to family events. If they came here or we met someplace else, we treated each other distantly but politely, never really delving too much into my place in their son-in-law’s life. I simply never went to their house.
    He nodded. “I’m going to help Elaine with the kids. You up for some Resident Evil 4 in a bit?”
    It was our favorite video game, especially played on Vic’s Wii with the special guns that attached to the controllers. “Hell, yeah. You guys need some help?”
    “Nah.” He shrugged and yawned. “We got it covered.”
    “How’s she feeling?” Elaine was pregnant with their third and didn’t have morning sickness. She had all-day sickness.
    “Like shit.” He shrugged again, a man bewildered by the complications of women’s bodies, though not unsympathetic.
    It was enough to make me determined never to get pregnant. Like, ever. Well…maybe if Christian Bale was donating, I could be persuaded. But other than that, probably not. “I’ll set up the game for when you’re ready.”
    There was no reason for me to have told Vic I’d been thinking about looking up Chase and Chance Murphy. It still felt like a lie, one that weighed heavily enough on me that I couldn’t quite keep my concentration on the game. Since it was single-player, Vic and I took turns at it, switching when one of us died. I died a lot.
    “What’s up with you, Tesla?” Vic took the gun controller from me as the red ooze dripped across the screen, showing I’d kicked it again.
    “Long day at work, I guess.” I got up. “I should go to bed. Early morning tomorrow.”
    “Yeah. Me, too.” But Vic didn’t get up. He leveled the gun at the screen again, starting the next level. “ ’Night.”
    The rest of the house had gone quiet hours ago, Elaine and the kids in bed. It was just Vic and me, sitting in the dark, killing zombies. The flickering light from the TV made shadows move on his face, giving him expressions I knew he wasn’t making.
    He caught me looking and paused the game. “What?”
    “You should go to bed. You have to get up early, too.”
    “Thanks, Mom,” Vic said.
    I shrugged. “I’m just saying.”
    “Yeah, I know what you’re saying. I just want to finish this