Thin Space Read Online Free PDF

nice to meet you.” I stand, nod at Sam, who’s shoveling a chunk of pie in his mouth with his fingers, and then I force a smile in the general direction of his sister. “See you later”—I have to think for a second what her name is—“Madison.”
    She springs out of her chair. “Maddie,” she says. Which gets Sam laughing for some reason and she flashes him a dirty look. “You can call me Maddie. Hey, let me walk you to the door.”
    Whatever. I follow her down the hall, but I have to stop in the entryway, take one futile step into the front room. A voice in my head says that if I have to wait, I can. I’ve waited two months already. She’s invited me in. She’ll invite me in again. Maybe next time the front room will be cleared out enough that I can walk through—
    “Bye, Marsh,” she says.
    “Baa,” I say, and I laugh, even though what I really want to do is cry. Or bash my head against a wall.

    My parents aren’t home yet. In the entryway, I grab a towel, press it around my toes. They burn against the fabric. My mother’s taken to leaving a clean towel by the door. Mostly she’s ignored the barefoot thing, my father too, but I know it’s bugging them. I try to make it easier by keeping my feet clean. If they saw how red they get, how dirty, they might try to put a stop to it.
    Technically, my house is a place where I can wear shoes, or at least socks. I can say with complete confidence that it contains no thin space. I have been over every surface. Twice. But oddly enough I’m getting used to being barefoot, and in a way I wasn’t lying when I told New Girl—Madison—Maddie—whoever, that shoes feel restrictive.
    Upstairs, I flop down on the bed in my brother’s room where I’ve been sleeping since the accident. I kick my feet out, and I guess I nod off, because it’s dark when I blink my eyes open.
    “Marsh,” my mother’s calling. She says it a couple more times before I finally push myself off the bed and head downstairs.
    My parents are trying. Still it’s painful to be with them. Dinner especially. Like, my mother tries to make everything normal. She sets the table—minus one setting—the sameway as always. We eat at the same time every night. She cooks up the same big meals.
    What’s changed, though, is so huge that even she can’t pretend it doesn’t exist. At some point she pulled his chair away and tucked it behind the china cabinet. Other stuff has disappeared from around the house too. Some pictures of the two of us. This ceramic bowl I made in art class back in fifth grade. She thinks he made it, though, so it’s gone. I don’t tell her his bowl is still displayed on the coffee table in the front room. Whatever. Stuff like this—things getting mixed up—it went with the territory for my brother and me. No point getting ticked off about it now.
    “Have a nice day at school today?” my mother says. She sits across from my father. I sit across from no one.
    “This chicken is good,” my father says.
    “I’m glad you like it. Do you like it, Marsh?”
    “Marsh? Do you like it?”
    I nod.
    “Getting colder out there. Down to thirty tonight, I hear.”
    “Thirty?” My mother and father pass each other meaningful looks.
    “Might snow.”
    “Snow?”
    Out of habit, I swipe my feet back and forth along the wood floor.
    “Would you like another piece of chicken?”
    “Marsh?”
    How long can this go on? Three months since the accident. Three months! It’s crazy how long—
    “Marshall, your mother is talking to you.”
    “Marsh?”

    From my brother’s window I can see Mrs. Hansel’s house across the line of backyards. Upstairs, two windows glow like eye sockets. It’s Mrs. Hansel’s bedroom. A shadow flits across one and I wonder if it’s Maddie.
    Funny girl, I think as I flop into bed. Of course this makes me remember Kate and Logan and I get a sick lurch in my stomach. Ahh. Fun times with my so-called girlfriend. I don’t know how serious we were. Not