Thin Space Read Online Free PDF Page B

very, I realize now. But I liked her. You don’t just get over something like that. Seeing a girl, seeing your girl, kissing another guy. And when that guy happens to be your brother—
    Ugh. I can’t keep thinking about this. I twitch my toes under the covers, stare up at the ceiling. My brother tacked this poster up there a few years ago. A rocket ship blasting off. I stare at the puffs of smoke coming out of the rocket tail, the blobs of white and gray swirling.
    Misty, like how Mrs. Hansel described the thin space.
    I climb out of his bed and press my forehead against the window. The light’s still on in that house. It gives me a twinge of something I haven’t felt in months. Hope?



5
Mission
    I time it leaving the house this morning because I want to catch New Girl on my way to the bus stop. I see a splinter of light at Mrs. Hansel’s house, the front door opening, and a flick of a ponytail. “Uh.” I clear my throat. “Maddie.”
    “Hey,” she says. She wraps her arms around herself, hunches her shoulders. “It’s freezing out here. This sure is different from Nashville.”
    Time to buy a warmer coat, I think, but what makes me an expert on keeping warm? I’m the idiot walking around barefoot. “Yeah,” I say. “It’s cold.”
    “Gray too.” She blinks up at me. “Does the sun ever come out?”
    Nope.
    “Yeah,” I tell her. “Usually. In the spring.”
    “I don’t think I’ll make it until then.”
    Me neither.
    “I don’t even own a winter coat. My mother bought methis one before we moved. But I don’t think she was thinking about the cold. That’s my mother. Fashion over comfort . . . ” Her voice trails off and I watch the mist swirl around her face. “She was right about these boots, though.” She lifts one foot and twitches it back and forth. “At least my feet are warm.” Her face fires up. “I didn’t mean—well, I wasn’t talking—”
    “Don’t worry about it,” I say, even though it feels like icy knives are stabbing my feet and shooting up my calves. We’ve reached the bus stop and we aren’t alone. So that’s that. Conversation with Maddie’s over. Oh well. And here it was going along so great—weather, flaky parents, could it get any more fascinating?
    “Marsh,” Lindsay and Heather say together. They smile at Maddie. Apparently they’ve deigned to talk to her today.
    “Your brother,” Lindsay chirps up. “His name’s Sam?”
    “He’s hot,” adds Heather.
    The bus rumbles up. Good thing too, since I’m not feeling my feet anymore.
    Today I trudge through the front entrance of the school, pass the guidance office, notice Mrs. Golden’s yellow head bobbing behind the window. She squints at me over her glasses and I pick up the pace.
    I catch a glimpse of Maddie’s ponytail turning down the sophomore hallway. Locker doors slam. The warning bell rings. I scrunched up my toes as I push through the crowd. Finally my feet are thawing, but now they burn and itch.
    Maddie’s stopped at a locker ahead, last one before the end. I give myself a pep talk. Buck up. Talk to her. Get invitedback into that freaking house . But when I open my mouth, the “hi” dies in my throat. She’s not alone. Her hulking brother’s behind the locker door. He hisses something in her ear, and I head in the other direction, my blazing feet slapping the floor all the way to homeroom.
    Lunch, I plunk down at that corner table again, unload my mother-made lunch—ham and Swiss on rye, an orange, an organic cookie—keeping one eye angled at the lunch line exit.
    “Maddie,” I say as soon as I see her. I notice her tray’s not shaking today. Good. Time to get down to business.
    “Hi,” she says. It sounds like ha .
    “Ha,” I say back without thinking.
    “Yeah, I know.” She shrugs, sets her tray down across from me. “My accent. It’s funny.”
    “I didn’t mean—”
    “No, it’s okay. I’ve been hearing it all day. People want me to say stuff and then they