Thin Space (24 page)

I almost laugh. When was it? Two weeks ago? Is that possible? Could only that much time have passed since I was standing here, on this step, locked in this same dark basement?

Sam belches. “What’s that?”

“My sleeping bag,” Maddie answers. She sounds out of breath. She must’ve run upstairs and back down.

“I mean what’re you doing with it?” Sam says.

“I’m sleeping on the couch tonight.”

Another belch. “Why?”

There’s a pause. The door shifts a little, so I know she’s leaning against it again. “My room’s too cold.”

Grunt. “Whole house is cold.”

“I’m not sleeping up there anymore.”

“You can’t sleep down here.”

“Why not?”

“What about when she comes home?” he says, and his voice rises up high like I’ve never heard it before. “With the guy?”

“I don’t care.”

Dishes clatter in the sink. “Yeah. She’s probably not coming home anyway. It’s better,” Sam says, “if she doesn’t come home. My face like this.” More grunting. “Brad shouldn’t have pulled me off him.”

I can see four steps down now. Maybe I should get out of here, use the other way out, sneak through the metal doors, go home. I imagine myself groping across the basement, hitting the back steps, leaping over the bucket of pebbles.

“The guy’s messed up, Madison. You get that, right?”

The door creaks.

“You saw how he attacked me. I told him I didn’t want to fight.”

“He likes me,” Maddie says in a small voice.

“
He likes me
,” he mimics. “Don’t kid yourself. He doesn’t even know you.”

“Yes, he does.”

“Come
on.
Don’t you realize how guys see a girl like that? Throwing yourself at them, like—”

“Like what?”

Long pause. “Nothing. Forget it.”

“No. I get it.” Her voice screeches into Logan territory. “You take that one time. One time. And you blow it all up just like everyone else.”

“That’s how it starts, Madison. What do you think? You go down a road and you can’t get off it.”

“It’s not like that. I’m not doing that. It’s different here.”

“Right, Madison. That’s what you want to tell yourself.” Clomping footsteps across the linoleum. “Look in the mirror sometime. The truth is you’re just like Mom.”

I hear the clomping moving farther away, down the hall, up the stairs. When the steps shuffle overhead, the door opens and I stumble into the kitchen. I squint my eye, try to readjust to the light. Maddie’s slouched in front of me. Her face is red, streaked with tears. Just seeing her like this makes me want to punch something.

“Messed up” is probably an accurate description of my state of mind. I’m wearing one slipper. The other one’s clutched in my fist. I open my mouth but nothing comes out. I have no idea what my line is.

Maddie juts out her chin. “Come on,” she says. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

W
e tiptoe upstairs. Sam’s door is closed, but I don’t care about him. In two minutes, he’s not my problem anymore.

The cold hits us a like a wall. Maddie closes her bedroom door behind us.

I drop the slipper on the bed, pull off the other one, and set that one down too. I hate to dump the issue of Sam on my brother, but I figure, what the hell, it’s
his
turn now to deal with reality. I flex my feet, feel the cold wood floor. My breath’s ragged when I cross the room.

“Wait,” Maddie says.

“Maddie, no!” I practically wail. “I can’t wait anymore.”

She grabs my hands. I’m one foot away from stepping into the thin space, and she presses herself closer to me. “Just one minute, okay? I have to tell you something first.”

I let out a sigh, but I can’t help listening to her. She’s so close to me. And it’s nice, warm—someone holding me like this.

“They’re things about me you don’t know,” she whispers.

I can’t help laughing. “I got a news flash for you—there are things about me
you
don’t know.”

She pulls back, glaring but still gripping my hands. Probably she’s making sure I’m not going to dart around her and disappear.

Okay, I can wait one more minute. “What?”

“You know the stuff I told you before, about how messed up things were after my father died?”

I nod. “Sam had to take care of you. Your mother remarried a couple of times.”

“There’s more. More . . . um . . . recent stuff.”

“You can tell me,” I say.

The color spreads across her cheeks. “I don’t even know where to start. It’s stupid. I wasn’t thinking. Just, last year I went to a few parties. Lots of older guys went too, seniors, guys Sam hated. People drank, coupled up. Sometimes things got, I don’t know, out of control. Once the police came. It was like this big scandal at our school. And Sam, he was so upset about it. Nothing really happened. I mean, I didn’t really do anything. But he’s just . . . crazy when it comes to stuff like that.”

I don’t think her face can get any redder than it is now.

“And then, at school people were saying stuff about me. It didn’t matter what
I
said. To him. To them. This one stupid decision you make and you’re branded for life. When we moved here, I thought maybe this was my chance. I could start over, be different, call myself Maddie, you know?” She heaves out a sigh. “But if Sam sees me that way, I mean, how do I ever get away from it?”

“Sam’s wrong,” I tell her, and somehow I’m holding her, whispering in her ear. “Maddie. I know who you are. Now. It doesn’t matter what happened before. It doesn’t matter what he thinks. It doesn’t—” And then I don’t know what comes over me, but I’m kissing her. Right here in the freezing cold room. It’s crazy.

I’m crazy. What the hell am I doing? She’s just told me a story about her supposedly bad reputation and now it’s like I’m taking advantage of her—kissing her right after she’s spilled her guts and feeling terrible about herself. I am such a complete ass.

“I’m sorry,” I say, “I don’t know why—”

But somehow we’re kissing again. Nothing matters but this. I like kissing her. I like
her
. I don’t know how it worked out this way or why. I don’t care. The stuff she said, what Sam thinks, I don’t give a crap about it. It’s true what I told her. I know her now; that’s the important thing here. I don’t want to let go of her. I don’t want to stop—

I’ve got to though. This is wrong. I’m leaving. In a minute, I’m disappearing into the thin space. All of this—whatever Maddie and I have—is over. I have to find my brother. I have to fix this mess. I made a mistake and I know it’s the only way—

“You’re still going through with it,” Maddie says. She’s rigid now in my arms.

“I have to.” I know I am delaying the inevitable, but I kiss her one more time.

“Don’t do this.” She clutches my hand. “Please. At least let me go with you. Not to stay, like you—”

I’m shaking my head, but she keeps talking.

“I want to see my father. I want to see if he knows me. Me, who I really am, and not that person Sam is disgusted with.”

“Maddie.” I groan, kissing her once more.

“Please,” she says. She kicks off her slippers.

Who knows what makes me say it? There is so much about myself that eludes me these days. “Okay.” I squeeze her hand. “We’ll go in together.”

The moment slows, freezes, as we stand, shakily, at the edge of Maddie’s bed. I stare at my foot as I nudge it forward. I feel Maddie tensing beside me. Her head bobs as she moves forward too, her fingers digging into my hand, and then my heart seems to jump into my throat. The room slides away.

It happens just like Mrs. Hansel described. The bedroom walls, the bed piled with blankets, the ceiling, the wooden floor—everything narrows, blurs, and in a whoosh we’re rushing past all of it.

I can’t get my bearings. There’s no top or bottom. I can’t even tell if I’m falling or rising. It’s like being plunged into a deep pool, but I’m not wet. I can’t see the surface or the bottom. I flail around, enveloped in cold.

At some point, I can’t feel Maddie’s hand anymore, and I cry out. She’s lost. I’m lost. The air’s black, thick, and I’m still tossing around in it. Where’s the mist? This isn’t how Mrs. Hansel explained it.

My chest squeezes. I open my mouth. I’m waving my arms. I can’t breathe. I’m drowning in the thick cold.

“Mrs. Hansel.” I hear the word, shaky and scared. “Mrs. Hansel!” It’s my voice, I realize, and that scares me too, but
then someone’s touching my arm, and I’m no longer falling and flailing.

The dark leaks away. I’m standing on something solid. I can’t see my feet through the mist. The surface is smooth, slippery as ice. Fog swirls around my body, gray and thick. When it pulls apart, Mrs. Hansel sways beside me.

She looks exactly the same as the last time I saw her—her white hair, her nightgown. All that’s missing is the sickbed and the oversized pillow.

“You called me,” she says.

“Mrs. Hansel. You—”

“I know.” She smiles. “I’ve looked better.”

That’s kind of the understatement of the year. The truth is, she looks dead. Her skin’s as gray as the fog. Her eyes are sunken. Her body’s skeletal.

Her voice sounds chipper, though. “I misled you, I’m afraid.” She wags a bony finger at me, and I try not to flinch. “You thought I died downstairs. But after you left, a strange impulse seized me. I felt compelled to go upstairs to my bedroom. How was I to manage it, though, when I could barely lift my head? Thank goodness dear Linda was there to help. She was here too, not long ago. We had a lovely chat before she went off to visit with her husband.” She laughs lightly. “I was so muddled that day, I bungled everything up. I forgot to tell Linda about the bare feet. I forgot the stones. Not that I would’ve been able to line them up properly. I kept hoping you’d both figure it out. But you’re a smart boy.” She pinches my cheek with two sticklike fingers. “Oh my, you’ve hurt yourself. Have you been fighting?”

“Yeah—I—” I can’t stop shivering. This place makes Maddie’s bedroom seem like a sauna.

Mrs. Hansel seems to know what I’m thinking. “It’s very cold. You won’t be able to stay here long.”

“Mrs. Hansel—” My mind’s whirling. I can’t tear my eye away from her—how terrible, how
deathly
she looks. I clutch at my stomach. I’m afraid I might be sick.

“I’m glad you came. I’m glad you called me,” Mrs. Hansel says. “I always liked you. Such a sweet young man.” She sighs, and her thin frame rattles.

She sways closer, hugs me against her. I don’t want to offend her, but I’m afraid if I hug her back, I’ll crush her. Of course, she’s already dead. The thought flits through my head and I have to suck in my breath, try to steady myself. I realize that I might be on the verge of a mental collapse.

When she lets go, she seems upset. “Lately, dear, I’ve been disturbed by your behavior. You haven’t done what you’re supposed to do.”

“I know, I—” My teeth won’t stop chattering. My body won’t stop shaking.

“You’ve been wasting time. Lying to everyone. Lying to yourself. And that’s not the worst of it. You’ve been hurting him.”

“Hurting—?”

“He doesn’t want to
be
here anymore.”

“I know—that’s why I—see I’m going to—”

Mrs. Hansel glares at me. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

I blink my eye. She’s right. What the hell am I doing? I’m here, in the thin space. I have to do what I’ve set out to do. “How?” My voice croaks out. “How do I find him?”

“You know.”

It’s so clear, so easy. When it hits me, I practically start crying. “Thank you,” I tell her.

She hugs me again, pulls back, and smiles. The fog thickens around me until I can’t see her anymore. I can’t see my feet, my hands. I whirl in a circle, doing what I know I have to do.

I call him.

And just like that a dark figure rolls out of the mist.

I take in the dark hair, the black T-shirt, the jeans; he’s limping, dragging his right leg through the gray toward me. Closer and I throw my hands up to my mouth. The accident shoots through my mind, my fists around the wheel, his body pitching forward, his head turned, cracking the windshield.

It’s hard for me to look at him. He may as well just have staggered out of the wrecked car. One side of his face is blackened with blood. I can’t find his right eye under the mass of bruising. The rest of his body’s no better off. His right arm hangs loosely, awkwardly at his side.

I clear my throat, not that it does much good. My voice is hardly more than a squeak.

“Hey,” I say. “Marsh.”

“Austin,” he says, and the left side of his mouth turns up into a half grin.