Thin Space by Jody Casella Page B

the boots and squat down in front of her. She clutches my shoulders and lets me push a boot onto her foot. “How’d you get here? Did you walk?”
    She sniffs. “Yeah.”
    “You didn’t walk here barefoot, I hope. You took your boots off when you got here, right?”
    “What do you care?” she says.
    I sigh. Some guy walks out through the glass doors. He passes by, grins at us. Who knows why?
    “Nothing happened.” She swipes her nose with the back of her hand. “I stepped over this whole section of the parking lot.”
    “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’sso 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