Thin Space by Jody Casella

Author:Jody Casella [Casella, Jody]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9781582703923
Google: OWC6lAEACAAJ
Amazon: 158270435X
Goodreads: 16431540
Publisher: Simon Pulse/Beyond Words
Published: 2013-09-10T07:00:00+00:00

14

Seething

Nobody says anything when we get into the car. My father shakes his keys, coughs. My mother’s rigid next to him, fiddling with her scarf. The car hasn’t warmed up yet. My breath puffs out of my mouth. I’m in the backseat, still pressing the icepack against my nose, but the thing doesn’t feel cold anymore.

We roll through the parking lot, pass the football field. There’s the gym teacher waving his arms around. There’s Maddie stooping down, stuffing her feet back into her boots.

She must’ve been trolling around on that online obituary page she was telling me about. Maybe she read about some kid dropping dead on the football field. I could’ve saved her the trouble and the foot pain. Back in September, I limped the length of that field several times. No soul came through there. Maddie’s wasting her time.

Whatever she’s trying to do, it’s my fault. I shut my eyes, see a flash of her pale face today when she leaned over me in the cafeteria. When I was sprawled out on the floor, getting pummeled by Brad, Maddie must’ve come over to see what was happening. Along with everyone else in the school.

I pull the icepack off, chuck it on the seat next to me.

“Oh, Marsh,” my mother says. She keeps her head faced forward. “You broke your nose. Don, do you think he broke his nose?”

“It’s just bruised.” My father keeps his eyes straight ahead too. It’s like they’re having a conversation with the windshield.

“Maybe we should take him to the doctor’s to check. It could’ve damaged the same place.”

“There’s nothing to do for a broken nose.” The light turns yellow and my father slows the car, stops. Suddenly I feel like crying. It’s my Dad. How freaking cautious he is.

“What are we going to do?” my mother says.

“Helen,” my Dad says in this crushed, beaten down voice.

I snatch the icepack up and put it on my face so I won’t have to keep looking at them. There’s only a dull pain now, pulsing out, radiating across my cheekbones. But that seems to be the extent of the damage.

This is nothing compared to after the accident. The first time the nurse showed me a mirror, I couldn’t stop staring at my face. The eyes sunk into the swollen skin. The nose bulged out, twisted to the side. The forehead and chin, split apart and blotchy—purple, black, yellow. Marsh, my mother wailing over and over until I thought I was going to lose my mind.

Wait, I told her, the mirror shaking in my hand.

Marsh—

Wait. I mean, what the hell is going on?

Before I can stop it, there’s a spark of anger. My mother’s sniffling into her scarf. My father’s switching on his turn signal, looking dutifully in both directions before turning. And I’m sitting here in the backseat, seething.

It starts in my feet, rises into my throbbing chest. My hands curl into fists around my useless icepack. It pounds in my jaw, my head. It has nowhere else to go.

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