One Way (5 page)

The two detectives glance at each other. Then one of them looks me in the eye and says, “We have a reports that you ran into Stassi Mikalczyk on purpose.”

“What?” They have to be kidding. “Why would I do that?”

“That's what we want to know, Kenzie,” the detective says. “You and Stassi used to go out, right? She was your girlfriend, and then you broke up. Right?”

“You don't have to answer that, Kenzie. You don't have to say anything to them,” Mr. Pawls says.

“He's right,” the detective says. “You don't have to talk to us. And you have the right to have an adult present—your lawyer, your parents, even Mr. Pawls— if you do decide to talk to us. You understand that, right, Kenzie?”

I nod. Yeah, I understand. But that's not the point.

“I would never hurt Stassi,” I say.

“Kenzie,” Mr. Pawls says, like he's warning me to keep my mouth shut. But he doesn't get it. I didn't do it on purpose.

“What report?” I ask. “Who says I ran into Stassi on purpose?”

The detective doesn't answer my question. Instead he says, “I understand that Stassi was doing a co-op program this year. Is that right, Kenzie?”

“She was—” Mr. Pawls begins. But he wasn't the one they asked. I was.

“She likes little kids, and she was thinking maybe she'd like to teach kindergarten,” I say. “So she was working one afternoon a week at the daycare center across the street so she could see what it was like to spend a lot of time with a bunch of rug rats.”

“Was she enjoying it?” the cop asks.

“Yeah. She was always talking about the kids and how smart they were, even when they were barely able to talk.” I smile when I think about it. “I used to walk her over there sometimes and stay for a few minutes so she could show me what she was doing.”

“When did she work there?” the cop asks.

“Every Wednesday afternoon.”

“From when to when?”

“Kenzie, I really think you should wait for Mr. Grossman,” Mr. Pawls says.

The two detectives ignore him. They're both looking at me, waiting for an answer.

“She started at one o'clock and she stayed until five,” I say. “At least, that's what she was supposed to do. But Stassi always went in early so she could tidy up while the kids were napping and so she could prepare what she was going to do with them when they woke up.”

“What time did she usually go in?”

“Twelve thirty, right after she finished her lunch.”

“She
usually
went in around twelve thirty?” the cop says, like he's trying to wrap his head around what I just told him.

“She
always
went at
exactly
twelve thirty,” I say. “You don't know Stassi. She's like my mom. She has this thing about being on time. It drives me crazy.” I stop. “I mean, it used to drive me crazy.” I'm thinking that it's never going to drive me crazy again because Stassi won't be Stassi anymore, not if what her dad said turns out to be true. My voice is quieter when I say, “She always headed over there at exactly twelve thirty.”

“Headed over? You mean, she crossed the street from the school here to the daycare center on the other side of the street?” the cop says.

“Yeah.”

“Just like she was doing on Wednesday, when you ran into her,” the cop says, only now it isn't a question.

“Yeah,” I say. I start to see what they're up to. “Yeah, just like always. I already told you that, didn't I? But I didn't run into her on purpose. Why would I do that?”

“What can you tell us about Logan McCann?” the cop asks.

Before I can answer, someone knocks on Mr. Pawls's door. It's his assistant.

“There's a Mr. Grossman here,” she says.

Mr. Grossman steps into the room, looks at the cops and tells me not to say another word.

Chapter Seven

“You've got to be kidding,” my dad says. We're sitting in the dining room— me and my dad, who came home from the office for this, and Mr. Grossman. “Assault?”

“Aggravated assault,” Mr. Grossman says.

“Based on what?”

“Based on eyewitness testimony that Kenzie swerved
toward
Stassi, and based on the fact that Kenzie and Stassi recently underwent an acrimonious breakup.” Mr. Grossman looks at me. “That means that it was a bad breakup,” he explains.

I know what acrimonious means, but I don't tell him that.

“What eyewitness?” I ask instead. “Whoever it is, they're lying.”

“I don't know yet,” Mr. Grossman says. “I don't even know if it's one eyewitness or more than one. They'll have to tell me. It's at the top of my to-do list to find out and to get a copy of any witness statements. But you're saying you didn't do it, right, Kenzie?”

“Of course he didn't do it,” my dad says. Boy, does he look mad.

Mr. Grossman doesn't look at him. “Kenzie, I need to know,” he says.

“I didn't do it,” I say. “I mean, I hit her. But it was an accident. I didn't see her.”

“Okay,” Mr. Grossman says. It's as if he believes me, just because I say so. “Okay, let's go over everything again. I want to hear about the breakup. I want to hear about that day. I want to hear everything.”

So I go over it again. I tell him all about what happened between Stassi and me. I tell him how I blew off drama that day because I didn't want to see her.

“Why not? Because you were mad at her?”

I nod, and I can see right away that he doesn't like my answer. If I was mad at her, then that might help to prove that I ran into her on purpose.

“And because I didn't want to see her with Logan again,” I say.

“Okay. So you blew off drama. And you were hurrying back to school to get to your next class, right?”

“Not exactly,” I say.

“What do you mean,
not exactly
?”

“My next class didn't start until one o'clock. I was going back because—” I hesitated.

“Because why, Kenzie?” Mr. Grossman asks.

“Because I wanted to try to catch Stassi before she went for her co-op placement.”

Mr. Grossman leans back in his chair.

“I understand that you told the police that she always gets to her placement at twelve thirty,” he says in a quiet voice.

I nod. “That's not good, right?”

“What are you talking about?” my dad says. “What's not good?”

“So you knew there was a pretty good chance she'd be crossing the street when you arrived?” Mr. Grossman says.

I could deny it, but what's the point? I nod again.

“What are you saying, Howard?” my dad demands. “Are you saying you think he did it on purpose?”

“I'm just gathering the facts,” Mr. Grossman says. He leans across the table toward me. “Kenzie, I need you to think back to when you turned that corner. I need you to think about what you saw and who you saw.”

I try, but my mind is a blank. All I can think is, what if whoever saw me is right? What if I did run into Stassi on purpose? Not that I meant to, not really. But what if it was one of those subconscious things—you know, I was mad at her and I saw her, maybe just out of the corner of my eye, and I hit her. Then I think, even if I didn't do it on purpose, what difference does it make? I did hit her. I put her in the hospital. She's never going to be the same again. And no matter how you look at it, no matter how far back you go with it, it's all because of me.

I can't sleep that whole night. It's bad enough knowing that Stassi is in the hospital and that I put her there. It's worse knowing that the police think I did it on purpose, that I
wanted
to hurt her.

I think about that day over and over. I remember racing back to school after ditching drama class. I remember turning up onto Brannigan, where my school is. I even remember registering in my brain that it's a one-way street. I didn't exactly tell the whole truth when Mr. Grossman asked me about that the first time. I knew it was a one-way street. Everyone knew it. But I didn't care. After all, I was on a bike, not in a car. If I thought about it at all, I guess I thought, how much damage could a person do with a bike?

Well, now I know.

But who talked to the police? Who said I did it on purpose?

Maybe the guy in the car, the one who had given me the finger when he saw I was going the wrong way. Yeah, maybe that's what happened. Maybe I really
did
swerve, but I did it to avoid that car. And maybe someone—maybe the driver of the car or maybe someone else—saw me swerve, and that's why they said what they did to the police.

But that doesn't make sense. For sure it rules out the driver of the car as the person who'd talked to the cops. His big gripe would have been that I was going the wrong way and that
he
could have hit
me
. If he had, he'd be in my position. He'd be feeling bad—maybe—that he'd hit some kid on a bike. Or maybe he'd be thinking that I totally deserved it for going the wrong way on a one-way street. He wouldn't have said that I steered my bike into Stassi on purpose. He was gone before it happened.

It had to be someone else.

It had to be someone who knew me. Otherwise, why would anyone think that I would do something like that on purpose?

It also had to be someone who knew Stassi. Someone who knew about the two of us and our history together. Someone who thought I had a grudge against her, a reason to want to hurt her.

That meant it had to be someone from my school.

Logan.

I'd seen him on the steps of the school just before it happened.

It had to be Logan.

He was the one who kept making plays for Stassi.

He was the one who wanted her so badly.

But he already had her. That's why I was so mad in the first place. So what did he have to gain by telling the cops that I tried to hurt her on purpose?

Unless…

Stassi must have told him that she wanted to get back together with me. I feel even worse now.

The worst part of the whole night is that I have to wait. I can't call Logan. I don't have a cell number for him, which means I'd either have to look up his home phone number and call, or I'd have to go to his place and ring the bell. Neither option will go over well with his parents at two in the morning. They won't let me see him or talk to him even if I am crazy enough to try.

I have to wait.

I hate waiting.

Chapter Eight

I get up early—too early to knock on Logan's door or phone his house on a Saturday morning. I tell my mom I'm going out. She puts down her coffee cup and sets aside her newspaper.

“Where are you going?”

“Just for a walk. To clear my head.”

She nods. She understands. My mom always understands.

“Will you be back for lunch?”

I tell her, “Definitely.”

I walk over to Logan's house, which is halfway between my house and school. There's a little park just up the street, so I hang out there until I see people start to come out of their houses to walk their dogs or wash their cars or take their kids to karate practice or whatever. I wait another fifteen minutes, and then I walk back to Logan's house and ring the doorbell.

Logan answers. He looks at me. “What are you doing on my porch?” he asks.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” I ask. “About Stassi?”

He yells back into the house that the doorbell was for him and steps out onto the porch, closing the door behind him.

“What about her?”

“You heard what happened, right?”

He gives me a weird look.

“Yeah,” he says. “I heard.”

“Are you the one who told the cops that I did it on purpose?”

“What?” His eyes pop open like I've just said the very last thing he ever expected to hear. I start to doubt myself until I remember that he's played the lead in every school play since fifth grade—and he's done tv commercials. He's an actor and—I hate to admit it— he's pretty good. “What are you talking about?” he says.

“Someone told the cops that I hit Stassi on purpose. Was it you?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because she said she wanted to get back together with me.”

“She did?” Logan says.

“She called me. She said she missed me and she wanted us to get back together.” And I, fool that I am, told her sure, under one condition. She had to drop out of the play and never let that creep Logan touch her or kiss her again. I had felt cold all over when I heard nothing but silence on the other end of the phone. I told her she could think it over. I told her she could give me her answer the next day at rehearsal. Then, before she could say anything, I hung up. I was pretty sure I'd get what I wanted. After all, she'd called me, hadn't she? She'd said she missed me, hadn't she? If she missed me that much, she would drop out of the play. I was sure of it.

I turned out to be wrong.

“So?” Logan said. “What does that have to do with me?”

What was the matter with him?

“So,” I say slowly, “maybe you got jealous.”

“Of
you
?” He snorts as if that's the most ridiculous thing he has ever heard. “Get real. Why would I be jealeous of you?”

“Because Stassi wanted to be with me, not you.”

Logan shakes his head. “Don't you get it? I don't care.”

“But you were groping her all the time.”

“Yeah, and she pushed me away— all the time,” Logan says. “She was always saying that she wanted everything to look real on stage, but when I showed her real, she freaked out and told me to stop.”

“Stop? Stop what?”

He rolls his eyes. “Kissing her. You know,
really
kissing her. Really doing anything. I don't know how you put up with her.”

“So you weren't—I mean, you didn't…?”