Page 93 of The Teacher
She swipes at her eyes with the back of her hand. “Because you know I’m on your side, but I can’t help you if I don’t know what happened.”
I open my mouth, but I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to say. But anything I might’ve said gets interrupted when the doorbell rings.
Oh no. I bet it’s Detective Sprague. I bet she’s here to arrest me or something.
“I’ll get it,” I say.
I hurry over to the front door, and I open it up without checking who is outside. But when I see who is standing there, my mouth falls open. Of all the people I would have imagined might be at my door, this is the last person I expected to see there.
It’s Kenzie Montgomery.
Chapter Seventy-Three
ADDIE
Kenzie Montgomery.
Great.
It’s not enough that the police are investigating me for murder. Now my worst enemy from school has shown up at my front door, presumably to torment me. This day just keeps getting better and better.
Kenzie is wearing a white coat that I’ve seen her in before, but now it is drenched by what is becoming fairly heavy rain. Her blond hair is plastered to her scalp, and her cheeks are bright pink. It’s literally the worst I’ve ever seen her look.
“What are you doing here?” I say in a voice that is decidedly irritable.
Kenzie reaches out to wipe a few soggy strands of hair from her face. “I need to talk to you. Can I please come in?”
Part of me is tempted to tell her no. She is the last person I want to deal with right now. But there issomething in her blue eyes that keeps me from slamming the door in her face. So I nod and step aside to let her in.
Kenzie is dripping wet. A little puddle forms beneath her in our foyer, and I’m hesitant to invite her further inside. My mother quietly goes over to our hall closet and pulls out a towel, which she brings to Kenzie.
“I’m Addie’s mom,” she says. “How can I help you?”
Kenzie looks between me and my mother. She reaches out and gnaws on her thumbnail, which is a bad habit I’m shocked she would have, but now for the first time, I notice that all her fingernails are chewed to bits.
“Can I talk to you alone, Addie?” she says. “Please?”
I look over at my mother. She seems reluctant to leave, but finally, she nods and heads up the stairs. There’s, like, a fifty-fifty chance she’s going to be listening at the top of the stairs, but there’s not much I can do about that. The walls in this house are thin anyway.
Once my mother is out of sight, Kenzie and I go into the living room and sit down on the couch. I sit at one end, and she sits all the way at the other end. I don’t trust Kenzie. She has put me through hell this semester. I can only imagine she’s here to mess with me some more, and I am really, really not in the mood.
“What is it?” I say.
“Look.” Kenzie flips a few wet strands of her hair behind one shoulder. “I want to apologize for everything I did to you this year. I was a bitch, and I’m sorry.”
That’s not what I expected her to say at all. Why is she apologizing? And why now?
And yet there’s something in her face that looks like she means it. She doesn’t have her usual smirk. There are purple circles under her pretty eyes, and one of hernails is bitten so badly, a drop of blood is oozing from the cuticle.
“Okay…” I’m still not sure I trust her, but I’m not going to throw her apology in her face. “Fine.”
“Also…” She lowers her voice several notches and glances up the stairs, making sure my mother isn’t listening. “I just wanted to tell you that…I know.”
My stomach does a little flip. “Know what?”
“I know…about you and Mr. Bennett.”
Oh no. Of all the people who could find out, she isthe worst possible person. If Kenzie knows, soon the whole school will know. And of course, the police. It will be horrible. There’s only one thing to do.
