Chapter 6
Kenzie:
After seeing Maddie, mom and I went to the store to get stuff for the surprise party we're throwing for her. It's been two days since Maddie's accident, two days since my horrible crime.
I refuse to think about it. Maybe I'll forget, maybe it'll just fade away. Yet deep in my mind I know that the guilt will always be with me. This is why I grab a pack of floral stationary as we head to the check-out. I tell mom that it's for writing to my cousins in Switzerland.
Which isn't a complete lie. I'll probably send off a letter to them. But this is mostly for Maddie. I need to get it off my chest. I need to tell her what I did. I know she'll probably be furious, but Maddie is one of those people who are terrors when angry but forgive you easily enough.
And she deserves to know. I almos wish that someone had seen me poking her tires, I serve punishment but I can't bring myself to admit to Maddie how jealous I am of her, how I purposely tryied to hurt her for my own selfish good.
Well, I have no choice, do I? The car ride home is silent and I can practicallyy feel the tension and stress in the air. On top of Maddie's injury, Ms. Abby also announced at dance yesterday that she would be making a new team of her most talented dancers. There would be a dance-off to choose the lucky girls.
As if performing in front of the seven elites isn't stressful enough, we also have to go up against the rest of the ALDC, including-gulp-the Rising Stars competition team. The Rising Stars is a relatively new group that Ms. Abby chose just to fluster us and make us have to work harder to beat them.
Mom is so busy with taking care of Maddie and shelling out thousands for special treatments that will apparently restore the nerves to Maddie's lower body, she barely finds time to talk to me at all. I guess everything's perfectly normal. Everybody is once again paying attention to my sister.
At home, mom fixes me a snack and goes to her office to make phone calls. I decide tat it's time to write my letter. The sooner the better, I guess, better for Maddie to learn the truth from me than to assume a false story that may actually be worse than the truth. Nobody else should be blamed for what I did.
And believe it or not, I feel terrible. So I sit down at my desk in the room I once shared with Maddie, trying not to look at the bulletin boards stuck with pictures of Maddie and I, the place on the wall where we marked our heights every birthday. And I write.