One Way by Norah McClintock Read Free Book Online

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.
    â€œWhere are you going?”
    â€œJust for a walk. To clear my head.”
    She nods. She understands. My mom always understands.
    â€œWill 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.
    â€œCan 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.
    â€œWhat about her?”
    â€œYou heard what happened, right?”
    He gives me a weird look.
    â€œYeah,” he says. “I heard.”
    â€œAre you the one who told the cops that I did it on purpose?”
    â€œWhat?” 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.
    â€œSomeone told the cops that I hit Stassi on purpose. Was it you?”
    â€œWhy would I do that?”
    â€œBecause she said she wanted to get back together with me.”
    â€œShe did?” Logan says.
    â€œShe 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.
    â€œSo?” Logan said. “What does that have to do with me?”
    What was the matter with him?
    â€œSo,” I say slowly, “maybe you got jealous.”
    â€œOf you ?” He snorts as if that’s the most ridiculous thing he has ever heard. “Get real. Why would I be jealeous of you?”
    â€œBecause Stassi wanted to be with me, not you.”
    Logan shakes his head. “Don’t you get it? I don’t care.”
    â€œBut you were groping her all the time.”
    â€œYeah, 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.”
    â€œStop? 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.”
    â€œSo you weren’t—I mean, you didn’t…?”
    â€œI didn’t care what she did,” Logan says. “Why should I? So if you turned her into a vegetable because you thought she and I were getting it on, you’re even more of an idiot than I thought.” And there is that smirk