"Tell me again about that night?" The officer in a grey suit asks Blair Hawthorn. They sit in an empty classroom during the lunch break.
"I told you I was just on a walk, I wasn't far from home. It was light outside when I left and I didn't notice the sun go down. I was walking back to my house when I heard the car coming behind me, I turned around and saw a black car."
"What kind of car?"
"A black one, I don't know, it was small. just a normal car."
"Just a normal car? Completely normal?"
Blair fidgets in her seat, it's unnerving to be in a classroom with no students in it, no one walking the halls. It's quiet. "Well normal except- for the windows."
"Ah, the tinted windows."
"Yes, I couldn't see the driver. I looked but I didn't see them. Is that what you wanted to hear me say again? The windows were tinted. I did not see the driver."
"And when the driver hit Donna Wilson?"
"I didn't see her. I doubt the driver could either. Suddenly she was just there and rolling over the car." Blair gets a glassy look in her eyes.
"You're advocating for the driver, so you think it was an accident?"
"I like to believe the best in people."
"So you think no one would have hit Donna on purpose?"
"I'm just saying I think it was an accident."
"You also said the driver didn't slow down or stop, would an innocent person do that?"
"I know people aren't always at there best even if I wish they were. They could have been scared, or drunk, or completely oblivious. I don't know." She says the last sentence as though she is tired of saying it, and she is.
"Why do you think they didn't stop?" The officer asks Blair. She feels powerful standing over the little red head and she feels like she is getting somewhere now. The investigation has been tedious but this little one gives her hope.
"I think they were scared. I know I was."
Little Blair put herself in the shoes of the driver, common for empathetics... and accomplices.
"That will be all for now Blair."
For now. Blair clutches her books to her chest as she reenters the cafeteria. She can't help making eye contact with Bronwyn, the brunette is staring at her. If Blair didn't know the multitudes of emotion that could set off that stare she would have been worried. But Bronwyn won't blame her, Blair is sure of it, malice does not compel this stare.
"Bronwyn Gilmore." Her name snaps her out of her stare. Blair had long past walked by, she was staring out at the soccer field. Her math teacher stands at her table. He smiles and hands her an opened envelope. "This just came in, you won the scholarship."
She sits up straighter. "You're kidding me!"
"Cross my heart." He says with his boyish smile, just out of grad school. Donna had had a crush on him.
"Thank you! Thank you, thank you!"
"No need, you won this all by yourself. Congrats."
Jo doesn't speak until the teacher is gone. "Good job B." She lowers her voice, "wasn't the other contestant..."
"Yeah." Jo says with her eyes on the creme envelope.
Up until that fateful night Jo and B hadn't spoken much, Bronwyn had been studying for the math test and was increasingly absent in Jo's life. Jo only forgave her after they spent a night in the dark in the middle of the street answering the cops questions. They got a ride home together and sat on Bronwyn's porch. They told each other their side of the story both curious about what the other knew.
Bronwyn went first, "I was just walking to the drug store. I saw you in the cafe and I'm sorry but I wasn't going to stop. I saw Donna too, although I didn't know it was her. And I understand how she didn't hear the car, or see the headlights, even those really bright kind. I didn't notice it, I was too busy looking at you, and that dreamy guy in the cafe, and then Donna. She didn't stop to look for traffic, who doesn't do that? She was in the shadow at the corner of the cafe, and then she lit up in those headlights, she was hit, she was laying on the blacktop and you came running out."
"That car didn't hesitate, it was so freaky." Jo said slipping back into that trance.
"What did you see?" Bronwyn asked quietly, hesitantly.
"Just the light from the cafe on the car, like it was yellow, but I know it was black. And Donna tumbling through the air." Jo looked up at Bronwyn at the mention of her friend. "I thought she might have been dead, the way she was hit so fast, and the driver didn't even swerve or anything, straight on. That's not something you can plan, it was an accident."
"Me too." Bronwyn quickly agreed.
"Marshal."
"Huh?"
"The dreamy guy in the cafe. He's funny, And he's in your english class dummy."
Bronwyn still can't smile, but she knew she had Jo back.
