Addie is already reeling from the murder investigation when Kenzie Montgomery appears at her front door in the rain. Expecting another attack from a longtime school enemy, Addie reluctantly lets Kenzie inside. After Addie’s mother offers Kenzie a towel, Kenzie asks to speak to Addie alone, and the two sit together in the living room with obvious tension between them.

Instead of immediately taunting Addie, Kenzie apologizes for how she treated Addie during the school year. Addie is surprised because Kenzie seems exhausted, anxious, and sincere rather than smug. Even so, Addie does not trust Kenzie and waits for the real reason she came.

Kenzie then quietly says that she knows about Addie and Mr. Bennett. The statement instantly panics Addie, who realizes that if Kenzie truly knows about the affair, the secret could spread to the school and the police. Trying to protect herself, Addie denies everything, but Kenzie pushes forward and states plainly that Addie was sleeping with him.

When Addie demands to know how Kenzie knows, Kenzie explains that she saw the poem in Addie’s notebook after the cafeteria incident. Addie assumes this only proves Mr. Bennett wrote the poem for her, because she has treasured and memorized it as evidence of his love. Kenzie then delivers the chapter’s central blow: Mr. Bennett did not write the poem for Addie at all, but for Kenzie, suggesting that Addie was not unique to him and that he may have manipulated both girls in similar ways.