"Coolidge, you want to race?"

The driver revved his engine. Ryan just made a face and shook his head.

"Come on," the older boy said. "It's a fair race. A six-cylinder Mustang against you on your bike. You can whoop us. Just pretend the cops are chasing you."

The teenagers in the car roared with laughter. The light hadn't turned green yet, but Ryan couldn't take it anymore. He came down on the pedals with all his weight and sped through the red light. A truck screeched to a halt in the intersection, the driver lying on his horn. But Ryan didn't care. He had to get away from his house, from Mrs. Hernandez, from Teddy Armstrong and his father. From everybody.

Ryan was gaining speed, pedaling harder, flying down the street. His mind was racing even faster. It bugged him to no end when people said he was like his father, and no one said it more often than his own mother. To make things worse, she would always follow up by saying, "And you know Ryan, your father loves you very much." That, in turn, would lead to a conversation that Ryan could have repeated in his sleep, he'd had it so many times.

"If he loves me, then why does he lie to me?"

"Your father doesn't lie to you."

"Yes, he does. Every time I go to see him, he tells me that he's innocent."

"He's not lying."

"But he's in jail."

"Just because your father's in jail doesn't mean he did anything wrong. Sometimes innocent people end up in jail. It happens."

"But he told the judge he did it. And now he wants me to believe he was innocent? Why would he have confessed if he didn't do anything wrong?"