“I remember you,” I say. Panic flashes in me, quick as the baring of teeth. She heard I was coming back—but how? And from whom?

“You coming in?” She gestures toward the Donut Hole. “They’ve added about a million varieties in the past year. All thanks to Optimal, I guess. We’ve had something of a population boom around here, at least by Indiana standards.”

The mention of Optimal is bait—it must be. But this time she’s not the one who gets to stand on dry land and cast.

“Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, I’m coming in.”

“The jelly is still my favorite.” Her voice has softened, too. She genuinely appears happy to see me. “Do you keep in touch with any of the old group?”

I hesitate, suspecting a trap. But she doesn’t seem to notice my confusion. There is no “old group.” At least not that I was a part of. I just shake my head and follow her inside. I notice that when she yanks open the door, she makes sure to step ahead of me.

The Donut Hole is home to its namesake, the donut, as well as a truly random assortment of drugstore supplies and our historical society “museum,” a corner display with pamphlets for the taking. There’s even a small, unofficial free library in the Donut Hole—you leave one, you take one. The particular odor of artificial air freshener, musty old travel guides, and baked goods is like the barrel of a gun, shooting me into the past.

“Must be fun coming back after so long.” Misha bypasses the donut counter and heads instead for a wall of pharmaceutical products, where a handwritten sign blandly announces No Pharmacist/No Suboxone/No Sudafed Sold.

Misha picks out antacid, baby shampoo, lilac-scented body lotion, a box of Kleenex: all so normal, so domestic, and so at odds with the vicious girl who preyed on me for years.

“Fun isn’t the word I would choose.” Mistake is closer to it, especially now as I’m standing in front of Misha at the Donut Hole. “I’m here for work.”

When she doesn’t ask me what kind, I know for sure she’s heard.

“Well, I think it’s fun to have you back,” she says. Her tone is warm, but I can’t help but feel a current of anxiety. Misha’s fun was always the kind that drew blood. “Your dad must be glad to have you home after all this time. He worked on our fence for us just last summer, after that big tornado came through. Did a great job, too.”

I don’t want to talk about my dad. I definitely don’t want to talk about my dad with Misha. I clear my throat. “So you married Jonah Jennings?” I ask, with a kind of politeness I hope she’ll interpret, correctly, as fake.

Misha only laughs. “His brother, Peter.”

The new Misha is unpredictable. It’s as if the rules to the past have been rewritten, and I’m still learning the game. All I know of Peter Jennings is something I saw in the Tribune, a year or two into college—that he’d been arrested for dealing heroin.