“No, I show them what it would be like to lose your child forever. But their forever only lasts a few minutes. I wasn’t going to leave the center.”

I don’t believe her, because she looked genuinely terrified when she saw me. I caught her doing something she shouldn’t be, and she knows it. So why is she still lying?

As if she can read my mind, she says, “I’m telling the truth. I swear it.”

She touches the chalk on the head-start line, and I think of the first time I brought her here. She was a different girl, then, to me, at least. I want to believe her, but I can’t. You can only see so many warning signs before you have to accept that there’s danger.

“What about the coat?”

She shakes her head. “It gives me more time. If parents find their child too soon, they aren’t relieved, they’re just angry. For it to work, panic needs to set in. That’s why I change what they look like.”

“That’s fucked up.”

Amy closes her eyes and says, “Maybe. But they won’t turn their back again. I haven’t been completely honest with you, and I’m sorry for that. But you have to believe me. Please, Tom. I was just…trying to make a difference.” She reaches for my hand, and I don’t pull away. I know I should, but I like how it feels, even when my head is all over the place.

“Will you stop?”

Amy doesn’t reply for a long time, and, when she does, she says, “I’ll try.”

50

The message is short and scary.

Dinner at mine. Tomorrow at six. Please come. Amy x

Do her parents know what she does? Will they call it other names or nothing at all, like Mum does with me? Or is it another secret Amy’s keeping from everyone?

I think back to the night I took her home after the Sensorium party and how weird her parents were. Do I really want another evening like that, this time trapped at a dinner table?

But, the truth is, this is what I’ve always wanted—an invite into the one place that can prove me wrong or confirm my fears.

Maybe Amy is all the things I thought her parents were. Perhaps she’s the one to be scared of and they’re just ordinary. But, either way, I can’t say no to her, so I respond with an okay.