There was time, of course, to maybe visit the inside of David’s tent for a while, and she was feeling optimistic when he went in that direction, but he reached in and grabbed a shirt.

“I let you know as soon as I saw them drive away,” he said. “I was watching out for you.”

Which was really good and focused of him, and only a little disappointing in terms of the moment.

“Good,” she said, nodding. “Good, yeah . . .”

They began the walk around the lake, which again was riddled with opportunities to stop for a little light making out, but David was strangely quiet and seemed pensive. He did reach over and take her hand for a good part of the walk, which was very sweet, and also kind of weird. Something was up.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said, looking at her with his slow smile. “Fine.”

By the time they reached Arrowhead Point, she had turned her mind back to the matter at hand a bit. It was sobering to be here, at this beautiful spot that Allison had showed her.

“Wow,” David said, standing beside her. “It’s a good view.”

He made his way to the edge more quickly than Stevie liked.

“You could fall here really easily,” he said. “If she was distracted or something.”

Stevie began taking slow, measured steps forward toward the edge. Where would Allison have stopped? At the safest spot with the best view, most likely. Don’t just look at it—see it. What did she see? A dark jag of rock, a bit of a slope, but it was gentle. Stevie squatted down and opened her water bottle, letting a trickle of water flow out and down the point. It made a slow, meandering path. It picked up a bit of speed at a point about halfway in, where the ledge had a small dip and really started to tip down. Stevie got down on her stomach and pressed herself along, like a snake, until she could peek over the edge. It was a straight drop onto the rocks below, then a bit of path and some trees, and about ten feet out to the lake edge. There was no sign of the body or what had happened there, but she shivered nonetheless.

It was a bad way to die.

She scooted back, only standing when she felt grass against her ankles. She joined David, who was sitting on the ground.

“So what are you thinking?” David asked.

Stevie brushed at a dark muddy stain that had gotten on the front of her white shirt.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I know that depression isn’t something you can always see and you can’t always tell if someone is in crisis, but I don’t think she went over the edge on purpose. The people below described her tumbling over the edge, screaming.”

“Then she tripped. It would be super easy to do. You’re running. You’re tired. You’re distracted and looking around, and you trip and go over the edge.”