“What are they saying?” and “Can we believe them?” and “Who left the scene?” and “A vibrator?” and “Just a kid,” and “Blood everywhere,” and “Vomit in the pool,” and “For Chrissake, someone starting calling their parents,” and “Put out an APB for Nick Cline,” and “Now they’re saying another kid left,” and “What’s your sister’s name?”

Someone needed to rescue Aidy from questions for which she had no answers. That someone should’ve been Nick, but he was gone, so once again, that someone had to be me.

The floor was so cool. My head hurt so much. From my mouth escaped sounds that were meant to be words. The blackness of the shed swallowed their meaning, and they came out as mumbles. Now the dark was Marley’s too. She’d taken everything.

The shed’s temperamental left door fell open without complaint. Aidy carved her silhouette into the blinding light. “I found her,” she said. Before anyone else could reach me, she scooped me up and pulled me into her lap.

“Olivia, listen,” she whispered into my ear, calm as the sky before a storm. “I need you to be okay.”

All my life, Aidy had done things like give me the best seat on our couch without argument. Let me go swim at Marley’s instead of dragging me home with her like she should. She didn’t wield the power older sisters were supposed to have over tagalong siblings. I saw then it was because she feared me. She thought I was too young. Too emotional. Too irrational.

She should’ve known me better than the rest, and she didn’t. She thought the same things about me that everyone else did.

And she thought I killed her best friend, Marley.

Marley.

What would Marley Bricket do if she were me? The answer came as quick as the asking, because Marley herself was there with me in that shed. She wasn’t an apparition. Marley would never be so boring. She was the primary colors. She was every loud noise. She was stars in the sky and the wind in the trees. She was the encouraging voice behind every apprehensive lie. Marley Bricket was who she’d always been, and we were going to cover her in a sheet and cart her off to the morgue. Bury her body in the ground and mourn her there. Forget her everywhere else.

Not me.

I could carry her.

I knew I could. Our friends always underestimated me, and there I was, the one who’d be doing all the work. The one who’d make sure Marley didn’t get left behind.

So what would Marley do if she were me? She would pretend. And she would be so good at it that no one questioned her.