For Aidy, I put on my biggest voice and, for the first time in an infinite number of times I would utter this phrase in different iterations and not really mean it, I said, “I am okay.” As soon as the words fell from my lips, I draped Marley around myself like fur, a coat I planned to wear for the rest of my life. She was mine.

The old Ollie was gone.

Aidy had to help me stand. I wasn’t yet used to all the extra weight.

Uniformed bodies swarmed nearby, looking at me and then each other, using meaningful glances to decide who should ask me questions. A female officer nominated herself by pushing out of the chaos.

She greeted me with a smile made of cardboard. I looked around to see if anyone else was as offended by how fraudulent her expression was. All I saw were more flimsy smiles. Tongues pressing behind exposed teeth, biting back shock and fear, trying to trick the little girl in front of them into believing everything was okay. The lies lit up like tumors on a scan. Everything that was once dark to me was now bright, overexposed by a laser-focused beam.

“Are you hurt?” the officer asked.

A funny question. My outsides were fine. My insides were not, but not the insides that could be fixed. The insides of my insides, where all these new changes were ripping me up to build a stronger, better body. One that could carry dead girls and harbor secrets and keep the world bright and happy, all at the same time.

“I’m okay,” I said again.

She looked at the blood on my tankini. “Let’s have a medic check you out, just in case.”

As a man examined me, the woman urged me to tell her everything. It amazed me that she didn’t think I could tell she was not prepared for the death of a fellow officer’s daughter. Anyone could see the little eyebrows of sweat under her chest and the hives forming above the collar of her uniform.

“Nick and I were swimming,” I said. “Marley yelled for us. We came inside, and she had her dad’s gun. She found it somewhere. She gave it to Nick. She said it wasn’t loaded, but I guess it was. She asked him to pull the trigger. He did. I ran to get help. I don’t know where Nick went.”

“That’s it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where did you go after you got help?”

“Into the shed.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are those your footprints?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you get sick in the pool?”

“I don’t know.”

“How old are you?”

“Eleven.”