“Nick,” Aidy repeated, and his name once again became more story than title, the details of which unfolded in flashes of memories. Our neighbor Nick, the boy with a face so precious grown women couldn’t help but pinch it. Little Nicky Cline, the boy in my day care. The boy in my homeroom. The boy knocking on the door to ask if Ollie could come outside to play. The boy standing next to me in every photo from the first eleven years of my life. The boy who disappeared without an apology.

Nick Cline, the boy who killed Marley.

By accident, of course.

But terrible. So terrible.

“He showed up to the memorial. And I said hi. And, yeah,” I started.

“So you said hi and that was all that needed to be said to hold his hand and run off to Cadence Park together?”

“No.”

“But you did it anyway?”

“Obviously.”

“Olivia, I really don’t understand.”

“That makes two of us.”

“After all this time, he gets away with it because he’s cute?”

“What? Ew. No. Why would you say something like that?”

“There is no person on this planet who has hurt you more than him.”

“That’s not true.”

“Name one.”

“It isn’t about naming people. It’s about a misunderstanding.”

“Misunderstanding? What could be misunderstood about Nick pressing a gun into Marley’s gut, shooting her in front of you, and running away?”

I couldn’t get away from Aidy fast enough. Her contempt for what she didn’t understand. Her lack of empathy. She did not see Marley die. She did not know the way Marley coerced Nick and me into obeying her. She did not know what I knew.

“Olivia, wait,” Aidy called out, chasing after me. “Is there something I don’t know?”

Everything, I thought.

When I didn’t answer, Aidy fumbled for words. “About that day. Was it…did…did Marley…know…” I didn’t dare fill in that blank. Instead, I raised my eyebrows at her the way Dad had at me earlier in the day. She gritted her teeth and pressed on. “Did Marley know the gun was loaded?”

“Don’t be gross, Aidy.”

“Olivia, there’s letters. A box that maybe has her stuff. Tell me that doesn’t look like suicide.”

“Okay, I will. It doesn’t look like suicide. Thank you. Goodbye.”

“Come on. At least tell me how you even knew to find this stuff.”

It was going to be hard work to keep her off the scent of what had really happened, so I decided to share a different truth. “I remembered something Marley said about the Adventure.”

“That’s not even possible. She never told any of us about it. You’d be the last person she’d ever give information to.” Aidy always chose the worst times to belittle me, knowing the exact buttons to push to make me hot with rage.