Violet is a nice girl, the cutest one you’ll ever see in Indiana. You found her a couple weeks ago, standing on a ledge, ready to do something stupid. You saved her that day.

Since then, you two had been together. You loved each other, and she loved you back, but it hasn’t been easy. Lately it’s been harder. You disappeared, and she had no idea where you were—until she remembered. The lake.

She doesn’t go for her parents, or for your dad, or for Kate or Decca. She goes for herself. Maybe because she knows, somehow, what she’ll find. And maybe because she knows that whatever she finds will, in some way, be her fault. After all, it was her who pushed you out of your closet when she told her parents, betraying the trust you gave her. You never would have left if it hadn’t been for her. And yet, she tells herself, you would have wanted her to be the one to come.

She calls her parents, says she’ll be home later, then hangs up before they can stop her. She drives fast, faster than she ever has, remembering the way without a map. She doesn’t turn on the radio. She doesn’t even think. It’s as if someone else is driving her.

When she arrives, the first thing she sees is Little Bastard, parked crooked at the edge of the road. She pulls up behind it and just sits there, hand on the ignition. She could drive away now. If she leaves, Theodore Finch is still somewhere in the world, living, even if it’s not with her.

But she doesn’t drive away.

The sun is too warm for April in Indiana, and the sky is too blue. She leaves her jacket behind and walks past the NO TRESPASSING signs, down the hill, toward the round pool of water ringed by trees. The water is so blue it reminds her of your eyes. For a moment, the place is so still she almost convinces herself nothing’s wrong.

Then she sees them.

Your clothes. Folded neatly on the bank—collared shirt, jeans, leather jacket, black boots. A greatest hits of your closet, stacked like they’re waiting for someone to come back. For a long time, she can’t move, because standing there like that means you’re still somewhere. Then she kneels beside them, lays her hand on the pile, searching for you in the warmth of the fabric. She finds your phone, dead. Your glasses and keys in the boot. The map tucked into your jacket. Without thinking, she puts it in her bag.

“Marco,” she whispers.

Then louder: “Marco.”

She strips off her coat and shoes, sets her phone and keys beside your things, and climbs onto the rock ledge. The water steals her breath when she dives in—it’s shockingly cold. She swims in frantic circles, gasping for air before diving again, plunging as deep as she can. Each time she goes under, the light fades quicker, the darkness of the water pressing in, until she can’t hold her breath anymore.

She dives again. And again. Searching for you.

But no matter how many times she surfaces, gulps air, and forces herself back down, she knows. At some point, she just knows.

You’re gone.

Not somewhere. Nowhere.