“Her bare feet land with light thuds like rain on stones.”

“A death is traumatic. Vivid enough to mark any surface, to burn in like light on photo paper.”

“Mom may be able to power a city, but Dad barely stays lit.”

“Agatha has a dangerous ease about her. She’s the kind of person you want to like you.”

“M. That’s what I call her, this normal, nonexistent me. It’s not that I’ve never done those things, kissed or danced or just “hung out.” I have. But it was put-on, a character, a lie. I am so good at it—lying—but I can’t lie to myself. I can pretend to be M; I can wear her like a mask. But I can’t be her. I’ll never be her.”

“I just want to know if you’re okay,” he says, so soft I barely hear it through the static. I’m not, not at all; but his worry gives me the strength I need to lie. To pull back and smile and tell him I’m fine.”

“You, Mackenzie Bishop,” he says as we hit the landing, “have been a very bad girl.” “How so?” He rounds the banister at the base of the staircase. “You involved me in a lie! Don’t think I didn’t catch it.”