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and abiding suspicions that her parents couldn’t quite put their finger on why it was they were supposed to stay.
    And no matter how this conversation ended, no matter what she said, Claire knew that she wouldn’t be able to give them a reason.
    “I guess I’ll go swimming.”
    If her mother noticed the low and broken tone inClaire’s voice, she certainly didn’t give any verbal indication of it. “I think that’s a very good idea.”
    This is probably the closest I’ll ever come to making her happy
, Claire thought.
And nearly getting myself killed by what she’s sure is my imaginary boyfriend actually made her frown
.
    Sometimes, trying to make people see her felt like attempting to dent solid steel by kicking it with her bare foot. At the end of the day, the steel was steel, and her toes were broken or bruised. Flushed down the drain, like unwanted eggs.
    “I’ll go put on my bathing suit.”
    And just like that, Claire was back to routine. The house may as well have been empty. She may as well have been alone. And if she got picked off on the way to the pool, if she wasn’t crazy, and the police and her parents and everyone who counted were wrong about everything …
    What did it really matter?
    Situation: What would happen if an assassin came to kill you—and you
let
him?
    Claire picked up her bathing suit—the white one that she’d left on the floor for the past three days, a constant reminder of what had happened—and walked to the bathroom with it crushed in one hand.
    I guess my routine
has
changed
, she thought. Before, she’d always gotten dressed in her room.
    Tears sprang to Claire’s eyes, and she fought them.Given her current situation—her parents, the police, the boy who wanted to kill her—it was ridiculous to break down just because she was changing clothes in the bathroom.
    She squeezed her eyelids tightly together, but it didn’t help. Tears trickled out the sides, and she bit down on the inside of her lips, trying to keep the rest of the downpour in.
    Someone tried to kill me, and I’m going swimming. I’m going swimming, because it doesn’t matter. I’m going swimming, because I don’t matter. I’m going swimming, because that’s what Claires do. We swim and we daydream and we read and we wait for someone to care, and they never, ever, ever do
.
    Her teeth lost their grip on her lips, and once freed, her lips trembled. Bathing suit still in hand, Claire slammed her fist onto the bathroom counter. And then she slammed it down again. And again.
    She tried so hard not to get upset. She tried so hard to find the fun, to be happy, to be sweet. To not ask for things. To not make a nuisance of herself. She tried so hard to build her own little world and love it and not mind so much that the rest of the world left hers alone.
    Does your daughter have an overactive imagination?
    Claire glared at the mirror, the policeman’s question echoing in her mind. “Yes. Yes, she does. She has to. Don’t you understand that? She has—I have to!”
    This was why Claire didn’t wallow for more than twominutes a year. It was so much lonelier this way. So much harder to believe that it would ever change.
    Somewhere out there, there’s a boy. He looked at me. He saw me. And sooner or later, he’s going to kill me
.
    Mechanically, Claire began undressing, her body still shaking with the whirlwind of emotions she spent her life holding back.
    She put on her swimsuit.
    She reached down and did the clasp.
    And then, tears still streaming down her face, she put on her oversized sunglasses, layered a worn yellow sundress over her swimsuit, and walked down the hallway and out the front door without telling either of her parents good-bye.

    She’s coming out her front door. She’s closing it behind her. She’s walking down the sidewalk. She’s turning away from the unmarked van
.
    Nix catalogued Claire’s movements in simple, mechanical terms, but even from nearly a block away, he couldn’t