From chapter one:

Cassandra Tanner—Day One of My Return

We believe what we want to believe. We believe what we need to believe. Maybe there's no difference between wanting and needing. I don't know. What I do know is that the truth can evade us, hiding behind our blind spots, our preconceptions, our hungry hearts that long for quiet. Still, it is always there if we open our eyes and try to see it. If we really try to see.

When my sister and I disappeared three years ago, there was nothing but blindness.

They found Emma's car at the beach. They found her purse inside, on the driver's seat. They found the keys in the purse. They found her shoes in the surf. Some people believed she had gone there to find a party or meet a friend who never showed. They believed that she'd gone for a swim. They believed that she'd drowned. Maybe by accident. Maybe a suicide.

Everyone believed Emma was dead.

As for me, well'”it was not as simple as that.

I was fifteen when I disappeared. Emma would never have taken me to the beach with her when I was fifteen. She was a senior in high school and I was a nuisance. My purse was in the kitchen. Nothing of mine was found at the beach. None of my clothes were even missing from the house, according to my mother. And mothers know things like that. Don't they?