Summary

In Chapter 1, in August, Alex was at the beach. She swam “beyond the break” (3), and studied the landscape from afar. She noticed the people around her, wondering what they would see “if they looked” at her (3). She guessed she looked like everyone else.

The first time she had come here, Simon had taken her. She had been surprised that everyone left their shoes unattended. He had said no one would take them.

Before coming to the water, Alex had taken “one of Simon’s painkillers” (4). Being in the water made her feel like a better person. She had time to kill before Simon’s party later. They had left the city for Long Island roughly two weeks prior. Alex tried focusing on her new reality, ignoring “Dom’s increasingly unhinged texts” and her life back in the city (5). She could pretend it “no...