Content Warning: This section describes and discusses the source text’s treatment of death, murder, and sexual violence.

“‘Girls.’ I look up at the detective in front of us, hands on his hips. I don’t like the way he says that—Girls—like we’re children being scolded. Some words should be ours to own, at-times-vicious yet tender terms of endearment we toss around like glitter that suddenly taste sour in the mouths of men. Girls is one of them.”

This passage characterizes both Detective Frank and Margot. It shows how he views the women with little respect, using a diminutive term, “girls,” to refer to them, and it shows Margot’s distaste for this kind of sexism, broadening his term to acknowledge how men in general tend to disrespect or look down on women.

“She was the only one who never covered up before stepping back out. While the rest of us swathed ourselves in towel wraps or monogrammed bathrobes, self-consciously gripping the gap before ripping back the curtain and flip-flopping past the stalls in our shower shoes, she would just step out naked, brazen and beautiful, like she owned the place. And in a lot of ways, she did.”

Lucy’s bold behavior, which Margot admires, reflects the charisma and energy Lucy brought to Rutledge. The idea of asserting ownership is a quality that Margot envies, and this passage shows how Margot wishes she had the self-confidence to act the way Lucy does.

“Eliza, my best friend since kindergarten who asked me to sleep over the first day we met. Eliza, who dipped her finger in sunscreen and drew broken hearts on our hips so when we lay out in the sun and our skin turned tan, we could push our stomachs together and make them whole. Eliza, who pierced my ears in her closet and taught me how to dive; who blasted oldies in her parents’ convertible with the top dropped down the day she got her license, pushing eighty on abandoned back roads and letting her hair tangle in the wind.”

Margot’s fond memories of Eliza match her descriptions of Lucy. She sees both Eliza and Lucy as charismatic women whom she wants to emulate. The sudden beginning of both friendships is another similarity.