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The next text, and the pictures attached to it, rade, as if it had been styled and lighted Dara is sitting on a red sofa in a room almost barren of furniture There’s an AC unit in one corner, and a , although it’s so coated in gri but her underwear; her arms are stiff by her sides, so that her breasts, and the small dark spots of her nipples, are center fra to the left of the camera and her head is tilted, like it often is when she’s listening I i behind the ca instructions to her

Put your arot

The next picture is a close-up: only her torso is visible She’s tilting her head back, eyes half-closed, sweat da her neck and clavicle

Both pictures were sent fronize, an East Norwalk phone number, on March 26

The day before the accident I have the feeling of finally hitting ground after a long fall The breath goes out of me and yet, weirdly, I feel a sense of relief, of finally touching solid earth, of knowing

This is it: somehow, in these pictures, the mystery of the accident is contained, and the explanation for Dara’s subsequent behavior, for the silences and disappearances

Don’t ask uess you’ve never had a sister

MARCH 2

Dara’s Diary Entry

Everyone’s always accusingto be the center of attention

But you knohat? Sometimes I wish I could just disappear

I reot ift from Mamu I told her it was an accident, but it really wasn’t I’ll ad surprise there, right? Nick was always the favorite

Afterward I felt bad, though Really bad I remember I ran away and hid in Parker’s tree house with a plan to live up there forever Of course I got hungry after an hour or so and caood it felt to see Moht, callingabout disappearing: the part where people look for you and beg you to come home