“Sure, she hadn’t seen her friends all together in weeks, and maybe this would be fun. But she had work waiting for her at home, and fun, after all, was just a waste of time. Still, she could pretend well enough, and pretending wasn’t lying.”

This quote illustrates Pip’s personality: high achieving, no-nonsense, and with little time for superfluity. Pip views “fun” as being a waste of time when there are bigger tasks at hand. Pip has a keen sense of right and wrong, as evidenced by her desire to “pretend” to have fun, which she believes is distinct from lying. These attributes establish her as a trustworthy and reliable character through which to view the evening’s events.

“It was almost like Fairview itself was defined by the murder of Andie Bell, both names usually uttered in the same breath, inextricable from the other. Pip sometimes forgot how un-normal it was to have such a terrible thing so close to their lives, some closer than others.”

The murder-mystery role-playing game reminds the teens that they live in Fairview, where a murder took place five years previously. For Pip and her friends, these murders shape their experience living in Fairview, which cannot extricate itself from the events of the past. This reflects The Lasting Impacts of Traumatic Events.

“That was how Pip had known him, and he’d always been so kind to her. She didn’t want to believe it. But, as they said, open and shut. He did it. So he must have.”

Pip recalls knowing Sal Singh, who was friends with her best friend’s older sister. In Pip’s memory of Sal, she emphasizes how kind and funny he was, with her limited interactions shaping her perspective on the outcome of Andie Bell’s case. The latter part of this quote alludes to Pip’s true feelings about Sal’s presumed guilt—the accepted truth is that he did it, so that condemns him, rather than any concrete evidence.