Rivera Garza and her companion walk from office to office in Mexico City seeking Liliana's missing murder case file.

Rivera Garza resolves to recreate her sister's case herself, replacing the failed institutional archive with her own records.

Liliana meets Ángel Gonzalez Ramos at a gym she joined to build strength for swimming, and they begin dating.

Liliana passes the UAM entrance exam and moves to Mexico City to begin her architecture studies.

Rivera Garza tells her parents during a winter holiday walk that she is working to reopen Liliana's murder case.

The family sets Liliana's photograph on the table and speaks about her in complete sentences for the first time in decades.

Rivera Garza visits her sister's former apartment at Mimosas 658 and asks the current owner if he knows what happened there.

Rivera Garza walks the UAM campus where Liliana studied and decides to establish a memorial for victims of gendered violence.

Leticia Hernández Garza recalls that Ángel's violence escalated after Liliana moved to Mexico City and her world expanded beyond his control.

Rivera Garza reveals through her research that Liliana became pregnant by Ángel and went alone to obtain an illegal abortion.

Liliana definitively ends her relationship with Ángel and writes in her notebook of her faith in herself and her future.

Ángel Gonzalez Ramos breaks into Liliana's apartment in the early morning and strangles her.

Manolo arrives the next morning to find Liliana dead; neighbors and police identify Ángel as the primary suspect.

Rivera Garza receives a visit from the Mexican consulate informing her of her sister's murder.

Rivera Garza returns to swimming and feels her sister's presence in the water, finally reconnecting with Liliana.

Cristina Rivera Garza begins her quest by walking through Mexico City's bureaucratic offices searching for her sister's dormant murder case file, only to conclude she must reconstruct the case herself. Through her research, the memoir traces Liliana's life from meeting her future killer as a teenager to her new life as an architecture student in Mexico City, where Ángel's violence escalated as her world expanded. Rivera Garza also reconstructs the present-day strand of her activism, from telling her parents she is reopening the case to visiting the apartment where Liliana died. The memoir reveals the most devastating turning points in Liliana's final months, including her secret abortion and her definitive break from Ángel, which placed her in mortal danger. Ángel's murder of Liliana and the shock that followed — Rivera Garza learning the news from the consulate — form the memoir's emotional core. The narrative ultimately resolves not through legal justice but through Rivera Garza's personal reunion with her sister in the water, where she finds her again.

The headline events of Liliana's life, murder, and her sister's search for justice.

Rivera Garza and Sorias pass a poster memorializing Lesvy Berlin Rivera Osorio, a student killed by her boyfriend in 2017.

Rivera Garza hires an attorney to assist in gaining access to her sister's long-dormant case file.

Rivera Garza visits Liliana's grave with her parents, who tend to the site with careful, loving devotion.

Ángel sends Liliana a Valentine's Day card with only the Spanish word for 'I' written inside.

Ángel fails the UAM entrance exam and tells Liliana he plans to travel to the United States.

Liliana's father writes from Sweden with birthday wishes, describing the moment of her birth as a beautiful memory.

Rivera Garza completes the manuscript for her first book, which Liliana helped shape and within whose pages she lives on.

Laura Rosales and Liliana cast their first votes together and later protest in the streets when electoral fraud crushes their hopes.

Laura notices Liliana arriving at class with a visible injury and later learns that Ángel physically prevents her from ending the relationship.

Norma Xavier Quintana recalls Liliana describing her and Ana Ocadiz's shared plan to study together in England after graduation.

Liliana gives Norma a slip of paper bearing the Albert Camus quote about an invincible summer after Norma's boyfriend leaves her.

Leonardo Jasso accompanies Liliana home, encounters Ángel outside her building, and understands for the first time that she is not free.

A newspaper identifies Ángel as Liliana's murderer in the days after her death, but he has already fled and is never apprehended.

Liliana's parents arrive home from a trip abroad and must be told of their daughter's murder.

Liliana's father states resolutely that his daughter's freedom was not the problem — violent men were.

Pool 2 follows the secondary threads that flesh out Liliana's world and the failures surrounding her death, beginning with Rivera Garza's early encounters with Mexico's systemic indifference as she navigates the city searching for her sister's file. The pool traces Ángel's early controlling behaviour through archival evidence — his possessive Valentine's card, his failure to follow Liliana to university, and the concerned letters her father sent from abroad — establishing a paper trail of warning signs that went unread. Oral histories from Liliana's university friends illuminate the freedom and joy of her student years alongside the persistent shadow of Ángel's jealousy and abuse, with friends recalling her voting for the first time, her injuries, and her dreams of studying in England. The symbolic gesture of Liliana giving a grieving friend the Camus quote that would later title the memoir captures her compassion and courage in the face of private suffering. The aftermath of Liliana's murder is explored through the press coverage that identified Ángel too late and the shattering moment her parents arrived home to learn the news. The pool closes with her father's resolute declaration that his daughter's freedom was never the problem — a statement that stands as the family's definitive act of resistance against victim blaming.

The witnesses, documents, and family voices that fill in Liliana's story.

An archivist at the cold case office warns Rivera Garza that records do not last forever and the file may be gone.

Rivera Garza applies the Danger Assessment tool to Liliana's preserved archive, searching for evidence of the rising threat to her life.

Rivera Garza recalls her most significant argument with Liliana, when Liliana rebuked her sharply for not knowing how to love.

Ángel's apologetic letter to Liliana admits his infidelity with a woman he refuses to name properly, revealing his contempt for her.

Liliana writes to Ángel contrasting his vehement attention with his betrayal, declaring his conduct unexpected and the relationship over.

Liliana's father writes expressing fatherly worry about the unknown people his daughter is encountering in Mexico City.

Ana Ocadiz recalls sharing unrestrained laughter with Liliana and tells Rivera Garza that Liliana was the name she gave to freedom.

Raúl Espino Madrigal spends a platonic night talking and sleeping beside Liliana, but she is emotionally withdrawn when he wakes.

Cousin Emilio Hernández Garza witnesses Ángel shove Liliana in Toluca and physically confronts him, while Liliana begs him to stop.

Ana and Liliana buy a sparrow at the Azcapotzalco market to release in a park, but open the bag to find it already dead.

Ángel appears uninvited at a party in Liliana's apartment, signaling to her friends that he refuses to accept the relationship is over.

Liliana writes a note describing Ángel as bombarding her privacy and individuality, revealing his threatening reappearance in her life.

Liliana copies the Albert Camus quote about finding an invincible summer within herself into her personal notebook.

Rivera Garza organizes Liliana's funeral in Toluca while her parents are still abroad, then collapses in grief inside Liliana's childhood bedroom.

Rivera Garza weeps at the edge of a swimming pool overwhelmed by grief for Liliana, then plunges back in calling her sister's name.

Pool 3 maps the revelations and pivotal decisions that give the memoir its emotional and intellectual depth, beginning with the chilling archival discovery that Liliana's case file may be permanently lost. Rivera Garza's methodical application of a danger assessment tool to her sister's writings allows the reader to see the relationship's violence through a new lens, tracing a trajectory from early controlling behaviour — Ángel's possessive letters and admitted infidelity — to escalating physical and psychological abuse witnessed by Liliana's cousin and friends. The pool captures the symbolic moments that crystallise the memoir's themes: the dead sparrow Ana and Liliana find at the park, Ángel crashing a party to signal he will never let go, and Liliana secretly copying the Camus quote into her notebook as an act of private defiance. Rivera Garza's own revelations thread through the pool as well, including her memory of a heated argument with Liliana about love, and her agonised realization — recounted during a visit to Liliana's apartment in May 1990 — that she did not see the danger her sister was in. The pool closes with the memoir's most intimate emotional turning point: Rivera Garza weeping at a swimming pool, overwhelmed by grief, and choosing to return to the water — speaking her sister's name aloud as she surfaces.

The key discoveries, emotional shifts, and moments of danger that define Liliana's story.