The Secret Place

The detectives receive more of the students’ text-message history and confirm that Chris was becoming romantically involved with multiple girls at once. Girls sent him lewd photographs, expressed their love for him, and were generally unaware of his real nature until he ghosted them. However, his texts with Selena were different. He did seem genuine, and the two shared real details from their lives, texting about their families, their classes, and their friends. Most of Chris’s relationships were secret because he wanted to hide them, but it was Selena who was unwilling to appear in public with Chris. The detectives are sure that she was afraid of her friends’ judgment. Julia, Becca, and Holly were all aware of Chris’s dating habits and characterized him as a “dog.” Because the texts indicate that Selena and Chris were deeply in love with each other, the detectives find Selena’s choice to dump him truly puzzling.

The texts indicate that after Selena and Chris met a few times at night in the cypress glade, Selena told him that she couldn’t see him anymore and that their relationship would never work. The language in her breakup text strikes the detectives as melodramatic, and they begin to wonder if