“You ain’t but fourteen but you too big for this place. This town ain’t equipped to hold somebody as smart and as strong as you.”

Vera’s words to Ellice as she leaves for private school exemplify her mentorship. Vera wants Ellice to succeed and have a life beyond the trauma that she experienced in Chillicothe.

“My thoughts were on fire. Blood. Death. This was Chillicothe all over again. And I did what I always did. I ran. My earliest memory is of running. My brother, Sam, hadn’t been born yet. My mother, Martha, had me by my hand and we were running, my little legs beating fast to keep up with her. It was nighttime. Cold outside. And she kept telling me to hurry. I don’t know who or what we were running from. I started to cry but she told me if I cried, she would have to leave me behind. So I ran.”

Upon discovering Michael’s body, Ellice is triggered by memories of her childhood, and emphasizes how she copes by running. Morris underscores Ellice’s panic with short sentences and disorganized images of her trauma that increases the tone of suspense.

“God forgive me. All I had to do was call for help. Surely calling for help wouldn’t be enough for anyone to dig through my background. Or would it? Yes. I’d made the right decision to leave his office. He was dead. My sticking around to answer a flurry of questions from the police wouldn’t bring him back. And then, in an instant, sadness engulfed me. Michael deserved better.”

Ellice’s doubt emphasizes the novel’s theme of Ethics and Moral Dilemmas as she questions her actions and foreshadows the secrets she has been hiding. The Consequences of Keeping Secrets is also highlighted as Ellice prioritizes protecting her secrets instead of notifying authorities of a dead man’s body.