We Were Never Here

Still at the weekend lake house, Emily notices boxes of Kristen’s childhood things in the basement and thinks it will be fun to explore them, but Kristen sharply tells her she doesn’t want to. Intrigued, Emily sneaks to the basement while Kristen sleeps that night. In the boxes, she finds dozens of old photos; in every photo featuring Jamie, the young girl’s face has been violently scratched out.

When Kristen returns from a run the next morning, Emily again mentions her fear about the Paolo situation, but Kristen maintains her confidence and insists that they’ll be fine as long as Emily doesn’t break down and tell something incriminating to someone, such as Adrienne or Aaron.

Later that day, both Kristen and Emily reflect on their childhoods. Kristen hated her cruel father but loved her mother. She remembers that her mother was not supposed to be home on the night of the house fire; she was going to go out but ended up staying home because Kristen’s father was sick. Emily remembers her own unkind father, thinking of the time she almost drowned at a friend’s pool party, and her father scolded rather than comforted her.

That night, Emily conducts an internet search on Jamie and finds that Kristen lied about her friend: Jamie didn’t die in an “accident” but by suicide—within the very month that Kristen’s parents died.