Laura is a little kid in kindy. One day, Laura finds her mothers favourite necklace on the dressing table and decides she wants to take the necklace to school and impress all her friends. While playing on the field, Laura realises her necklace is missing. Laura is so scared of what would happen if her mother finds out she took the necklace, so when her mother questions her about it, she lies. Yet, Laura still helps her mother look for the necklace around the house. One day, her mother confronts her about it after a friend from Laura’s class returns the necklace. Laura might lie, Laura might try to deny it, but once the moment passes, Laura also feels relief from the burden lifted of her shoulders now that she longer needs to hide the truth.

I think, to a certain extent, that this describes Theo’s relationship with guilt. I agree that Theo acts like a narcissist, but the more I study his character the more he seems like a person who has a level of self awareness that he refuses to confront. He doesn’t register his guilt which leads to him expressing it in incredibly odd ways. I believe that one of the other reasons Theo began working at the grove was to deal with his suppressed guilt. Like how Kathy is said to have unconsciously left the laptop open for Theo to see, he unconsciously does a lot of stuff because he wants someone find out about what he’s done so he can let go of the guilt. That’s what the last chapter is all about. That snowflake scene at the end of the book represented him letting go of his guilt (and also finally moving on from his trauma) and being free. It’s a little bit odd, but I’ve come to learn that there really are people who act like that. They want others to confront stuff for them. The suppressed guilt lingers in the back of your mind and makes you listen more to instinct than reason.

Btw, (I’m adding this part for the sole goal of annoying you both even more) when the cops turned up at the crime scene they should’ve found an extra chair, some extra wire, oh and also some marks around Alicia’s wrists and ankles. And what did they decide to do with that information?? NOTHING. Hell, half of the characters in the novel knew how to get in the house without a key. If just one officer considered the possibility that she was bound and perhaps someone else was in the house literally everything could’ve been avoided. And don’t even get me started on what would happen if an officer got their hands on the diary. Since most of the characters are designed for the sole purpose of being a red herring this case would’ve been all over the place.