Debbie Kent: ...It was all too much. I didn't mind the pressure half as much as the isolation. He
[my father]
Debbie Kent: kept shoving everybody else away, everyone who listened to my problems, everyone who reminded me of how much I loved to swim, everyone who made me feel like I was doing better instead of worse... If he'd done any of those things himself, the situation never would have gotten desperate like it did.
Shauni McClain: Desperate enough to fake your own death?
Debbie Kent: I was feeling dead already. When everything else you love gets yanked away, that really closes out the town for you. This way, I can start all over again.
Shauni McClain: By leaving everybody who loves you behind, to grieve, thinking you're dead?
Debbie Kent: [DELETED LINE] They won't look for me, if they think I'm dead. Sure they'll take it hard for a time, but then they'll do the same thing I'll do... bury it and move on.
Shauni McClain: I was with your father this morning. He knows it was wrong to push you so hard.
Debbie Kent: What finally convinced him?
Shauni McClain: He loves you, Debbie. He's devastated! You have to go back and tell him the truth.
Debbie Kent: Even if I figured that would do the least bit of good, how could I face him now?
Shauni McClain: The least bit of good! Are you kidding me? As soon as he sees you're alive, he's going to be ecstatic! Of course, he may kill you himself a minute later.
Debbie Kent: [DELETED LINE] Yeah, right; and a minute after that, he'll turn into a bigger monster than he was before. Then I can spend the rest of my life cursing myself for going back to a man who turned something I love into something I dread! Well, two things: himself and swimming.
Shauni McClain: [DELETED LINE] A bigger monster? My God, Debbie; how can you even say that, much less believe it! What, do I have to bring your father out here so you can hear this straight from him?
Debbie Kent: [DELETED LINE] ... Shauni, you wouldn't!
Shauni McClain: [DELETED LINE] Try me.