All the Missing Girls

At multiple points in the novel, Nic mentions how people are similar to Russian nesting dolls, “version stacked inside the latest edition. But they all still live inside, unchanged, just out of sight” (93). Nic usually thinks of her own “versions.” There was the version of Nic who would succumb to Corinne’s pressure, but there was also the version of Nic who stepped on the gas pedal when Corinne ran into the street. All of her complexities cannot and will not be understood by Everett, which is what eventually leads her back to Tyler. As they sat on his couch in the morning, Tyler “watched as they stacked themselves away inside one another” (283). 

When Nic goes to Annaleise’s apartment to search for evidence, she notices that the walls are covered with pictures of girls. Underneath the bed, she finds a box with “the sketches that hadn’t made it onto the wall,” including one of Corinne that is “a goddamn replica of a picture that had hung in [Nic’s] room” (59). These photos, taken by Bailey, have been adapted to not include Nic; Annaleise’s focus is completely on Corinne. The artwork is Annaleise’s version of reality.