Look, I'm just going to come out and say it: I don't trust Mallory on Cruel Summer. For one thing, the girl has terrible taste in birthday gifts (Jeanette's necklace was woefully tacky, even for the '90s) and, apparently, a penchant for controlling her besties — which she routinely did with Jeanette before the two went their separate ways after the latter's glow-up. But mostly, it's Mallory's strange flip-flop between loathing Kate beyond reason in the 1993 timeline to becoming her ride-or-die BFF just one year later that has me believing Mallory is pretty damn sus. And it might all come back to one small fact: That Mallory is Annabelle, and knew about Kate's kidnapping long before anyone else did.

There are so many clues in Cruel Summer to unpack, so for those who may have forgotten, "Annabelle" is the person that Kate says she met right before being rescued from Martin's house. She speaks about Annabelle to her therapist, but apparently, completely forgets that she even mentioned that name until she revisits the tapes in the 1995 timeline, in preparation to defend herself on the stand against Jeanette in the defamation lawsuit.

Now, Kate has used the name Annabelle before — she told a story during her family's annual hunting trip, with Annabelle as a sort of "stand in" for herself in connection to Martin. While it's possible that Annabelle is a piece of Kate — perhaps a different personality or imaginary friend that Kate used to cope with her trauma — it's also possible that it's just...well, Mallory. And if Kate can barely recall meeting Annabelle — or putting a face to the name — it's very possible that she and Mallory met while she was in captivity, and her brain simply won't let her remember that.