Why was she doing this? It had been twenty years. She should have put it behind her. What did she think the outcome would be? What could possibly be fixed after twenty years?

Joanna probably wouldn’t even answer the door to her.

And that would make Mel feel awful, but at least she’d know that she’d tried.

It was easy to miss the turnoff if you didn’t know where it was, but Mel had taken this road so many times she could have found it with her eyes shut. In fact, she had once found it with her eyes shut, as part of a bet with Nate. When she thought back to some of the things they’d done as teenagers she wondered how they were still alive.

She took the turning, noticing that there was no sign. Nothing to tell the visitor that a property lay at the end of this track. The road wound through the forest, shaded by a canopy of Monterey pine and coast live oak. Occasionally she caught a glimpse of the tempting sparkle of the ocean through the trees.

Mel slowed down to take the first bend, and then the second. After the third bend she saw gates.

She pulled up and contemplated this new barrier. When they were growing up Otter’s Nest didn’t have gates. In fact, looking back on it, it didn’t have much of anything except one of the best views on this stretch of coastline. And her best friend.

Mel walked over to the gates and hesitated. You couldn’t see the house from here, and it was all so anonymous that she wondered for a moment if she was even in the right place. If she was wrong, and the place was rented out to some rich tycoon trying to escape Silicon Valley, then she was going to look pretty stupid.

With a shrug, she pressed the buzzer. She’d looked stupid before and survived.

She waited. And waited.

There was no answer.

She was about to give up and head back to her car when a voice came through the intercom.

“Hello?”

Mel’s heart gave a little thump. “Joanna? It’s me, Mel. Mel Monroe.”

There was a long pause. Silence. Mel thought, This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have come. I’m setting myself up to be hurt again.

And she couldn’t quite believe that she, Mel, was standing outside Joanna’s house, begging to be let in when once they’d been as close as sisters.

They’d done everything together, Mel and Joanna, Nate and Greg, the four friends inseparable. And then at some point the balance had shifted and the four of them had become Mel and Greg and Nate and Joanna.

It had happened on Mel and Nate’s sixteenth birthday. They’d had a party on the beach and Joanna had found her halfway through the evening, eyes shining, expression dreamy.