“In a moment, you’ll receive three cards with your name on them and a pen.” Victoria’s features were lit by torchlight. “Tonight’s challenge is simple: three secrets, one on each card. I’m not going to tell you that you have to push down the urge to hold back your deepest and darkest. The secrets you choose are up to you. But what I can and will say is that this is a sisterhood. This is real. And what you choose to write down on those cards? It matters.”

CHARLOTTE, LIV, AND JULIA
SUMMER BEFORE SENIOR YEAR
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS EARLIER

“It’s official.” Julia smiled. “The boys will meet us at the lake.”

Charlotte bit her tongue to keep from pointing out that Julia wasn’t the only one who’d made a phone call, thank you very much. Charlotte was the one who’d called J.D.—for Liv.

“Are they meeting us at your family’s house or mine, Jules?” Liv was sprawled across the passenger seat of Julia’s car. Charlotte had been relegated to the back. She told herself that didn’t matter, just like it didn’t matter that her family didn’t have a house at Regal Lake.

Just like it shouldn’t have mattered that Julia had somehow gotten credit for calling all the boys.

“Who says we have to meet at someone’s house?” Charlotte was almost surprised by how steady her voice sounded.

In the front seat, Liv turned around to look at her.

Charlotte popped on her sunglasses and leaned back against the window, mimicking Liv’s posture with her own. “Let’s have the boys meet us at Falling Springs.”

CHAPTER 31

A year ago, I wouldn’t have had nearly so many secrets to choose from. Even just a few weeks ago, I probably wouldn’t have been tempted to put any of them to the page. But there came a point when secrets just didn’t seem worth keeping anymore.

I wrote down my first, in all capital letters: I AM THE RESULT OF A TEEN PREGNANCY PACT.

Was admitting that discreet? No. Would Lillian be happy if the truth got out? Probably not. Oh well.

The second secret was harder to choose. The identity of my father and everything Lily and I had heard on John David’s recording—those didn’t feel entirely like my secrets to tell.

So instead, I went with a fraction of the truth for secret two. I CAN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT THE LADY OF THE LAKE.

More specifically, I couldn’t stop thinking about the way Lily’s father had said that body on the recording. That might have nothing to do with the Lady, I told myself, but I struggled to believe it.

On either side of me, I could hear Lily and Campbell writing on their cards. Someone farther away from us shifted, snapping a twig under their feet.