“Let’s make up a password so no one else can get in,” Colette had said to me and Frankie when we’d created the Viewer account back in third grade. We’d been in Colette’s pink-everything bedroom, sitting cross-legged around the laptop on her floor. We made the account as a place to keep videos of us playing our made-up dare-or-scare game. “Not even our parents will be able to see it.”

“I asked Mommy’s permission to make the account,” I admitted.

“That’s dumb,” Frankie said. “Viewer’s for kids. You don’t need permission.”

“Let’s just make a password, okay?” Colette said, looking at me. “You can give it to your mom if you want.”

“No,” Frankie said. “She can’t.”

“Or you can think of it like a lock on a diary?” Colette suggested.

That had made sense to my third-grader brain, and I’d agreed. Years later, police would make me and Frankie remove the password so they could look through the dare-or-scare videos to make sure they hadn’t missed anything before they called Colette’s death “accidental” and closed the case. After that, Frankie or I could’ve added a new password, but it hadn’t seemed like there was a point. Who cared anymore?

Colette had died re-creating our game.

I silenced my phone and picked an old video at random. In it, Frankie and Colette were struggling to pull themselves up on a chin-up bar at the park. Both of their faces were rounder, and they had crooked or missing teeth and wore cheesy inspirational T-shirts. Plus, they were laughing hysterically.

Their laughter made me feel like crying, so I closed Viewer.

A lot of other kids had arrived anyway.

But just before camp started, I sent a text.

TESS

I miss you so much it feels like I have the flu.

I hit send and felt the phone vibrate as I set it on the desk facedown. I didn’t want to see the “number unavailable” message bounce back, like usual. Colette’s parents had disconnected her phone service two weeks after her death, but I hadn’t deleted her contact info from my phone. And I hadn’t stopped texting her either.

I didn’t think I ever would.

“Now that we’re all settled, I’d like to welcome you to art camp!” Karly said enthusiastically—maybe too much, or maybe I was just bothered by everyone right then. “I’m excited to hang out with you this summer.”

I felt like I was underwater, so it was a miracle I heard anything Karly said in those first few minutes of camp. I did miss some things, but I know she talked about growing up in the area and teaching art at the high school. Maybe she said something about having a dog? Or a cat? Or a baby?