As I watched the video, my friends’ final tribute, my heart felt like a flower opening its bloom to the sun. Pops of color and light filled my mind, and suddenly everything—every memory, every moment of my life—came flooding through me. Everything I thought had been lost was returned. I remembered pouring pretend tea for my mother from her antique tea set. I remembered my father handing me a set of binoculars, pointing to where a red-tailed hawk nested in a tree above. There I was, playing with Laurel in a pillow fort on a rainy night. Meeting Charlotte on the school bus in third grade, and Madeline at recess the next year. Getting my first tennis racket for Christmas. Swimming in the Pacific Ocean on a vacation, staring out at the miles and miles of lonely blue. Printing the official Lying Game cards at Charlotte’s house, giggling over the titles we’d invented for ourselves.

Kissing Thayer for the first time, and the second, and the third. All our kisses, every sun-drenched moment we spent together, came back in perfect focus.

Every prank, every secret, every adventure came back to me. And it was all so beautiful, so vibrant, so real. It was my life. Ethan couldn’t take that away.

At the back of the church Emma heard scuffling. The lights came back up, and she turned to see an old woman with curly gray hair escorting Lili and Gabby out of the audiovisual booth by their ears. The Twitter Twins raised their fists in “heavy metal” devil horns as they followed. Father Maxwell was hurrying to take the microphone from Charlotte at the altar, and a man wearing a bow tie was shooing Madeline from the light control box.

But before the Lying Game girls could be removed from the building, someone started to clap.

Emma couldn’t pinpoint where it started, but once it did, the applause built up, louder and louder. Someone wolf-whistled on his fingers. A girl Emma had never seen yelled, “I love you, Sutton!”

“Sutton, we’ll miss you!” someone else cried behind her. And soon everyone was clapping and stomping, calling out for Sutton.

“Hollier will never be the same!”

“You’re the only prom queen we’ll vote for!”

Grandma Mercer was clapping harder than anyone else, Laurel weeping next to her. The pursed-lipped old lady let go of Gabby and Lili in shock, and they ran to join Charlotte and Madeline under a statue of the Virgin Mary. Then the four of them joined in the applause, and turned toward the portrait of Sutton, with tears glistening in their eyes.

I hovered over them, the applause vibrating through my being. For a moment, I could almost mistake it for a heartbeat.

35 - Make New Friends, but Keep the Old

35

MAKE NEW FRIENDS, BUT KEEP THE OLD