There is a jingle of a bell in the far, far back of my mind. Aimee saying she wanted to write something one day. We were both playing prostitutes—which was the word we used then, we were years before using sex worker— with very few lines in a stage adaptation of Guy de Maupassant’s The Necklace, and we were sitting in the hallway in full hair and makeup. Elaborate Gibson Girl wigs and extremely flattering corsets with big skirts—and she said, I don’t think I like being onstage. I think I want to write something one day.

Really? Like what? I’d asked.

She had shrugged. Maybe something about friendship. There are too many romances. Plus I know nothing about love. Obviously.

I remember us both laughing and moving on, me not giving it another thought. I think that was around when she got dumped for the first time.

I can’t believe how much I’ve forgotten. It’s startling. Even stranger is how it’s still in there, somewhere. Every buried memory waiting to be excavated.

We go over the existing material, making a few changes as we go. An idea for the ending starts to form in my mind, but I’m afraid to suggest it. So I keep quiet.

For almost two hours and all of the tea and coffee, we go over every possible resolution for the characters, but nothing feels right. It’s all leaving us cold. It’s either too schmaltzy or too neat or too boring.

The ideas, in fact, even put Kiera to sleep. She’s in her hoodie and sweatpants in the fetal position, lightly snoring from the couch.

Eventually, I realize that I have to share my idea.

I use my best acting skills to sound natural when I say it.

I gasp and grab her wrist. “What if one of them is dead? What if the twist is that one of the two girls has been dead for years?”

I have trouble meeting Aimee’s eyes, but I can feel them on me.

“Which one should it be?”

“Definitely Lola,” I say. “I mean, I think … what do you think? She’s the party girl. Hailey’s the nice one. She should be the one alive.”

I finally reach her eyes and I crumble beneath her stare.

She knows. She knows. Immediately she knows.

“How did she die?” asks Aimee.

My mouth is suddenly very dry, so I take a sip of water and shrug. “I don’t know, maybe a—maybe a car accident?”

Aimee nods slowly. Goose bumps rise on my arms and up my neck. She. Knows.

“Who was driving?” asks Aimee, her eyes boring into mine. “Tell me the truth.”

My heart feels as though it’s shattering into a million pieces as I respond. This has happened so suddenly I feel out of control. A panic attack threatens in my nervous system.

“You were.”