A deep, unseated anger is dislodged. In the last several years, I’ve stopped speaking up. It’s why my assistant controls my life and runs rampant over me. It’s why I do all the paid ads I hate doing so much. It’s why I have a PR-arranged relationship, live in a house that doesn’t feel like my own; why I’ve gotten so much work done and lost so much weight. Because I haven’t felt like I deserved to say no or to admit when something doesn’t feel right. I’ve stopped trusting myself.

She’s about to leave when I call after her. I might not have forever to have this fight. “Hey!”

My voice echoes around the place. Visibly startled, she turns to me. “What?”

“Don’t what me,” I say. “We need to talk.”

She laughs. “What are you going to do, break up with me?”

“I need to know why you’re so mad at me. Because you’re my best fucking friend, and I don’t understand what happened between us. I deserve to figure it out. Even if you don’t feel like it.”

“Meg.” She looks exhausted.

“No, don’t do that. You may not believe what I told you, but it doesn’t even matter. We aren’t talking, and we swore that we would always be friends.” I hold up my pinky, gesturing for the promise we’d made. I let my hand fall at my side and stare at her in the darkness of the theater.

“Fine.”

She tosses her bag down, letting her binder and books clatter on the ground as she stomps toward me. She gets right up onstage and then crosses her arms. “I’m here, you happy?”

“Yes.”

She seems to steel herself. “What were we fighting about the night—the night it happened?”

I hesitate, surprised by her question. “You weren’t telling me something. I was pretty sure it had to do with Theo. I couldn’t get it out of you. You were being really weird at the party and then said you wanted to go home. I was afraid you were pregnant or something, but in the aut—” We both go a shade paler at the near mention of the word autopsy. My stomach flips. “You weren’t. I’ll never know what you didn’t want to tell me.”

She goes paler still, and then says, “I think I might know. Actually.”

My chest runs cold and I feel my body harden, bracing for impact. “What?”

What would this Aimee know that my Aimee also knew? What secret could transcend this much time and space?

“I did get into Avalon. When you did.”

I’m confused, but furious understanding starts to creep into my bones before my mind can catch up.

“What are you talking about?”

“We both got in.”

“Then why did you tell me you didn’t?”

“I knew you’d go anyway.”