When I’m back on my feet the entire crowd is surrounding us closely—every guest and plus-one and family member stare at us in silence, watching like they know they should run but can’t get their feet to move. Every person involved in this cover-up is right here. They are all about to be hung, too.

“Graham Walker,” begins the taller police officer. Greg. Who we called the night we made this wild plan after I brought Jess and Molly to the lookout. Who told us it would never work. But who showed up today because it did.

“Get your hands off him,” Doug says, stern but steady, like he’s negotiating a hostage situation. “There’s been a mistake. This is absurd. We don’t even know who—”

Cheryl erupts into tears at that point, a comically contrasting reaction to her husband, who couldn’t be calmer. Veronica and Lena twist their arms to steady her and her screams.

I’ll never forget Lena’s face, staring at me, mouth wide open, startled and shocked for the first time in her whole fucking life. For a moment I see an image of teenage Lena, of her desperate laughter at the party as she called me wasted, embarrassing. Her dismissal of a woman in trouble because she felt threatened by us. We took the attention away from her.

I flash her a quick smile and she looks away. You should be ashamed. What is it you always say? “Girls have to stick together”?

Graham steps two feet away from the officers, rubbing his wrists like they’d been zip-tied too tightly. “You are under arrest for the murder of Bernadette Ward,” Timothy says.

Hearing those words feels surreal. I’d pictured this day for years—though Reed was the one in handcuffs, not Graham. My sweet, sweet Graham.

I thought I was the only one making up stories.

I could hear Cheryl and Doug beginning to talk—to me, to Graham, to the officers—but I can’t hear their words. I’m completely siloed in my own head.

I picture Ruthie, then, standing next to me, still in that Abercrombie shirt and jeans from when we met. I picture her curled up next to me on a blanket in the woods, sharing vodka mixed with pineapple juice from the dining hall. Sitting on her bed in the middle of the night, a flashlight pointed at her face from below, her mouth moving to tell me that Riley Klein from her American history class got a boner when they started talking about Martha Washington. Ruthie on her last day, dancing with me like we were the only two people on earth.