“Open your eyes,” Lexie said. “The dead have nothing to fear.”

But she was wrong. There was a lot I feared. Most of all, these moments, when she’d come to fetch me, to pull me out of the land of the living and back into the pool. I was just an imposter here. I could only come out of the water at night, in the dark. Sometimes they could see me—Shirley always did, though she wouldn’t speak to me in front of the others. Diane saw me occasionally, I was sure of it—but always pretended she didn’t.

Whether they saw me or not, I always, always pretended I was still one of them.

The night I drowned, I realized that Lexie was right—we both got our wishes.

She wished to have me back. I wished to have her back.

The X girls, always and forever.

I opened my eyes, took her hand.

And together we walked out of my room, down the steps, through the front hall, past the cross-stitch—To err is human, to forgive, divine—and out to the pool.

We slipped into the black water.

Two dead girls, side by side.

Alone, but together.