I knew because her mother wasn’t it, either. Debbie was.

But being dead is actually centuries better than being a guilt-ridden drunken fool. If you’re wondering what it’s like on the other side, let me tell you, it’s not that bad. Weather’s nice all year round, though you can’t really feel it. I don’t have a body, so that’s a bit of a downer. No one does. I’m not above the clouds, nor am I under the ground. There’s no heaven, nor hell. I’m in everything, though. In the air and in the trees. On butterfly wings and in the cow shit and between the cracks on the floor. I’m on top of skyscrapers in Beijing and on a dandelion in a small town in Nebraska.

Being dead, you don’t always feel the spirit of other people who are dead, unless you know them really well and they’re beside you.

Right now, I can feel Kathleen. She’s standing right next to me, asking if we should go for it. Not with words. It’s unspoken, like the meaning behind really good song lyrics.

We do things we shouldn’t do all the time, Kath and I. There’s no protocol against it, and if there is, they didn’t hand it to us when we switched over to the other side.

I’ve turned off lights in a pub when Mal and Rory needed to get the point.

Made it snow.

Shut down electricity.

I did everything I could to signal to Rory that Mal is the one, that he is not like me.

That he will not let her down—he will love her forever.

But I’ve never made an entire street light up before, especially a street as crowded as Drury.

“Think we can do it?” I ask Kathleen voicelessly.

I’m tucked between the bricks of a red Drury Street building, and she’s on top of a bus stop. I can feel her nod.

“Let’s give them something to freak out about.”

(ANOTHER) NOTE FROM KATHLEEN

I told you I’m not the villain.

P.S. She better be good to my kid.

P.P.S. Yes, of course, I regret telling Aurora Rory I would never take care of her child. A bit late to change it now, though.

P.P.P.S. Fine. They do look cute together. Happy?

(ANOTHER) NOTE FROM SUMMER

Me again.

I mean, like, duh. I needed closure with my best friend—didn’t I?

Even when it became painfully clear that Rory wasn’t going to come back to our apartment in New York. Not that I didn’t understand. She was now with the love of her life, living the charmed little existence she’d always dreamed of.

Plus, I screwed up. I know I did. It doesn’t matter that she wanted to break up with Callum, that she never felt for him an ounce of what she feels toward Mal, that I was pretty sure their relationship wouldn’t last another day, or that we were both very drunk.

I made one mistake. I wouldn’t allow any more of them to stack up. I needed her forgiveness to move on.

I flew out to Ireland. Extreme, huh? I think so, too, considering the amount of rehearsal I bailed on just to be able to patch things up with my BFF (best fucking friend). I took a cab to Tolka straight from the airport three months after she found out about Callum and me. Three months after she started ghosting me.

I found her in a compromising position on the grass in her backyard, being nailed by her new husband. I swear he was planting her like a flower. I interrupted them mid-fuck, but only by accident. The door was unlocked—I remembered Rory used to complain that Mal always kept it unlocked—and I waltzed in. When I realized what was happening before my eyes, I started backing up, but my butt hit the breakfast nook and knocked a Guinness bottle to the floor, and they both turned around to see where the noise came from.

The first thing Rory did was throw her dress at me, then she proceeded to bolt up on her feet and chase me naked around the cottage, yelling, “You screwed my boyfriend” really loudly.

Mal leaned against a wall, arms crossed, a smirk on his face, watching the entire thing half-naked and fully hard. He was gorgeous. I finally realized why she couldn’t shake him all those years. Not only did he look a thousand times better in person, but he also has this cocky, sweet, you’ll-never-tame-me expression that just speaks to the inner fixer-upper women have.

Mal then made us all coffee and tea before he announced that he was going to pick his daughter up from school.

On the couch, Rory grabbed my hand and told me, “You know what the worst part is? I wasn’t even mad at you for sleeping with him. You’re right. I did tell you I was going to break up with him a gazillion times, though it was still a mistake. I was mad because you didn’t tell me. And because you kept pushing me into his arms for your own, selfish reasons, despite my doubts. The lie is bigger than the sin.”

“I know.” I broke down in tears.

I was tired from the flight and from being eaten alive by my own guilt (AKA not the way one likes to be eaten). I just couldn’t take it anymore.

“I know all those things. I just thought I could sweep it under the carpet and pretend like it never happened. I wanted it to work out between you guys—right up to the point you were in Greece, actually.” I gnawed at my lower lip.

“Why? What happened?” Rory asked, taking a sip of her tea.

She was normally a coffee drinker. Another thing that changed after she moved to Ireland.

“I ran into Whitney, Ryner’s assistant, at Saks. Before you growl at me, I was just looking around, not working on inflating my overdraft situation.” I cleared my throat. “Anyway, I could swear she was sporting a baby bump. It was so easy to figure out with her malnourished self. Of course, I had no intention of saying hi to her, so I did what every character in a B-grade romantic comedy does and hid behind the mannequins. Whit was walking around with someone who looked like she could be her mother, rubbing her swollen belly. The woman asked her, ‘Do you really think he’s going to leave his girlfriend for you?’ And Whitney replied, ‘I don’t know, and I don’t care. He got me an apartment next to his so he can be close to the baby. If Callum wants to marry Little Miss Awkward, I’m not going to ruin his plans as long as he keeps the cash flow coming. Which he will.’”

Rory’s eyes flared, and she sucked in a breath, straightening her back. More than anything, she looked casually outraged. Like, when you tell your friend about something insane that happened to one of your colleagues at work. She seemed completely emotionally detached from the story, which made it easier to tell her.

“What happened then?” she asked.

“Well, at first I thought, What are the chances? But then, I remembered you always told me Whitney was extra touchy with Callum and totally had the hots for him. Pieces started falling together. He’d cheated on you before, why wouldn’t he do it again? I tried to call when you were in Greece, but you didn’t pick up. Then what happened between us came out, and it was too late. I swear not telling you was the worst thing I’ve ever done, Rory. I swear. There’s never any way a boy could come between us.”

Rory put her hand on mine and smiled. “I know.”

“You do?” I felt my entire face twisting in pain.

She nodded. “I’ve known it for a long time—that I was going to forgive you, that is. I figured we should have this conversation face to face, so I was going to do it when I came to visit Mom in a few weeks. But you beat me to it. Look, I know how crappy it feels to cheat on someone. I agonized over what I did to Callum. Still do. Because it doesn’t matter that he cheated—I’m better than that. Or I should have been. I don’t regret being with Mal, but I regret that it happened before I broke up with Callum. That’s for me to live with, a permanent stain on my conscience, and yet here I am—living. So I’m asking you to do the same. Live with your mistake, Cinder-freaking-rella. Learn from it, and go find your Richard Gere.”