The following year was a never-ending nightmare. Guilt and grief consumed me. I couldn’t go anywhere or do anything without triggering a memory of something Summer loved. Starbucks. Guacamole. Country music. Baseball. Board games. Black Labs. Eighties rom-coms. Nineties sitcoms. Four-leaf clovers. The color pink. Anything related to running or Chicago or our beloved university.

At least once a day, I had the urge to call and talk to Summer. In those moments, I’d often reach out to Tyson or Lainey instead, but they were both so busy. The first year of law school was grueling, and Lainey was caught up in a whirlwind of auditions and parties in the city that never sleeps.

Meanwhile, I felt like I had regressed to my old life in Atlanta. I went to all the same places I’d gone in high school and hung out with all the same people. Even my job felt depressingly familiar, as I spent forty hours a week peddling overpriced furniture and lighting fixtures to the usual suspects, including many of my mother’s wealthy Buckhead friends.

And then there was my mother herself. For four years, I’d managed to escape some of her daily scrutiny. The distance had been heavenly. But she picked up right where she’d left off with her backhanded compliments and relentless critique of my clothes, hair, figure, makeup, skin, and posture.

She was especially obsessed with my love life—or rather my lack of a love life—and bombarded me with unsolicited advice, which she called “suggestions.” I tried to tell her that I wasn’t in the frame of mind to date—I was too sad—but she persisted, and I continued to jump through her hoops. It was an exhausting cycle.

—

As we approached the one-year anniversary of Summer’s death, I texted Lainey and Tyson, asking if the three of us could schedule a visit. They agreed it was a good idea—that it had been way too long. Lainey suggested some California sunshine. She said her mother would be out of town that weekend, and we could stay at her little house near the beach. It sounded wonderful—or as wonderful as things could be without Summer.

A few weeks later, we all flew to San Diego, then drove to Encinitas. On our first afternoon together, we didn’t talk much about Summer. We just strolled along Coast Highway 101, a lively street flanked by hipster bars and funky boutiques, as Lainey pointed out her old haunts.

“Hey! We should get matching tattoos!” she said, as we passed the sketchy-looking shop that had inked the small Libra scale on the inside of her left ankle. “We could get Summer’s initials.”

“My mother would kill me,” I blurted out.

“You’re twenty-three, Hannah,” Lainey said. “You don’t need her approval anymore.”

“I know,” I said. “But I kind of hate tattoos, too.”

“Thanks a lot,” Lainey said with a laugh.

“I hate them for me,” I said. “I love yours for you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, smiling.

Tyson chewed his lip, deep in thought. After a few seconds, he said, “I feel like we should do something, though. In Summer’s memory.”

“Like what?” Lainey asked.

“I don’t know yet,” Tyson said. “It’ll come to me.”

—

Later that night, after we made dinner and cleaned up the kitchen, we opened a second bottle of wine. The mood was somber, then downright dark.

“Have either of you ever…had any sort of suicidal thoughts?” Tyson asked us at one point.

I winced hearing the word—one I could no longer bear to say aloud—then shook my head.

“No. Never,” Lainey said. “What about you?”

Tyson hesitated just long enough to concern me, then said, “I’ve wanted to disappear, but not die.”

“Disappear? Where?” Lainey asked.

“Disappear from anywhere…everywhere…”

“Um. That’s called ‘death,’ ” Lainey said.

“No. It’s not the same thing. It’s not about wanting to die. It’s about wanting to escape pain,” Tyson said. “Do you know the David Foster Wallace quote? Where he likens suicide to jumping from a burning building?”

Lainey and I said no.

“It’s not that the person doesn’t fear falling—because he does—it’s just that falling feels less terrible than burning,” Tyson said, paraphrasing the quote.

“Damn,” Lainey whispered. “When you say it like that, I sort of get it. Almost.”

“Me too,” I said, wishing for the millionth time that I had called Summer the second I got her text. Gone straight to her room. Saved her.

The wave of guilt and regret was followed by a familiar aftershock of confusion and anger. Why had the toughest person I’d ever known given up so suddenly, with no warning whatsoever?

“Promise me you would never—” I said to Tyson.

“See? That’s the point,” Tyson said. “I don’t think that’s a promise anyone can make. Unless you’ve been standing in that burning building, you just don’t know what you’d do.”

“But promise you would at least talk to us—” I stopped in midsentence.

As I looked into Tyson’s eyes, I could see a lightbulb going off. “That’s it! That’s the promise we need to make…. If we ever feel like we’ve hit rock bottom—whether for a specific reason or no reason whatsoever—we have to promise to talk.”

“Yes,” I said, nodding emphatically. “Not only talk. But come together. Like this.”

“Yes,” Tyson said. “Just like this.”

“No matter where we are or what we have going on,” Lainey added.

Tyson nodded, then pulled a spiral notebook and ballpoint pen out of his backpack, turning to a blank page.

“What are you doing?” Lainey asked.

“I’m drawing up a contract,” he said, clicking the pen and starting to write furiously.

After a few minutes, he stopped, looked down at the page, and said, “There. Finished.”

“What does it say?” Lainey asked.

He cleared his throat and read aloud: In the days, months, and years to come, should we, the undersigned, find ourselves in a crisis, depression, or moment of deep sorrow or darkness, we hereby solemnly swear to reach out to one another before taking any drastic steps or making any permanent decisions. We make this pact in Summer’s name and memory.

“Wow,” I breathed. “That’s perfect.”

Tyson nodded, then said, “It just needs a title.”

“The Suicide Pact?” Lainey said.

Tyson looked as horrified as I felt. “God, no. That sounds like a cult where we promise to kill ourselves,” he said.