We Were Liars

Over the course of Summer 17, Cadence gradually recovers the memories she lost after her accident during Summer 15. She learns that after her grandmother Tipper's death, her mother and aunts fell into bitter fighting over their inheritances and Harris's favor, and that Gat's aunt Carrie was pressured against marrying Ed, Gat's uncle, because Harris disapproved of his Indian heritage. Furious at the family's greed and cruelty, Cadence convinced Johnny, Mirren, and Gat to help her burn down Clairmont, the old family mansion, believing that destroying the house that symbolized the family's dysfunction would shock everyone into reconciling.

Cadence remembers that the arson went wrong: she set the ground floor on fire before the others were clear, trapping Johnny and Mirren on the upper floors and Gat in the basement. All three of them died in the fire that night. Cadence herself was found in the water, having sustained a severe head injury, and repressed the entire event, including the deaths of her closest friends and cousins. Throughout the summer she has actually been interacting with Johnny, Mirren, and Gat as if they were still alive, not realizing they are dead.

When Cadence goes to Gat for comfort after first recalling only the death of the dogs (killed because the Liars forgot to let them out before the fire), he asks whether that is truly all she remembers, prompting her to piece together the deaths of the three Liars. She confronts them at Cuddledown, where they gently tell her that their deaths were not her fault alone, since they all conspired in the plan together. Gat gives her one final kiss, and then he, Johnny, and Mirren walk into the ocean and vanish, signaling that Cadence's mind has finally let them go.

In the aftermath, it is confirmed that Carrie and Ed have stayed together despite the family pressure that indirectly caused Gat's fatal last summer on the island. Cadence, now fully aware of what happened and of her own role in her cousins' and Gat's deaths, resolves to go on living and to endure, closing the novel on her quiet determination to survive with this knowledge rather than being destroyed by it.