In 2008, with new evidence, Gargiulo was finally arrested for Ellerin’s murder. Murnick flew across the country to attend the preliminary hearing, determined to explore the killing that haunted her still. While Murnick spent the next decade following the court proceedings of her friend’s drawn-out case, she didn’t start writing her memoir until she turned 30. “My perspective on events was shifting as I got older. Some of that was understanding how loss deepens as you get older. The more I experienced and accomplished in my life since I was 22, it feels even more profound that that’s where her life ended,” she says. “After she died, she became the ultimate friend who got away from me, and I think every women has had a friend who got away, every person, maybe. And they are the person that you once had everything in common with and then ended up taking a different path. And you look back on that relationship, and it becomes sort of a touchstone for your life and how much you might have changed or even stayed the same.”