What Happened to Cadence in 'We Were Liars'? The Twist You Won't Expect (SPOILERS)

Sometimes a movie or streaming series comes along that stops you in your tracks. 2025 brought us We Were Liars, an Amazon Prime Video series that promises to do exactly that.

The show comes out swinging hard as Cadence, a younger generation Sinclair on her family's island, introduces her blessed life, her three best friends, and her rich family history.

But it quickly becomes apparent that Cadence, played in the series by actor Emily Alyn Lind, has experienced something horrible, and she can't remember exactly what. Through the series, which is based on a book of the same name, by author E. Lockhart, we discover that the truth is more horrifying than Cadence realizes.

Here's what we know about what happened to Cadence. Proceed with caution, many major spoilers ahead.

Cadence seems to be living the blessed life of any ultra-rich scion. Her family owns a beautiful island and a breathtaking Victorian estate home, her Granddad is the respected family patriarch, and she spends her days with her three best friends: Gat (her eventual love interest), and her two older cousins, Johnny and Mirren. They call themselves the "Liars," a nickname bestowed on them by their family for their lifelong habit of mischief.

But amid their idyllic summer days and fun-seeking life, the family is tense, arguing and mistreating each other. Then, Cadence awakens one day, seemingly washed up on the beach of their family's island, suffering from brain damage and left ever after with chronic migraines, for which she takes prescription painkillers.

There's just one problem: She can't remember what happened. She begs her family to tell her how she was injured, but they beg off explaining, telling her that she gets upset every time they find out.

She turns in desperation to the other three Liars, who suddenly seem to go cold and ghost her following her injury. For nearly two years, she can't get replies from them, and as she desperately seeks answers, she feels compelled to return to the scene of her accident: her family's island.

Return she does, and despite her pain at being cold-shouldered by the Liars for the past two years, she reconciles with them.

Yet much to Cadence's frustration, the Liars still won't tell her what happened. Like her family, they suggest that she gets too upset every time she discovers what happened, and then she forgets again.

So what really happened?!

When Cadence returns to the island after two years away, things have changed. The grand Victorian estate has been redone into a glaringly less attractive modern house, and the family seems to be stepping lightly around one another, no longer feuding and arguing like they once did.

This bizarre transformation is rooted in what caused Cadence's injury and why her friends are constantly dancing around the truth: The original house burned to the ground.

Not only did it burn to the ground, but the Liars burned it to the ground to try to put a stop to the family feuding. Unfortunately, Cadence discovers that her Grandfather's dogs died in the house fire.

But worse than that, so did the other three Liars. Her friends, whom she has been begging for information since her return, were ghosts, waiting for her to uncover the truth so they could all move on.

The end of the book sees Cadence coming to grips with the horror of losing her love interest and her three closest friends. Not only that, but she and her friends were responsible for their deaths.