When Olivia Rotondo landed a two-month summer job as a stewardess on a small cruise ship on the Great Lakes last year, she was looking forward to seeing a part of the country she'd never seen before. She didn't realize she'd be spending 12 hours a day wiping down toilets and scraping petrified food crusts off dinner plates in the galley; she certainly didn't envision herself on hands and knees, scrubbing human excrement off cabin floors.

Olivia saw the humor in her situation: "It's always fun to see what kind of beer is in my German passengers trash can while cleaning cabins," she tweeted in July. But with her friends texting her from the beach, she began to grow homesick. To give herself something to look forward to, she splurged on a ticket to the electronic music festival Electric Zoo in New York City. Later that summer, when the weekend of the event finally arrived, Olivia was psyched. She retweeted a tweet from the Electric Zoo handle: "Good morning animals! It's EZoo5 day," followed by a string of animal emojis.

But on August 31, tragedy struck. Just hours after arriving at Electric Zoo, Olivia, 20, or Liv, as her loved ones called her, a vibrant, healthy University of New Hampshire junior, died of a fatal overdose of molly, the street name for MDMA, a pure form of ecstasy. She wasn't alone: Another concertgoer, Jeffrey Russ, 23, who had no connection to Olivia or her group of friends, also fatally overdosed that weekend, and four others went to the hospital. Prompted by the mayor's office, which cited "serious health risks," Made Event, the concert promoter behind Electric Zoo, made the controversial move to cancel the festival's final day. The New York City Police Department, meanwhile, opened an investigation.

Olivia as a child. Courtesy of Rotondo Family

On the heels of a rash of deaths reportedly related to molly last year, including two others in August — of Plymouth State (New Hampshire) University student Brittany Flannigan, 19, who died on August 28 in Boston, and University of Virginia sophomore Shelley Goldsmith, 19, who died, eerily, the same night Olivia did, in Washington, D.C. — the news sent shockwaves through the electronic dance music (EDM) community and raised disturbing questions. Molly has been a fixture on the club scene for 30-odd years, says Jim Tremayne, editor-in-chief of the magazine DJ Times: "It's no secret that the origins of the rave/underground club scene, especially in Europe in the late 1980s, were connected to more loved-up substances like MDMA, which can enhance emotional empathy and encourage pro-social behavior," Tremayne said in an interview via email. But in recent years, contaminated drugs cut with mystery elements like bath salts have become a scourge. "We're seeing a lot of adulterated substances sold as MDMA when they're not, which are potentially really harmful," says Missi Wooldridge, executive director of Dance Safe, a nonprofit dedicated to raising the public's awareness and reducing harm on-site at EDM shows. After the deaths in Boston, New York, and Washington, D.C., people wondered: Had a "bad" batch of molly spread throughout the East Coast? More troubling still, why couldn't young, otherwise healthy people like Olivia have been saved? What of the safety measures in place at these EDM concert venues: Were staffs underprepared to receive sick revelers — or negligent in their handling of grave situations like Olivia's?

Olivia's friends and family believe responsibility ultimately rested with her that day. "Nobody made Olivia take it," says Maggie Saliba, 21, one of her best friends. Though worrying, those unanswered questions aren't the primary source of their anguish; rather, it's the thought of Olivia's name and life reduced to this: a weekend, a drug, and a tragedy. "It sucks that this is why people know her name," says Tessa Jacobs, 20, another of her friends. "That's just not who she was."

With festival season upon us once again and more molly-related hospitalizations making news (on June 24, dozens were rushed to the hospital after reportedly taking molly at an Avicii show in Boston), Olivia's sister and best friends are opening up about their heartbreak for the first time. The hope, they say, is to both raise awareness and show the world who Olivia truly was. What happened to Olivia — a loyal friend and a beloved daughter with a bright future ahead of her — could happen to anyone. "I'm all for having a good time, but you're not invincible," Maggie says. "No one is."

Olivia Rotondo grew up in North Providence, R.I., in a big, loving Italian family. Her parents, David, a president of operations for a restaurant chain, and Dorothy, who works in retail, often hosted their extended family for get-togethers, where David, a musician, would often bust out his guitar and play. Olivia's childhood best friend Hannah Gardella, 21, remembers a melody he wrote about his wife and daughters called "My Sweet Three," with a lyric that Olivia loved: "She floats like a feather / On her toes in a cloud." The line was about her.

Olivia and her sister Julianne, 24, were born four years apart but were close, united especially in their passion for dance. They were toddlers when they began taking ballet, jazz, and tap. By the time Olivia was 7, it was clear she'd found something she loved and excelled at. "Her face just lit up," Julianne says. "You knew exactly who she was by watching her dance." Hannah remembers meeting Olivia at tryouts for the school dance team when they were 12. Wearing a memorable combination of black short shorts with pink cutoff tights underneath and glasses, "she looked like a little nerd," Hannah recalls. But when she danced, all the girls stopped to watch. Olivia mimicked the instructor's difficult combinations with the grace and ability of a much older dancer.

Olivia (second from right) with friends at high school graduation. Courtesy of Sarah Murray

At Mount Saint Charles Academy in Woonsocket, R.I, the Catholic school where she attended grades seven through 12, Olivia parlayed her skills into a spot on the cheerleading squad. "Everything Olivia did, she put her whole heart into," says her close friend from high school, Sarah Murray, 21 — cheerleading, classes ("she was an A/B student," according to Julianne), and the restaurant jobs she took during the summers. Generous with her money, Olivia often donated to the Rett Syndrome Foundation, which funds research into Rett's, a disease similar to autism, in honor of a family friend's daughter. Making her own money was important to her, Hannah says, which is partly why she took the grueling job on the boat last summer. "Liv didn't want to depend on anyone. She wanted her parents to be proud of her more than anything in the whole world."

"It was never dull with Liv," says Tessa. "There was never a day when you were with her and you were like, afterward, Eh." On summer nights, after Olivia finished her shifts at the restaurants where she worked as a teenager and in college, it wasn't unusual for her to suddenly exclaim, "I need a hot weiner!" then drag the girls along in pursuit of one of her favorite snacks, a Rhode Island-style hot dog smothered in onions, chili, and mustard. And she loved silly surprises. On the last day of high school, she bought a bunch of fake champagne bottles full of confetti. After the final bell rang, she gathered the seniors in the locker room and popped them.

The summer before college, during a road trip to Montreal, Olivia, Hannah, and Sarah spent hours imagining aloud what their new schools would be like. On the weekends they'd collapse at Hannah's, three to a bed. Olivia would call dibs on the middle, so she wouldn't lose the covers.

"I don't want to sound cheesy, but when I was with Olivia, I felt free," Sarah says, "like nothing mattered."

At UNH, Olivia made lots friends, but she grew especially close to Maggie, one of her UNH dance team teammates, and a girl from Maine named Chloe Gaudissart. From freshman year on, they were a unit: They went to the same parties, shared the same clothes, ate their meals and did their homework together. When Olivia died, Maggie was at UNH and Chloe was studying abroad in Spain. Maggie spent her weekends at the apartment or at her parents' house, writing in her journal, painting, and crying. "Nobody understood what I was going through," she says. Stuck for the semester in Spain, Chloe tried to find solace in her new friends and host family. But both girls felt lost.

I met with Chloe and Maggie this spring at one of Olivia's favorite spots near the UNH campus. Breaking New Grounds, a local coffee shop, had been part of the girls' weekend ritual; on Sundays they'd meet there to do homework or to gossip about the night before. Olivia would order her usual: a chocolate croissant and an iced chai. This particular Sunday, Maggie and Chloe ordered iced chais too.

Olivia (far right) before senior prom. Courtesy of Sarah Murray

Recalling their favorite stories about Olivia, Maggie and Chloe laughed and spoke freely; only when asked about what they miss most did their eyes begin to fill. Both vividly remembered the first time they'd met her. "I was in my friend's room and Liv stormed in at full speed like she always did, telling us about her night and all the crazy things she did," Chloe, 21, says. Maggie swirled her drink and smiled. She'd met Liv at dance team camp a few weeks before freshman year. With her long legs, blonde hair, and impressive dance skills, "she stood out. You could see her from across the room," Maggie says. You could also hear her. Her big, raspy laugh ricocheted off the gym walls.

Maggie was a little intimidated at first. Olivia was outspoken, confident, and fast to make friends; Maggie was quieter, a little more reserved. But before long they were inseparable. "I could go to her with anything — guy stuff, woman problems," Maggie says. "We weren't afraid to tell each other anything." Olivia was funny — bitingly sarcastic and self-deprecating. At the apartment she wore a pair of ridiculous giraffe slippers and slept with a giraffe pillow pet. And her Twitter feed cracked friends up. "Is it considered rock bottom when your dad tells you to follow the account he made for your cat on a social network," she tweeted in July, and then, a month later: "If there were an emoji that had pizza for eyes instead of hearts I would use it all the time."

In mid-August, with Chloe already in Spain, Maggie and Olivia moved into an apartment off campus with a friend of a friend. On their first night back, they sat in a hammock, laughing and catching up, then arranged the beds in their separate rooms in a way that let them face each other and talk when their doors were open. A few days before Electric Zoo, on an otherwise typical weekday afternoon, they decided to adopt a pair of ducks from a guy they found on Craigslist. "Today's the best day ever cause I'm getting a duckling and no one can tell me no," Olivia tweeted. "I'm actually the owner of two fucking ducklings right now," she posted after the pickup. Then: "He already shit on my leg."

On the night of August 30, Olivia packed a bag for New York, said good night to Maggie, and turned in. "All she kept talking about was how excited she was," Sarah says. A friend who was with her at the festival, who asked not to be named for this article, remembers her looking forward to seeing the Dutch deejay Hardwell perform.

Around 7 a.m. the next day, Olivia and two friends from UNH loaded up the car and started their drive. The group arrived in the city around noon, stopping for bagels at a Dunkin' Donuts before dropping their bags in Brooklyn, where they were staying with one of the Rotondos' family friends. Around 3 p.m., they arrived on Randall's Island, the site of the concert. The day had been perfect for an outdoor music festival, with a temperature around 80 degrees.

Olivia (left) with Chloe and Maggie. Courtesy of Maggie Saliba

Olivia's friends and sister say she was not a reckless partier; she drank and smoked marijuana, the norm among many college students, but she knew her limits. Molly "wasn't typical for her to be doing," says Maggie. That being said, "Olivia was an in-the-moment person, and she was in a place where everyone else was doing it."

And she knew what she needed to do that day to take care of herself, says the friend who was with her at the festival. The previous summer, at Identity Fest, an EDM show in Mansfield, Massachusetts, two revelers had died after reportedly taking drugs, including ecstasy. Olivia knew about those deaths, her friend says, and wasn't careless about her consumption: "Olivia was in no way stupid about what she was doing." Though she danced hard that afternoon, with little food in her stomach, she made sure to drink water. "We were drinking water all day," her friend says, "and all had our own water bottles."

But by about 7 that night, Olivia began behaving strangely. "She just started wandering away from us," her friend says. Unsure of what to do, her friends brought her to get some food, though Olivia insisted she wasn't hungry. After about an hour they sat her down, and the situation devolved from there. Five minutes or so after a friend went for help, Olivia was rushed to a medical tent, where she suffered a seizure. Forty minutes after that, in the back of an ambulance, she went into cardiac arrest, and at 9:26 p.m. was pronounced dead at Metropolitan Hospital.

According to David Lee, M.D., a toxicologist and emergency room physician at North Shore University Hospital in Long Island, N.Y., who has treated molly overdose patients in the past, though not Olivia, nor anyone at last year's Electric Zoo, molly overdose cases are becoming all too common. "MDMA has been around for decades, but the popularity of it has been increasing in the past five years," he says. Though fatal reactions aren't the norm, there are risks. Molly can raise heart rate and blood pressure; since it's a synthetic street drug, and unregulated, it's difficult to know precisely what's in a pill or a packet of powder. And it's a mind-altering hallucinogen. "When we take mind-altering drugs, we make poor choices," Lee says. Dancing for hours on molly on a hot day, for example, and not drinking enough water, could cause a person to become dangerously dehydrated — enough to experience seizures or go into cardiac arrest.

Olivia's official cause of death, according to the New York City medical examiner's office, was acute MDMA intoxication with hyperthermia, or abnormally high body temperature. Afterward, the New York Post published a report that Olivia told medical personnel she took "six hits" of molly before she died. Her parents declined to comment for this article — according to Julianne, they wish to keep the finer details of Olivia's toxicology report to themselves. But the Post story incensed the Rotondo family and Olivia's friends. "Olivia was always the voice of reason in our group. She was cautious," Hannah says. The friend who was with her the night she died adds that Olivia wasn't a stranger to the molly vernacular and would never have used the words "six hits." "You're not smoking it. That's just not what you say. Olivia never would have used the word 'hits.'"

Beyond what Olivia did or did not say, what happened inside that medical tent remains a mystery. Olivia's friends were kept outside while she was being treated. "We couldn't see what was happening," says the one who spoke with me.

Olivia as a child. Courtesy of Rotondo Family

Last September, a few days after Olivia's death, the Post ran another provocative report — this one suggesting that Electric Zoo organizers hired private medical personnel and concealed ill revelers in medical tents in order to avoid having to call 911 and alerting law enforcement. Made Event's spokesman, Stefan Friedman, struck back, telling the Post, "For anonymous sources to suggest we have doctors and ambulances on site for anything but to treat people in as efficient a way as possible is obscene." But Wooldridge, the executive director of Dance Safe, notes that, in general, fear of law enforcement is pervasive within the EDM scene. "If you're with your friend, and your friend is having a hard time with a drug, you may not seek help because you're fearful of getting in trouble," she says. Concert promoters, too, fear losing permits or racking up criminal charges. "The Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act [which was passed in 2003] has language in it that can hold promoters and club owners responsible for drug use at concerts. Because of that, some promoters are guided by insurers not to address drug use head-on," Wooldridge explains. Providing resources to reduce harm from drugs at concerts — for example, access to testing kits that can tell you whether or not a substance is in fact MDMA, access to cooling stations, and the like — could potentially be read by feds as aiding and abetting drug use. "It's not that concert promoters don't care [about safety]," Wooldridge says. "Their hands are tied."

After the deaths at Electric Zoo, Made Event convened an advisory board to come up with new safety recommendations. This year's festival will include drug searches, drug-sniffing dogs, and amnesty bins for revelers to dispose of illicit substances — changes Made Event plans to implement at all of its future concerts. "Everyone at Made Event was devastated by last summer's tragedies, and we have spent much of the last nine months reviewing possible ways to improve the already robust safety and security measures in place at previous Electric Zoo Festivals," Friedman told Cosmopolitan.com in a statement in June. "We plan to implement all of the advisory board's recommendations in addition to last year's already-comprehensive measures."

At this point, Olivia's friends and family say they're not looking to assign blame. The consensus among them is that Olivia chose to take something that day, and whatever it was triggered a fatal chain of events in her body. "I can't speak to anything that happened because I wasn't there. But what I do believe about the whole event, and in general, is something that I have been taught my whole life," Julianne says. "Everybody is responsible for their own actions."

On the day Olivia was laid to rest, eight of her best friends walked in front of her casket at Saint Augustine's Church in Providence. A thousand people had come to her wake that week to say good-bye; that sunny September day, most of the pews in the cavernous church were filled. In her eulogy, Hannah told her favorite silly stories about Olivia but came apart near the end. "I don't want to live without you," she said, breaking into a sob. At the cemetery, mourners laid sunflowers, Olivia's favorite, on her casket. "It was the worst moment of my life," Maggie says, "but so beautiful at the same time."

Julianne honors Olivia at her college graduation. Courtesy of Rotondo Family

When they cleaned out her bedroom at UNH, the girls found writings of Olivia's that showed a different side of her. Olivia had entered a time in her life when "she wanted to find herself and find out who she was," Julianne recalls. "She loved doing spontaneous, stupid things, but she was mature and thoughtful. She was thinking about the future," adds Hannah. Olivia had dreams. She wanted to go on a road trip to California after college, travel, and fall in love. When asked what they thought Olivia might have done when she grew up, her friends agreed: something creative that harnessed her sense of humor. And she wanted to be a mom. In a note she wrote to Hannah, Olivia said she couldn't wait for her kids to call Hannah "auntie." Now, Hannah says, "I look at that letter all the time."

This past May, Olivia's birthday coincided with Julianne's college graduation. Before her commencement ceremony, she glued the top of a faux sunflower to her cap and spelled out the words "Happy Birthday Olivia" in glittery adhesive letters. Afterward the Rotondos invited Olivia's closest friends to join them for a family celebration at their home. The forecast called for rain, but instead, the sun shone brightly, and the party moved to the porch, where Olivia's dad played guitar. On what would've been her 21st birthday, it was a fitting tribute — all of Olivia's favorite people gathered in one place, enjoying the sunshine, listening to music.

Olivia's family has established a foundation in her honor called LivForYou; this June, they awarded an inaugural ballet scholarship in Olivia's name to two students at Cheryl's Dance Studio in North Providence, where Olivia danced as a child. Now Olivia's friends say they're looking into additional ways to share her story with the world. Sarah and Hannah have already made inquiries about speaking to students at local high schools. "We feel a real sense of responsibility," Sarah says.

The girls now have a motto: "Live for Liv." When they have bad days, they look down at the bracelets they wear on their wrists, inscribed with the phrase, and the silver sunflower rings they had made to remember her.

"All those years, trying to find the best friends you could ask for, and then finding her ..." Sarah told me, trailing off. "It hurts. We were so lucky to have her."

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Kristen Mascia Kristen Mascia is a journalist and editor who writes about health, politics, and people and trends in the zeitgeist.

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