By Wednesday afternoon, I had a new password and thirteen minutes less patience. Ash went to the vending machine while I signed in. The school archive opened under my new login. There were folders for old news shows, theater, sports, and the media club’s finished projects. Below them was a folder called reference, the one we used when someone wanted an old shot of the town. Ms. Cho had asked the school to give the centennial team access. I had said yes to that list without looking through every file on it.
I opened reference. The folders were named by year, and then by whoever had saved them. Three clicks brought me to my name. I saw a thumbnail of Wren standing at the river with her hair in a wet knot.
RIVER_CUT_01.
I did not touch it. I sat with both hands on the edge of the table, hearing the computer fan and students leaving down the hall. For two years I had managed to think of this file as something I had dealt with. I had edited out the sound Eli did not want shared. I had promised Wren I would get rid of every copy. Those were two different things, and I had spent a long time placing them close enough in my head to look like one.
The thumbnail meant the file was still here. Wren had trusted me when I said it wouldn't be.
Ash came back with two paper cups. He had bought hot chocolate because the vending machine's coffee tasted like wet cardboard. He gave me one, then saw the screen.
“That's the clip?” he asked.
“It might be.”
“You look like it is.”
I clicked play.
The river appeared on a small screen. Eli sat on the bank in a green shirt, one hand against the ground. Wren rose from a crouch beside him. My camera jerked as she turned and ran up the path. The cut jumped to our picnic blanket, dry towels, and a gull trying to steal a chip. A little title I'd added at fifteen appeared over the grass: LAST DAY OF SUMMER.
I had once been pleased with that jump. Now I could barely look at the cheerful title.
“That's where it came from,” Ash said. “The frame before the blanket. Same shake.”
“Yes.”
“Who saved this?”
I pointed to my name at the top of the folder.
“You didn't post it,” he said quickly.
“I know.”
He looked at me with the patient face people use when they think you've missed the point. “I'm saying the file being here isn't the same as you sending it to an account.”
I took the cup from him. The lid had a crack down one side. He had noticed the thing I wanted someone to notice. He had not asked why this file still existed.
“Can you open a private folder without a club account?” I asked.
“No. Ms. Cho said the school gave us permission for the project.”
“Us as in you and me?”
“Those are the named accounts. But the back computer stays signed into the project account if someone forgets to log out.” He nodded toward the machine by the printer. “Tessa used it last week for the town banner shots.”
“Tessa mentioned the archive.”
“There you go. Doesn't mean it was her. People use that computer all day.”
As if the room had heard him, the door opened and Tessa came in with two rolled posters under her arm. She wanted the school printer to make a smaller copy of the centennial banner for the hall doors. Ash pointed her toward the machine at the back. She sat down, woke it with a tap, and found the project window still open from somebody else's session.
“Who left this signed in?” she asked.
“Nobody knows,” Ash said. “Apparently the computer enjoys being everyone's friend.”
Tessa signed out and used her own account. She did not look at my screen. She printed her copies, asked whether the river cleanup shoot was still on for Saturday, and left when I said we hadn't set a time.
“See?” Ash said after she left. “If she'd wanted something from the open session, she could have taken it. So could anyone who came in before her.”
“She logged out.”
“I know. I'm agreeing with you.”
I looked at my name at the top of the screen. Ash had a login too. I still didn’t know who had copied the clip, or whether the shared workstation had anything to do with it.
“Don't open it again,” I said.
“I wasn't going to.”
“Don't show anyone, either.”
“Sadie.”
“Please.”
He set his cup down. “Okay. What about Ms. Cho?”
I hadn't decided. Ms. Cho was the council lead, not the school person who could tell me what had been downloaded. But she had put us on the project and signed for access to the old files. She needed to know that access might have been used to send a clip outside the room.
“I’ll talk to her,” I said.
Ash had a list of possible interviews: the market association, Mr. Nouri, the cleanup group. I wrote them down, then closed the archive.
Ms. Cho came after school with a canvas bag full of release forms. She wanted us to mark each person we planned to interview and each location that needed approval. She spread the papers over the table and asked why neither of us had filmed the morning bakery shift yet.
“My mother would like to know that too,” I said.
“People at work are the heart of your pitch. You'll need permission and a date.”
I waited while Ash filled out the form for Mr. Nouri. When he went to collect a camera from the cupboard, I stood beside Ms. Cho at the window.
“There's a problem with the old files,” I said.
She put down her pen. “What kind?”
“A clip from the archive showed up on a student account. It wasn't supposed to leave the club.”
“Is this the river post?”
I nodded. She had seen it. I could tell by how little I had to explain.
“Was the clip yours?”
“Yes. I made a rough cut when I was younger. It stayed in my reference folder.”
I heard myself say stayed, as though the file had decided to live there on its own.
“Who else has permission to that folder?” she asked.
“Ash and I have named access for the film. There's a shared workstation in here too. I don't know if somebody used it.”
She took out her phone. “The school supervisor can check the project permissions and whether the file was exported. I'll ask. Don't move or delete anything until they've looked at it.”
“Okay.”
“And keep the clip out of the film.”
“I wasn't going to use it.”
She looked at me for a second. “I'm glad. Is there anything else I should know about why it was in the folder?”
Ash came back carrying the camera case. The buckles knocked against the table. I felt the chance to answer pass through the room.
“It was an old practice edit,” I said. “I forgot it was there.”
I had not forgotten. Even before the post, I had known I had left the rough cut in the archive. I had simply avoided the folder. Ms. Cho wrote herself a note without hearing the difference.
On the way home I passed the hardware store. The wet-paint sign Wren and I used to laugh at had a fresh strip of paper over the old fingerprint. A blue edge still showed.
I remembered her living room, my camera case between us, and the way she stood still until I promised to delete every copy of the river day. I had known there were two: the rough cut at school and the original at home. Neither was gone.
At home, I sent Wren a message: I found the school copy. I told Ms. Cho someone took part of it. Can we talk?
Her answer came while I was warming the soup Mom had left.
Wren: Tomorrow after my shift. Fifteen minutes.
I checked the pool schedule and set an alarm to leave school on time.