The file began with Wren saying my name from behind the camera. Fifteen-year-old me had been filming the river path while everyone else carried towels down to the water. I swung around too late to catch what she wanted to show me: Eli stepping off a rock and making a wide, silly bow. He nearly fell in, caught himself, and bowed again.
I stopped the video. The room around my desk was dark now. Light showed under my door, and I could hear Mom moving around downstairs. I turned the screen brightness down and played from the start.
We were fifteen in the recording and sure the afternoon would keep going. Wren's aunt was at the picnic shelter up the path, spreading food over a table. She called for Wren to bring the bag with cups from the car. Wren waved the key to show she had it and said she'd go in a minute. Eli asked whether there were peaches. The camera shook when I laughed.
I remembered that part before I saw it. I had put it in the rough cut. The peaches had stayed.
The video went on longer than I expected. I filmed water over stones, Wren swimming toward the bank, Eli coming after her. He slowed near the shallows. At first he looked annoyed, as though the river had made him lose a race. Then he reached for Wren's arm. She turned and put a hand against his back as they moved toward the stones.
I wanted to skip ahead. I kept the video running.
Eli sat on the bank and tried to speak. I could hear how hard he was working to breathe. Wren crouched beside him. The camera held on them for several seconds, too steady for how frightened I remembered being. I had frozen with my finger on the button. No one seeing the image would know that.
“Inhaler,” Eli said. He looked at Wren. “My bag's in the car. Please.”
She showed him the key in her hand, then looked up the path toward the parking area. “I'm going. Sadie, stay with him.”
Wren rose from her crouch and ran. The camera followed her for two steps, then dropped toward the stones. My shoe filled the corner of the picture. I had put the camera down without stopping it. On the sound, I heard myself tell Eli I was calling for help. He said to do it.
There was a long stretch of stone and shoe while the voices stayed close. It was awful to watch because nothing in the picture told me what to do. I remembered looking from Eli to the path to the phone, afraid I would choose the wrong one first. I wanted to reach into the screen and do it sooner, though I knew no one in that scene could hear me now.
I heard myself dial 911 on my phone. I put the call on speaker and set the phone beside the camera. The emergency operator answered. I gave our location, then answered questions as best I could. My voice sounded smaller than I remembered. The operator stayed on the call. Eli's breathing was still difficult, and I kept looking up the path for Wren.
I did not need to watch the whole call to know she came back. I watched it anyway.
Her shoes appeared at the edge of the frame, then her aunt's. Wren had Eli's bag. She handed him the reliever he had asked for, and he used it while her aunt stayed beside him. The camera saw mostly stones and knees. Wren said that she had told her aunt on the way from the car. Her aunt spoke to the operator through my phone and followed the instructions she was given. A few minutes later I heard a siren and adults coming down the path. The recording ended when one of them asked me to put the camera away.
I did. I remembered that too. The responders took over. Eli went with them and was treated. By the time I saw him again that evening, he was tired and angry that we were all looking at him. He asked me not to send the footage to anyone. I had said I wouldn't.
I left the last frame on the screen: my shoe, a wet towel, Wren's red hair band near the stones. The rough cut had removed Eli's request and Wren's return. I had wanted to get back to the picnic, to make the day good again. Someone else wrote the caption, but I had left them those two seconds.
My first thought was that I could show the file. The pool, the river coordinator, the school, the people replying to the post—all of them would see Wren go and come back. The thought came with relief so strong I stood up from the desk. I opened a clean folder and almost copied the file into it.
Then Eli's voice sounded again through the headphones. My bag's in the car. Please. The recording held his breathing, the operator's questions, my fear. He had asked me two years ago not to send it around. He had asked again this week for the day to stay his. Wren had told me to send only what I saw, not the video.
I sat down. Wren had used my account at the pool. Eli had spoken to the coordinator himself. Neither had asked me to give them a video.
Mom knocked on the door. I pulled off the headphones.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“I'm watching an old file.”
She saw the river on the screen, though I had paused it on the path before anyone was in view. “Is it the one from school?”
“It's the original. At home.”
She came in and stood beside the desk. The backup drive was a black square next to my hand. She did not ask to see what was in it.
“You kept a copy,” she said.
“Yes.”
I expected her to ask why. Instead she sat on the edge of my bed and waited. I still couldn't tell her every part. I could give her one true piece.
“It shows Wren did what she said,” I told her. “It also shows why Eli doesn't want people looking at that day.”
“Then don't send it around.”
“I won't.”
“Have you told them it exists?”
“Wren knows I filmed more. She doesn't know I still have the original.”
Mom rubbed her palms together. There was a pale line of flour beneath one nail. “Sadie, why does she think you don't?”
I looked at the dark screen. I had told Mom part of the trouble at the kiosk. She was asking for the part I had left out. If I said it now, I would have to hear it out loud before I had said it to Wren.
“I need to speak to her,” I said.
“Yes.” Mom held my gaze. “You do.”
I nodded.
Mom got up. “I'm downstairs if you want tea.”
After she left, I moved the drive away from the edge of the desk. I did not make a second copy. I did not delete it that night, because the school was still checking how the rough cut had left the archive and because Wren and Eli should know what existed before I changed it again. For once, keeping my hands off the file felt harder than editing it.
Eli was the first person I called. He let it ring twice before answering.
“I found the original river recording,” I said. “The whole part. I haven't shown it to anyone.”
“Does it show Wren coming back?”
“Yes. It has your voice too. You asked her to get your bag. You came home after responders treated you.”
I heard someone speak in the background. He moved away from them.
“Do you want to see it?” I asked.
“No.” He answered so fast that I looked at the paused file on my screen. “Not tonight. I remember enough of it.”
“Okay.”
“You can tell Wren what it shows. She knows I asked her to go. If she wants to look, that's her call. I don't want the whole file sent to somebody just because they're asking for proof.”
“I won't send it.”
He let out a breath. “That includes Ms. Cho until we talk. She doesn't need to see me on that bank to know how your old cut got out.”
I had been thinking about sending Ms. Cho a copy as soon as I found it. Not to post, only to show her that Wren had helped. Eli had heard the next move in my voice before I made it. I closed the folder on my screen.
“Are you planning to post it?” he asked.
“No. I wanted you to know I have it. I should have told you sooner.”
“You should have.” He sounded tired, not surprised. “Please don't make a decision about that file without asking me.”
“I won't.”
“And ask Wren. It shows her too.”
“I will.”
He didn't tell me I had done well by calling. He didn't need to. Before we hung up, I asked how the play rehearsal had gone. He said they finally got the sound of a breaking plate to land in the right place, and Maya had stopped jumping before the cue. I laughed. It came out awkward, but he stayed on the line long enough to tell me about the rest of the scene.
After the call, I shut the video. Eli's name was still on my recent calls. I set the phone beside the drive and went downstairs to help Mom with the mugs.