The school supervisor was a man named Mr. Vega who taught computer science and kept the media-room cameras signed out in a paper ledger. He asked me and Ms. Cho to come in Monday before classes. Ash was there already, standing beside the printer with his hands in his pockets.
Mr. Vega had the river file open on one screen and a list of exports on another. He had not played the clip, he said. He was checking how a copy had left the school archive. He turned the second screen so we could all see it.
He asked me to identify the file first. I could see the thumbnail, its date, and the title I had given the rough cut at fifteen. I told him it was mine and that the original camera recording had never been in the school folder. He wrote that down. He had a printout of the public post beside the keyboard, with the replies covered by a sheet of paper. I was grateful for that small choice. We needed to compare the file and the posted excerpt, not read what strangers thought of Wren again.
“The exported copy matches these frames,” he said, pointing to the picture of Wren leaving the bank. “It doesn't contain the later part of the day. I can't tell you from this list what anyone believed when they watched it.”
Ms. Cho nodded. She had come for the archive facts, not to settle Wren's character in a room without her. Ash kept looking at the covered replies.
“The original file stayed in your folder,” Mr. Vega told me. “One short copy was exported just before the first post. It came from Ash's named account.”
Ash stared at the time on the screen. “I used the folder for the town film. That doesn't mean I sent it anywhere.”
“It doesn't,” Mr. Vega said. “The export is one fact. We checked the shared workstation too. It was signed out of the project account and powered down at that time. The export did not come from there.”
Tessa's printer visit had been a normal visit. I felt a brief, ugly relief that I could stop wondering about her, followed by the thought that I'd spent days looking at the wrong student whenever she entered the room.
Mr. Vega tapped the list again. “Someone could have used a signed-in named account without its owner present. I need to ask what happened before I decide anything.”
Ash rubbed his thumb against the seam of his pocket. “I made a reference copy,” he said. “Sadie and I were sorting river shots.”
“Why the old clip?” Ms. Cho asked. “We had agreed it would stay out of the film.”
“That was after the post,” Ash said. “I exported it before she told us to hold it.”
“We weren’t sorting river shots then,” I said. “That was the morning after I won. I came in and you showed me the post.”
Ash looked at me, then back at the export time. He did not repeat the story.
Mr. Vega opened a folder from the school-owned project laptop. He had checked its recent work files because it was the device that signed into Ash's account that morning. The file name was plain: river safety note. A few lines sat in an unfinished draft. One read: And this is who they want teaching river safety? Ask Eli.
The public caption had said, Ask him. I heard the same little shove in both versions. Mr. Vega pointed out the words, then closed the file.
“That makes me concerned,” he said to Ash. “It isn't proof by itself. I want you to tell me whether you sent the clip and caption to the student account.”
Ash looked at Ms. Cho, then at me. His face had lost the patient expression he'd worn when he told me the archive file wasn't the same as a post. He sat down in the chair by the printer.
“I sent it,” he said.
No one moved. The hallway bell rang once, distant through the closed door.
I saw him at the table on Tuesday morning, his hand over his mouth. Where did they get this? He had let me bring him breakfast while he asked who else had my file. I took my hands off the chair before I pushed it over.
“Did you give them the caption?” Mr. Vega asked.
“I wrote a version. They changed a word and added Wren's full name.”
“Did you know what happened at the river?” I asked.
“I knew Eli needed help. I saw Wren run.”
“You saw two seconds.”
He looked up. “That's what you saved.”
It was true, and he had used it. I gripped the back of the empty chair again.
“Eli asked her to go,” I said. “She came back with her aunt.”
Ash shook his head once. “I didn't know that.”
“You could have asked.”
“I thought the video showed enough.” He stopped and looked at Mr. Vega. “It doesn't now. I can see that.”
“Why send it to an account instead of bringing it to the program?” Ms. Cho asked.
Ash pressed his palms together. “Because the program would wait. They'd do interviews and say they couldn't talk about applicants. By then the lead would be picked.”
“You sent it before they could compare you with Wren,” I said.
“Yes.”
I thought of him at the cleanup, filming the warning sign, talking about the river's danger as if no one else understood it. He knew how to work at the pool. He could have made his own case. Instead he had tried to make Wren's look worse.
“I wanted them to take safety seriously,” he said. “And I wanted the job. Both things were true.”
“You made a person look unsafe without knowing what she did,” Ms. Cho said.
He nodded, but he looked at the table rather than at her. “I should have asked Eli.”
“You should have asked before sending anything,” Mr. Vega said. “This was school material in a restricted folder. It wasn't yours to take out or caption.”
He told Ash to give him the project laptop and not use the archive until the school finished its review. He would inform the river program that a student applicant had sent a false, misleading clip. The school could handle access and conduct, not decide who got a town job.
Ash took his hands from his pockets and put the laptop on the desk. “Can I tell Wren myself?” he asked.
“You can offer,” Mr. Vega said. “She doesn't have to meet you. I'll contact her and her family with the facts we've established.”
“What about the post?” I asked. “Can the school tell the account it was false?”
“We'll ask the account for a correction and preserve the records first,” Mr. Vega said. “I can say how a school file was used. Wren and Eli decide what they want said about themselves.”
I glanced at Ash. He had wanted the account to speak before the program chose a leader. Now the school would speak to the account too, but he would have no say in the version it asked them to run.
Ash went into the hall with him. I stayed in the media room beside Ms. Cho. The river file's thumbnail was still on the first screen. I could see Wren's arm and the edge of Eli's green shirt. A moment ago I'd wanted the sender named. Now that I had his name, the thumbnail still looked the same.
“I left that rough cut here,” I said. “I told you I forgot it was in the folder. I didn't forget.”
Ms. Cho sat in the chair Ash had left. She waited, giving me space to go on.
“Wren asked me to delete every copy two years ago. I said I would. I kept this one and the original at home.”
“Does Eli know about the original?”
“I told him Friday. He doesn't want it shared.”
“Then we won't ask for it. The school has what it needs to investigate the export.” Ms. Cho looked at the screen, then back at me. “Thank you for telling me. You should have said it when I asked why the file was here.”
“I know.”
“We will talk about what this means for the film after I've spoken with the council. For now, you are still its director. The river section stays on hold.”
She did not make it sound like a promise that the job was safe. She gave me a day to keep doing it and a clear reason to wonder about the next one.
Ash came back for his coat at the end of first period. I had stayed to move the market clips onto a clean project drive. He stopped at the door.
“I didn't know Eli sent her,” he said.
“You knew there was more than two seconds.”
“I thought she ran from him. You cut from that to a picnic. What was I supposed to think?”
“That you didn't know.”
He tightened his grip on his coat. “I watched her work at the pool. She checks every gate and makes the kids walk. I figured that was because she'd learned from doing something wrong at the river.”
“Or because she's good at her job.”
“I see that now.” He looked toward the archive computer. “I wanted the program to ask questions before they picked her. I knew it might help me. I let myself call it a warning instead of what it was.”
“You sent the warning to a gossip account.”
“I know.”
He said it without asking me to make him feel better. I could believe he had convinced himself and still hold him responsible for choosing the one place that would spread the worst guess fastest.
He looked away. Behind him, Wren’s arm was still caught in the thumbnail of my cut.
“I can tell the account I sent it,” he said. “Maybe they'll fix the caption.”
“Tell Mr. Vega what you want to send first. He'll let Wren know. She gets to decide whether she wants your apology attached to her correction.”
Ash's mouth tightened. “So now you speak for her?”
“No. I'm asking you not to.”
He took his coat and left. I turned back to the market footage. Mom laughed on the screen as the grocer balanced apples in one hand. I had a town film to finish, if the council still wanted me to. The person who had sent the clip was gone from the room. The file I had made was not.