Under the library’s overhang, safe from the sun, I am trembling with anger, indignation, shock—name an upset, I’m feeling it. Even if I could find a backup getaway ride now, even if I want to ignore the humiliating video, I have to watch every single frame again. Enough crises have been dissected at my kitchen table for me to know that the longer you ignore a problem, the more aggressively cancerous it will become. So I force myself to hold my phone, surprised that I don’t drop it, I’m shaking that badly.

“Get it together,” I mutter to myself and find the video.

While I’m expecting myself on-screen, I’m startled to see me and just me and so much of me again. Deathly comes to mind. I lift my eyes across the square to the empty running track. I’ve never wanted to be in front of the camera. My safe spot—my sweet spot—is in front of a computer. I’m the researcher, the interviewer, the reporter. I like the backstage, not the podium.

I click PLAY.

It’s as if the cinematographer has choreographed the entire production: the swell of the Firefly theme song, the slowing of the Browncoats as they gather around me, fallen on the ground. Enter Thor, dropping to one knee, ready to hoist me over his shoulder and fly me to safety. I wish he had. Firefighters storm-troop toward us and transfer me to a stretcher. The camera zooms onto my face, an ugly red. My mouth gapes open, and then the thin, unmistakable streak of drool.

Really, whoever posted this couldn’t have cut that millisecond?

Cue: the repeat loop of my painfully red, unconscious face.

Cue: the stretcher.

Cue: the drool.

This is all my fault: These twenty thousand views driven by my fellow obsessed fans, the Browncoats of Firefly.

If only I hadn’t insisted on hosting the bake sale on the opening day of the Firefly exhibit.

If only I hadn’t gone to Africa.

If only Josh would answer an SOS for a girl he just met.

It’s been a full ten minutes since I texted him. In crisis time, that’s an eternity. I shiver, unsure if I’m distraught or cold or remembering how Lee & Li never dwell in If. Instead, we sequester the If with concrete contingencies and clear options. And always, always, always, we have a solid Option B backup plan.

I have nothing.

Then a text pings.

Josh: Almost there.

Two minutes later, a red pickup truck rumbles into the school’s long driveway, then curves around the circle. I step into the sun. My heart lifts at the driver wearing an unfortunate safari hat that matches mine. I have never been so happy to run to If.