DRUNK PHYSICS

KELLEY ARMSTRONG

Drunk Physics started in a bar, naturally. A bunch of physics postgrads hanging out, blowing off thesis stress, getting wasted and getting loud, and pissing off the group of math post-grads quietly working through theorems at the next table.

Six of us crammed into the booth. Trinity and I were the only girls—I do remember that. We weren’t exactly friends, but if Trinity wanted a drink with the guys, she always asked me to come along. I was her wingman, a warning to the guys that none of them would be escorting Trinity home, however noble their intentions.

I’m a good drinker. Well, not “good” in the sense I can hold my liquor. I absolutely cannot. I just become someone different, someone fun and funny and vastly more entertaining than sober Hannah. Being drunk doesn’t just lower my inhibitions—it atomically annihilates them while never destroying my common sense. All the clever and cool retorts I’d normally think but never say? They actually come out of my mouth. Plenty of silly non- sense, too, but never anything cruel.

So, I’m in the college pub with the guys, downing a fizzy pink something—that’s how I order drinks: just give me a fizzy pink something or a blue sour whatever. Bartenders either love me or hate me. This one thinks I’m adorable, and I suspect there are more than two shots in my drink. One minute I’m expounding on this show Drunk History and the next I’m riffing on a Drunk Physics version of it, and the guys are laughing so hard they’re snorting beer. Even Trinity chuckles as she sips her wine cocktail.

Then Rory says, “You should totally do that. Put it on YouTube.”

“Be my guest,” I say.

“No, you, Hannah.” Liu waves an unsteady finger in my face. “You and Trin. Together. You’d rack up the views. You’re hilarious, and Trin’s . . . Well, Trin’s Trin.”

Trinity is gorgeous. That’s what he means. She looks like Holly-wood’s idea of a physics doctoral student, the sort who makes actual physics majors roll their eyes because, come on, we don’t look like that. Except Trinity does. Long curly black hair, huge amber eyes, a slender but curvy body. I’m embarrassed to admit that the first time I saw her in class, I almost offered to help her find her room because she was clearly in the wrong place.

“So, Drunk Physics, huh?” Trinity says. “How would that work?”

“You guys drink,” Liu says. “A lot. You get wasted, and then you try to explain a physics concept and post the result on a YouTube channel.”

“It would be hilarious,” Rory says. “You should do it, Hannah.” The other guys take up a chant of “Do it! Do it!” banging the scarred table. I roll my eyes. Trinity shrugs and says, “Sure, why not.”

I look at her. “Seriously?”

A soft smile. “Seriously. It’d be fun.” And so Drunk Physics was born.

Six months later

I wake on the couch, groaning and reaching for my water bottle, which I’ve learned to put on the table before we start filming.

As I chug lukewarm water, Trinity’s figure sways in front of me. She’s seated at the desk, and she isn’t actually swaying—that’s just me.

Trinity’s gaze is fixed on a massive computer screen where my drunken image gestures wildly. Thankfully, the sound is off. It’s last night’s Drunk Girl Physics episode. Yes, we had a name change. Apparently, Drunk Physics wasn’t as original as I thought. We decided to play on the element that made our show unique. Drunk Girl Physics. DGP to its fans, and to my everlasting shock, we actually have those. A lot.

Six months ago, Trinity and I started with a laptop and a cheap microphone. Now we have this ginormous computer monitor, connected to a top-of-the-line laptop, professional-grade cameras and microphones, all courtesy of Webizode.com, a startup channel for web series. We began on YouTube, but that was an exercise in humility. Oh, we got traffic—thanks to incredibly kind shout-outs from a few stars in the science-web-series biz—but we also got the kind of attention no one wants. For Trinity, that was endless chatter asking her to show some body part or another. For me, it was the opposite.

Don’t undress, please, Hannah.

Well, it’s a good thing she’s funny, ’cause no one would be watching her otherwise.

Despite a rocketing viewership—and actual income—we’d been ready to quit, deciding no amount of money was worth the humiliation. Then Webizode came along, offering us a home with awesome comment moderation. They gave us the equipment, too, plus promotion, exposure, and enough income for Trinity and me to leave grad-school housing. We found this gorgeous old house to rent, and yes, Trinity swears she gets spooky vibes from it, but honestly, I think she’d say that about any house more than twenty years old.

While we loved having our own house, it was Webizode’s moderation we appreciated most. Still, the morning after our latest upload, Trinity is scrolling through comments, ready to hit our personal report button if anything slipped through.

“All good?” I croak as I rise from the couch, the floor tilting underfoot.

She doesn’t turn. “That was a really shitty thing to do, Hannah.”

“Wh-what?” I blink and stagger to the desk as my head and stomach spin . . . in opposite directions, of course.

God, I need to drink less for these videos. Except that’s the point, as Webizode pointed out when I tried subbing water for half my vodka shots. Our fans noticed and were not impressed, and neither was Webizode.

In six months, I’ve exhausted every hangover remedy on the planet. The only thing that helps is having a full stomach pretaping and then drinking enough water afterward that I might as well sleep in the bathroom. I may have actually done that once or twice. I look down at Trinity, my lurching brain struggling to remember why I’m here.

Oh, right.

“What’d I do?” I say.

She turns on the volume and hits Play on the frozen video.

I’m saying, “The prevailing theory of time is that it moves in a straight line, like this.” I demonstrate with an empty shot glass, which does not move in any actual semblance of “straight.”

“Which means that to travel through time, you’d need to . . .” I did something on-screen with the two empty glasses.

I groan. “Time travel? Really?”

On-screen, I continue drunkenly explaining concepts that I don’t even understand sober.

“But that presumes that time is orderly, when it could actually be,” my drunken self says, and then launches into a Doctor Who quote about time being like a ball of “wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff.”

“What?” on-screen Trinity says.

I continue to quote the show with, “Things don’t always happen in the right order.”

Trinity hits Stop and glares at me. I sink into a chair and blink at the screen. Then I blink at her.

“I made a fool of myself,” I say. “Situation normal. But I’m not seeing what . . .”

She jabs a finger at a section of the comments.

trekgal98: Twenty points to Hannah for the Doctor Who refs!

larrybarry: And they both zoomed right over Trinity’s head.

trekgal98: Are you surprised?

larrybarry: LOL

It seems like an innocuous exchange. It is innocuous—all comments pass through Webizode’s moderation. Profanity is removed. Insults and innuendo are blocked. Trinity, though, cannot help scraping away those layers of idle comments to find the insult hidden within, and she’s found it here as she always does when I make a geek-culture reference that she doesn’t get.

“You promised to stop doing that,” she says.

I throw up my hands. “I’m drunk, and I’m blathering nonsense.”

“You do it on purpose. You know our audience, and you play to them, and you make me look like an idiot.”

“Not watching a TV show hardly makes you an idiot, Trin. In fact, it makes you smart. Unlike me, you don’t waste your study hours watching Netflix.”

“Because I need to study. You don’t. You’re a freaking genius.” And that’s what it comes down to. What it always comes down to. Trinity has decided t at I’m smarter than her and that our Webizode audience prefers me. She’s . . . not wrong.

Damn it. I hate saying that. I’ve gotten to know Trinity much better in the last six months, and I consider her a friend. Yet the more I get to know her, the less I envy her. Yes, she’s gorgeous. Smart, too, or she wouldn’t be in our doctoral program. But she has an insecure core that desperately needs to be more than a pretty face. She is accustomed to being the center of attention, and when the spotlight slides my way, she deflates, her anxieties twisting into anger that homes in on me, as if I’ve stolen that spotlight from her.

“I didn’t mean it, Trin,” I say evenly. “You know that. I’m making a fool of myself.” I wave at the screen. “Time travel? I don’t even know what I’m saying there. Lunatic fringe.”

“They love it,” she says. “Check the stats.”

I peer at the counter and frown. The episode has been up for fewer than eight hours, and it’s already gotten more views than last week’s.

“That can’t be about me babbling incoherent sci-fi references,” I say. “There must be something else.”

I zoom through the comments. I don’t get far before I find what I’m looking for, and I groan anew. Then I fast-forward the video. About halfway through our segment, a dim light appears over Trinity’s shoulder. It gradually becomes brighter until there is very clearly a translucent amorphous blob hovering there.

“Ghost,” I say.

“What?”

I point at the shape. “This is a ghostly orb. At least, it is according to our viewers.”

Trinity reads the comments and then squints at the screen. “That thing?”

“Hey, you’re the one who said this place was haunted. There’s your proof.”

She gives me a hard look. “I said this house gave me a weird feeling, and you’re never going to let me forget that, are you?”

I tap the screen. “Looks like a ghost to me.”

She rolls her eyes. “It’s light glare. Even I know that.”

“Well, more clicks will make Webizode happy.” I shut off the monitor. “I’ll make you a deal. I won’t bug you about ghosts again, and you won’t bug me about time travel.”

“Fair enough. You want the shower first?”

“I want coffee first. And after.” I purse my lips. “Think I can rig the brewer up to the nozzle and shower in it?”

She rolls her eyes and heads for the bathroom.

The orb is back. It’s right where it was in the last segment, hovering over Trinity’s shoulder.

I’d set my alarm to get up before Trinity could check our latest episode. I wasn’t looking for the orb. I’d forgotten all about it. I just wanted to comment-skim, make sure I hadn’t said anything else to upset her.

After the last episode, I emailed our contact at Webizode and asked whether they could delete any future comments on my geek-culture references. They refused. It’d be a game of Whack-A-Mole, really. Delete one, and another commenter would gleefully jump in, thinking they were the first to recognize it, claiming whatever cosmic cookies the universe awarded for that.

I knew Webizode would refuse. That was just my opening gambit, so they’d be more likely to agree when I asked them to instead delete comments about Trinity failing to recognize my references. While they said yes, I was still checking.

I only get through the first page before someone mentions the orb. I check, and sure enough, there it is.

It seems . . . brighter? No, clearer. It looks like a reflection of the moon, a pale sphere with cratered shadows. There’s only one window in this room, though, and it’s behind the camera with a permanently closed blackout blind to avoid light cast by passing cars.

I read the comments.

schrodingers_cow: I see a face in the orb. Don’t you?

jazzhands1999: Uh, no. I see the reflection of a light bulb.

kalebsmom: That’s not a light bulb. It’s an orb. And I see a face, too. Zoom in. Eyes. Mouth. Nose. It’s all there.

I blow the video up to full screen. Yes, there are dark blotches approximately where you’d find eyes and a mouth, but it’s like spotting dragon-shaped clouds. People see what they want, and apparently, they want ghosts.

I keep scrolling through comments. Some are about our episode, but more and more are about the orb, people new to our channel tuning in just for that.

I won’t argue with a little publicity, though I’d rather it were for the actual show. As our marketing team at Webizode says, it doesn’t matter why people come—just get them there, present a good product, and some will stay. Which is probably why Webizode hasn’t argued about the high heating bills that keep Trinity in tank tops year-round.

I’m popping two aspirin when Trinity comes downstairs as fresh and bright-eyed as ever.

“Your ghost has returned,” I say as I swivel the keyboard her way. “Sorry, our ghost. According to the comments, it now has a face.”

“What?” She seems genuinely startled, and I chastise myself for joking around. She believes in this stuff. I hurry on to tell her that I do not see a face in what is obviously a lighting glitch.

As she skims the comments, I say, “So the question is whether we investigate the anomaly or not.”

She pales. “Investigate a ghost? I hope you’re kidding, Hannah. You don’t mess with that sort of thing.”

“I mean investigate the real cause of the light. What’s causing the reflection. Do we embrace our scientist credo and conduct a ghost-busting investigation . . . or do we let people keep thinking it’s a ghost if that bumps our stats.”

She doesn’t answer. She’s stopped on a section of comments. When I turn to head into the kitchen, she says, “I thought you went through these.”

“I did.”

“And you weren’t going to mention this?” Her nail stabs the screen, making the image shudder.

I read the comments.

gonegirl5: You see me, don’t you? I know you do.

gonegirl5: Did you really think you’d get away with it?

“Yeah,” I say. “I read that. Random bullshit. I don’t know how it got through moderation. Sometimes I wonder whether there’s a real person monitoring it or just a bot looking for key words.”

“Webizode said it’s a real person. They guaranteed that in our contract.”

“Then it’s an intern looking for key words, and since those comments don’t have any, they ignored them. I’ll mention it to them.”

After the next episode, I wake to Trinity shaking me hard enough that I jolt upright with an uncharacteristic snarl.

“Could you not do that?” I mutter as I sit up, rubbing my eyes.

“You weren’t waking,” she says. “You’re still drunk.”

“Yeah, that’s what six shots of tequila will do to a girl. We need to stop accepting those damn challenges.”

I’m grumbling, but the truth is that I watered my shots, and as a result, I’m barely hungover. Trinity has been on edge. Yesterday, I made the mistake of glancing sidelong at the new clubbing dress she planned to wear on camera. I was eyeing the tiny sheath of shimmering fabric, thinking, “Damn, I wish I could wear that,” but she took my look as criticism, and we had to delay the taping while she changed. I watered down my tequila while she was gone, knowing it wouldn’t take much to set her off again.

I glance at our stats. Fifty percent more views. Double the comments. Triple the link shares.

“Ugh,” I say. “Casper must be back.”

“I’m glad you find this amusing. How about this?” She points at two comments.

gonegirl5: You thought I was gone, didn’t you? You thought you got away with it.

gonegirl5: I’m dead, and it’s your fault, and I’m going to make sure everyone knows.

I snicker.

Trinity slowly turns on me. “You think everything’s funny, don’t you, Hannah?”

“No. I do, however, think this is funny.” I intone the comments in an ominous voice. “It’s B-movie dialogue. I know what you did last summer. I’m actually surprised it doesn’t say that. Maybe it’d be too on the nose.”

“Someone is accusing me of being responsible for their death, Hannah. That is not, in any way, amusing.”

“You?” I read the comments again. “I don’t see anything saying these are about you, Trin.”

She points at the orb. Is it clearer now? It seems clearer. I definitely see what looks like eyes and a—

I shake that off. The power of suggestion. “Still not seeing why this is about you,” I say.

“It’s over my shoulder. The ghost is always right there, next to me.”

“Trinity,” I say, as carefully as I can. “That is not a ghost. It’s a lighting anomaly. One person decides it’s an orb, and suddenly everyone sees spooks, and then someone’s gotta take it to the next level and accuse us of murder.”

“It doesn’t say ‘murder.’ It just says we’re responsible.”

“Maybe that’s why the comment moderation didn’t pick it up.

It lacks whatever words are on the intern’s watch list. I’ll report it.” I hit a few keys. “And now we’ll prove this is not a ghostly orb. It isn’t worth a bump in stats if it upsets you.”

“You think I’m overreacting.”

“No, I think it’s understandably unsettling,” I say evenly as I pull up the original video. “I’ll find out what’s going on, and our next show will be spook-free.”

“It’s not there,” Trinity whispers.

In front of us, the screen is divided into two panels. One shows the online show from two weeks ago, paused where the orb is clearest. The other window is a direct feed from the camera, stopped at the same spot.

There is no orb on the original video.

I’d started with last night’s show. When I didn’t find the orb there, I went back to the previous show. Same thing. Now I’m at the first one. There is undeniably an orb in the online version and not even a hint of stray light in the original.

At a noise, I look over to see Trinity gripping the mouse, her hand trembling so much it chitters against the desktop.

“Hey,” I say, squeezing her arm. “This is good news. It means the orb didn’t originate at our end. There’s definitely no ghost. Someone tampered with the online version.”

She glances at me, her eyes blank.

“Someone tampered with the episodes,” I say again, slower. “It’s happening on the back end. At Webizode. They’re screwing with our uploaded video.”

“Why would they do that?”

“For the views,” I say, stopping myself before I add “obvi- ously.”

“It’s someone’s idea of a marketing ploy. They’re probably also responsible for the original comments, identifying the orb as a ghost. Interns, right? Some sixteen-year-old marketing exec wannabe who’s trying to wow the boss with a creative scheme.”

Trinity nods dully. “Okay.”

“We have to—” My phone rings. Webizode’s number fills the screen. “Perfect timing. Let me handle this. An intern is about to be sacked.”

I’m not nearly as badass on the phone call. I’m polite and calm. Our contact—Oscar—is touching base about the comment I flagged, but I want to talk about the video first. I explain that I’ve examined the original video, and there’s no sign of an orb. Then I pause to let that sink in.

He’s quiet long enough that I’m about to prod, when he speaks in that way of his that I’m sure he thinks is gentle but is patronizing as hell. Is that what Trinity hears when I address her concerns? Shit. I’ll need to be more careful. There’s a fine line between “gentle” and “patronizing,” and I might be straying as far over it as Oscar is.

“I know you girls are very invested in the success of your show, Hannah,” he says. “We all are. But I might suggest that if you have marketing ideas, you run them past our team first. That’s what we’re here for.”

“Marketing ideas?”

“Your brand is science,” he says in that same slow, patronizing way. “You are both brilliant girls, and even while inebriated, you explain complex concepts in a way that’s both enlightening and entertaining. You have a great package, and you don’t need to muddy it with . . .” He pauses, as if struggling for words. “Off-brand theatrics.”

“You think we’re doing this? I just said it’s not on our uploaded—”

“I know you’ve seen a jump in stats, but you’re attracting the wrong kind of viewers, ones who will dilute your brand.”

“We aren’t—”

“We’ve noticed you girls haven’t discussed the orb on camera, and we weren’t sure you realized it was there. We were debating whether to tell you to adjust your lighting. If it’s a marketing ploy, though? That would be a violation of your contract.”

“We didn’t put it there. We don’t want it there. The fact that it’s not on the original means it’s coming from the other end of the process.”

A long pause. “You think we’re doing this?”

“I don’t actually care. Just make it stop. It’s upsetting—” I glance at Trinity, who’s listening in. “Upsetting us. Now, what I originally messaged about is something else that’s upsetting us. Those comments. I’m presuming the fact that they don’t actually say ‘murder’ gets them past comment moderation. Your moderator needs to be more careful.”

“That’s why I was calling, Hannah. To discuss the comments. They’re bypassing moderation.”

“Exactly. Whoever is moderating is letting them—”

“No, I mean they’re bypassing moderation. And the only account that can do that is the one you two share.”

“Sure, our account isn’t moderated but . . . Wait. Are you suggesting—?”

Trinity hits the Speaker button. “Oscar? Trinity here. Are you saying someone posted those comments from our computer?”

“Yes,” he says.

“The call is coming from inside the house,” I intone. She glares at me.

“That means someone’s hacked our account,” I say. Oscar doesn’t reply.

“Track the IP address,” I say. “Find out where exactly those comments came from.”

More silence.

“You already have, haven’t you?” I say carefully.

“Yes.”

And I don’t need to ask what he found.

The call really did come from inside the house.

After I end the call with Oscar, I text Rory. Thirty minutes later, he’s at our place, dissecting the videos and the comments for signs of tampering. Rory might be a physics postgrad, but his area of expertise is quantum computing . . . and he did his share of hacking in his misspent youth.

If Trinity doesn’t match anyone’s idea of a physics doctoral student, Rory is a walking stereotype, effortlessly managing to convey both computer geek and science nerd wound in a double helix. He’s not much taller than me, slight and reedy. His saving grace is his hair, which is an adorable boy-band mop of dark curls. Today he’s wearing a “Super Jew” T-shirt and blue jeans that I’m pretty sure he irons—he might even starch them. That sounds less than complimentary, but to me, guys like Rory really are superheroes in disguise—sweet, funny, smart as hell, packaged in a way that lets them pass under the radar of girls like Trinity. I do not fail to notice how fast Rory replied to my SOS, even on a Sunday morning, and I won’t pretend I’m not pleased by that.

After an hour of work, Rory leans back in the swivel chair and adjusts his glasses. “I don’t know what to tell you, Hannah.”

“The truth?”

“That I can’t find any sign of outside tampering. I don’t know how those orbs are getting on the video, but it seems to be the same one you’ve uploaded. No one is taking it down, tweaking it and putting it up again. As for the comments, everything indicates that they really did come from this computer.”

I swear under my breath. Then I say, “It’s not me.”

“You’d hardly call me in to investigate if it was. The real culprit must be . . .” His eyes cut toward the back of the house.

“I don’t think it’s Trin, either. She’s really freaked out by all this.”

“Hmm.” He eyes the closed door again and lowers his voice. “Trin likes attention, and since you guys switched to Webizode, you’re the one getting it. You’re the cool, quirky science geek. Trin is the window dressing. The straight man to your comedian.” He lowers his voice even more. “Does she know you’ve been fielding offers for solo projects?”

“I delete those as soon as they come in. Trin and I were having trouble even before this. She thinks I’m mocking her with my geek-culture references and . . .” I sigh. “Managing her moods is harder than I expected.”

“Mm-hmm.”

I turn back to the computer. “She’s going to think I’m doing this. How do I convince her I’m not?”

“By ending the show.”

When I stiffen, he says, “It started as a lark. But between Trinity’s bullshit and the weekly hangovers, you’re not having fun anymore. You already have job offers—real job offers in your field just waiting for you to graduate. You don’t need this show, Hannah.”

“Trinity does. It means a lot to her. Both the exposure and the money.”

“Which is not a good reason for you to continue, when she’s the reason you’re miserable.”

“We’re fine,” I say, taking the keyboard and busying myself checking comments.

“You said Trinity is really freaked out by those comments,” he says. “Does that seem like an overreaction?” He leans in, his dark eyes twinkling with amusement. “Maybe our Trin is a secret killer, tormented by her guilty conscience.”

I groan.

“You did say she believes in ghosts,” he says. “Maybe she’s convinced her past has literally come back to haunt her.”

He starts making ghost noises, and I laugh, telling him to cut it out. That’s when Trinity walks in. She looks from me to Rory.

“Did I just hear you two talking about ghosts?” she says.

“Uh, no, we—” I begin.

“You were making fun of me, weren’t you, Hannah.”

Rory rolls his chair between us. “No, I was joking about ghosts, and Hannah was telling me to stop.” He gets to his feet. “I have a lab this morning, and I need to run. First, though . . .” He reaches into his backpack and hands me a wrapped mug. “Almost forgot this.”

I unroll the paper to find a Doctor Who mug with the “timey-wimey stuff” quote I’d paraphrased on the show. As I laugh, I catch Trinity’s expression.

I quickly rewrap the mug. “I’ll put this in my room.”

She snatches the mug and sticks it on the desk, facing the camera, with “There” and a defiant look my way. Rory counters with a narrowed-eyes glare, but Trinity doesn’t notice, just plunks herself into the chair with, “So, did you find any evidence of tampering?”

So these comments came from our account. From our computer. And they’re being posted after Trinity goes upstairs to bed and I am alone, sleeping it off on the couch.

I’m the logical culprit. Trinity isn’t buying my protests and excuses. She’s convinced I’m responsible, and I need to fix that.

I keep thinking of what Rory said about Trinity seeming suspiciously freaked out. His comment about her having murdered someone was a joke. And yet . . .

The more paranoid Trinity becomes, the more I wonder whether there is something in her past to warrant it. Not that she’s actually killed anyone. But whenever I slip and say we’re being accused of murder, she’s always quick to clarify that the comments never say that. Only that one of us is responsible for a death.

I’d joked about I Know What You Did Last Summer, in which a group of teens accidentally hit and kill a pedestrian. What if there’s something like that in Trinity’s past?

It doesn’t even need to be that dramatic. I’d been at summer camp with a girl who drowned, and I still feel guilty for not noticing her go under the water . . . even if a dozen other kids and three counselors didn’t notice, either. Survivor guilt, my mom calls it.

Someone could know that Trinity feels guilty over an accidental death and be trolling her. Tormenting her. If there’s something in Trinity’s past—connected to those comments or not—it’d help me understand her paranoia.

I conduct my search in the library. If the public computers weren’t crammed with undergrads, I’d have used those to better hide my search history. Is that paranoid? Maybe, but I need only to imagine Trinity discovering what I’ve searched, and my back tenses, triggering an ache that suggests I’ve been more stressed lately than I like to admit.

I think of what Rory said, about quitting the show. I’d be fine with that. I might even be relieved. My parents are both corporate researchers, and while we’re hardly rich, I don’t need the show income—I’ve been stashing it in a savings account. Also, I’m really tired of the drinking. The occasional pub night with friends used to be fun. Now I nurse a Coke . . . or blow off the invitations altogether.

The problem is Trinity. I can’t be the bitch who takes away a critical source of income. And maybe I won’t need to be, because I find the answer to my question a lot faster than I imagined.

In high school, Trinity was blamed for the suicide of a bullied classmate.

My gut clenches reading that. I won’t pretend that I don’t know what it’s like to be bullied. I mostly flew too far under the radar to attract attention, but there was one girl in high school who decided I was a vastly underappreciated and overlooked target. Even today, I’ll tense seeing her first name online.

Trinity isn’t named in the actual articles about her classmate’s suicide. They only refer to bullying by “an unnamed sixteen-year-old classmate who has not been charge at this time.” It’s social media that fingers Trinity as the perpetrator, and even there, while no one disputes she’s the one accused, they hotly debate her guilt. The short version is this: When Trinity was sixteen, a classmate—Vanessa Lyons—committed suicide. In her note, she alleged ongoing and systematic harassment by Trinity, who had been her best friend in middle school. Vanessa claimed Trinity had dumped her as a friend after becoming a cheerleader and joining the popular clique. When Vanessa tried to maintain a civil relationship, Trinity turned on her, bullying and berating her until depression claimed Vanessa’s life.

It’s a common story that carries the mournful ring of truth. Girls are BFFs, but then one grows into a gorgeous cheerleader and the other . . . does not. Popular girl ditches uncool friend, who flounders, trying to make sense of it, and when she reaches out, popular girl drives her away with insults that lacerate the friend’s already paper-thin self-confidence, driving her to a place where suicide seems the only option. In death, she can finally accuse her true killer.

Reading that article, I cannot help but picture the orb behind Trinity. Cannot help but see those messages again.

In death, she can finally accuse her true killer.

I shiver even as I berate myself for it. Vanessa Lyons’s ghost has not returned to wreak beyond-the-grave vengeance. Someone else has, though. Someone who blames Trinity.

The problem is that few people did seem to blame Trinity. On social media, her friends defended her, insisting Trinity had never said anything unkind about Vanessa in their hearing. Of course they would say that, being her friends. But only a couple of other classmates claimed to have witnessed the bullying, and no one put much stock in their credibility. Most of those blaming Trinity never saw or heard anything—they simply condemned her with variations on “Of course she did it. Girls like her are total bitches.”

Reading this and knowing Trinity, I’m not persuaded she’s guilty. I do know why she’s freaking out, though.

She’s convinced Vanessa Lyons has come back to haunt her.

I try to cancel the next episode of Drunk Girl Physics. Trinity won’t hear of it. The show must go on, apparently. I do convince her to let us switch seats. That way, if the orb appears over me, I’ll know it’s just a random asshole hacker, nothing to do with the death of Vanessa Lyons.

I set my alarm for seven the next morning to beat Trinity to the comment section. When I wake, I find a text from Rory. He asks me to call him as soon as I wake. The fact he’s asking for a call rather than a text means it’s urgent.

He picks up on the first ring.

“First, I need to apologize,” he says. “I overstepped my bounds and did something that, in retrospect, is going to seem really skeevy. It was for a good reason, though.”

“Okay . . .”

“I set up a spy camera on the desk in your office.”

“Uh . . .”

He hurries on. “I only activated it after last night’s episode went live, and it’s focused on the computer. I can’t see the rest of the room. I just wanted to monitor the keyboard after you uploaded the show.”

“To see which of us was tampering with the film and posting the comments.”

“Yes.” He exhales, as if in relief that I understand. “Not that I thought it was you. Honestly, I expected to catch Trin.”

The hairs on my neck prickle. “But it was me? Drunk sleepwalking?”

“No, no. Nobody tampered with it, Hannah. That’s what I wanted to tell you. I have the entire night of tape, and no one came near the desk.”

“Okay, is the orb gone, then?”

His hesitation tells me otherwise, and I hurry to the computer. “Two minutes, ten seconds,” he says.

I find the spot. As I watch, the orb manifests over Trinity’s seated form.

“Shit,” I say.

“You switched spots,” he says. “That was a good idea.”

“No,” I say. “It was actually really stupid. Now she’s going to see that and—”

“See what?” says a voice behind me. I wheel as Trinity walks in. She stops. “Who are you talking to, Hannah?”

“J-just Rory.” Did I stammer? Why the hell did I stammer?

Her gaze slides to the screen, and she blanches. I mumble something to Rory and hang up.

“Someone’s hacking the system,” I say quickly. “That’s what Rory was calling about. He put a camera in here and—”

“He put a spy camera in our house?”

“He apologized. He could only see this desk, and he only turned it on after we posted the show. He was watching in case I was posting the comments in my sleep or something.”

“Or something?” Her voice hardens. “He was trying to catch me. Except he didn’t. He caught you. That’s why he called. He installed a secret camera and caught you doing it, and he called to warn you. He thought he was going to catch me, and instead, he caught the girl he likes. That puts him in a really nasty position.”

“I didn’t do anything, Trinity,” I say. “Ask Rory.”

“He’ll lie for you.”

“Then ask him to show you the tape.”

“He’ll have erased it by now.”

“What the hell?” I stop myself and take a deep breath. “Explain why I’d do this to you. Why I’d undermine our show like this.”

“You’re not undermining it. Our show is more popular than ever, and you don’t want to ruin it—you want it all for yourself. You want me to quit.”

“No. I’d quit myself before I—”

“Do you think I haven’t seen those solo offers? They send them to our damn show address. I find them in the trash folder.”

“I delete them because I’m not interested. If I wanted you off the show, Trinity, I sure as hell wouldn’t do something as silly as this.”

“It’s not silly. It’s clever, and you’re always clever, Hannah. You know I believe in ghosts. You know I’ve said this house has a weird vibe. You found out about my past, didn’t you? What I was accused of. You used that to fake a very public haunting. An on-screen haunting, complete with accusatory comments. You’re hoping I’ll quit. If that doesn’t work, then eventually someone will dig up my past and humiliate me, forcing me off your show.”

I take a deep breath. “Yes, I know about Vanessa. I found out yesterday. You were freaking out, and it worried me, and I had to investigate. Whether or not you bullied her—”

“I didn’t.” She spits the words and steps up to my face. “She bullied me.”

I open my mouth.

Trinity continues. “You don’t believe that, do you? No one did. Obviously, the pretty, popular girl was the bully. That’s why you don’t even bother to name me in those comments. Everyone will presume it’s me. Geeky little Hannah wouldn’t bully anyone. But Trinity? Oh, yes, she’s just the type.”

“I know you and Vanessa stopped being friends—”

“Because she was a nasty, vicious bitch, always putting me down to pull herself up. I made new friends, and Vanessa couldn’t handle that. She came at me all the harder, posting from anonymous accounts, telling people I was a slut, a two-faced bitch, anorexic, all the things that kids are quick to believe about someone who looks like me.”

“And then she . . . killed herself?”

Trinity laughs. It’s an ugly, raw laugh. “Oh, she didn’t mean to. That’s the irony. Vanessa was like you—a clever girl who always had a plan. She wrote a suicide note blaming me, and then she took just enough pills to be rushed to the hospital for a good stomach pumping. Except she passed out from the sleeping pills and choked to death on her own vomit. Joke’s on her. Only it wasn’t, because the school believed her suicide note. Zero tolerance for bullying. It didn’t matter that they had absolutely no proof. I had to go live with my aunt so I could attend a new school. I spent the rest of high school on depression meds and suicide watch. The fact I’m here—getting my PhD, no less—is a freaking miracle.”

“No,” I say. “It’s a sign of hard work and resilience. What happened to you was shitty, Trin, but—”

“Oh, spare me your patronizing bullshit, Hannah. You’re gingerly patting me on the head like a rabid rottweiler who has you cornered. I’m not going to hurt you. But I am going to make sure you don’t get away with this. I’ll prove you’re behind the orbs and the comments.”

“Sure. Go for it. You may find your efforts hampered by the small fact that I didn’t actually do anything but—”

She wheels on me. “You aren’t going to give up, are you? You’re determined to make me look like a fool.”

“Nope, actually, right now, I’m just determined to end this conversation, go out and enjoy my Sunday while you dig for evidence you’re never going to find. I’ve tried to be reasonable, Trin, to pussyfoot around your paranoia. If anyone is behind this, it’s you.” I start to step past her. “If this is a cry for attention, I’m not listening anymore.”

She grabs my arm. “Don’t you dare—”

I wheel to throw her off, and she flings me. My stockinged feet slide on the hardwood. When I stumble, she shoves me with all her might. I fly backward, feet sailing out from under me, head striking the desk edge.

The last thing I see is Trinity, staring in wide-eyed horror as I crumple to the floor.

I wake on the office floor, my head throbbing. I grab the chair, which of course wheels away, and I sprawl face-first onto the hardwood.

“Trin?” I manage to croak.

There’s no answer. I lift my head and peer around an empty office. There’s blood on the floor, and when I touch the back of my head, I feel sticky, wet hair. I wince as my fingers brush a gash in my scalp.

Blinking hard, I grab the desk edge and pull myself up. I’m standing in front of the computer monitor. On the screen is Trinity with that orb behind her. Except what was an orb is now changing into a very clear figure.

A ghostly figure standing behind Trinity. Standing right where I am.

Below it, there’s a new comment.

gonegirl5: You killed me, as surely as if you’d bashed my head into that desk.

No.

That’s not . . .

It can’t be. It makes no sense.

And yet . . .

I swallow hard. When I look at the figure again, I can make out long dark hair and what looks like a pale T-shirt. In the reflection of that screen, I see myself . . . with long dark hair and a gray tee.

I am the ghost behind Trinity. I am the ghost accusing her. Not Vanessa Lyons.

Me.

But that isn’t possible. We saw the orb three weeks ago. The comments started three weeks ago. How could I be the one . . . ? My gaze shifts to the mug prominently displayed on the screen. The Doctor Who mug from Rory, with the time travel quote I’d said on the show.

Things don’t always happen in the right order . . .

Footsteps thunder down the hallway. “Hannah? Hannah!”

It’s Rory.

Oh God, Rory. He’s about to race in and find my body. I spin, as if I can stop him, but he’s already frozen in the doorway, his gaze on the floor. Then it lifts to me.

“Sit,” he says, rolling the chair toward me. “You hit your head, and there’s blood . . . Damn it! Where the hell is Trinity? Did she just shove you down and take off?”

“You can see me?”

His brow furrows. “Of course I can . . .” He sputters a ragged laugh. “How badly did you hit your head, Hannah? No, you’re not a ghost. Sit down for a minute, and then we’re getting you to the hospital.”

As he puts me in the chair, he explains that he saw part of the fight on the hidden camera. Without any sound, he only caught a glimpse of Trinity pushing me, in the screen reflection. Then he saw me crumple to the floor. He caught an Uber and spent twenty minutes banging on the door before breaking in through a back window.

“Fucking Trinity,” he mutters. “I hope this is the hint you need, Hannah. She’s no friend of yours, and you have to get out before . . .”

He trails off, his gaze fixed on something behind me. I turn to see he’s looking at blood on the floor, a pool of it creeping from behind the desk.

I’m about to say that’s just mine. Then I realize it’s in the wrong spot—I fell on the other side of the desk, and this is a pool of blood, trickling along a crack between the floorboards.

That’s when I see Trinity’s sneaker.

I bolt up from the chair so fast my head lurches. Rory grabs my arm to steady me. Then we make our way to the desk. There, on the other side, sits Trinity, holding her slashed wrists on her lap. Dead eyes stare at us.

There’s a note by her leg. I pick it up as Rory hurries to check for a pulse that I know he won’t find.

I skim the note. It’s barely legible, a crazed rant about my trick with the orb and the comments, how I tried to drive her off, and we argued, and I fell, and Trinity knew everyone would blame her, just as they did with Vanessa.

“She thought she killed me,” I whisper.

“What?” Rory takes the note and skims it. “Wow. I knew she was unstable, but she lost it. She totally lost it.”

He’s still talking. I don’t hear him. I’m staring at the screen as that figure behind Trinity slowly comes into focus. It’s a slender young woman with long dark hair. I see the ghost’s shirt—a pale blue V-neck. My gaze goes to Trinity’s body . . . wearing a pale blue V-neck.

That’s when the comments begin to scroll.

gonegirl5: You’re alive, and I’m not, and that’s your fault, Hannah.

gonegirl5: Everyone’s going to know what you did to me.

gonegirl5: I’ll make sure of it.