It starts the same way every time.

Twenty-three seconds.

The shot rings out loudly, even over the camera’s weak microphone, and a burst of red explodes from the back of her head. For a split second she keeps looking at the camera, but then she collapses out of view, dropping to the ground.

The video goes chaotic, shaking violently as I jog towards her.

Like a ghoul, I keep filming.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I wasn’t sure if I really meant it, but it seemed like the thing I was supposed to say, like lines in a script.

She flashed me a smile like the Mona Lisa’s, full of reproach and indulgence. It was the kind of smile a mother would have for her disingenuously-penitent child, the kind that said, Who are you trying to fool?

“You don’t have to be,” Sarah said. “In a funny way, it’s comforting to know that no matter what else happens in the rest of your life, at least I’ll always be your first. Your number one.”