“You mean well, but you just don’t think politically sometimes. So, William and I had to do it for you, to protect you. He told me he believed the best way to help your reputation was to give the papers something else to write about. He thought I would be the perfect person to assist, because I care about you. He got the idea from your father. He’d been talking about you and me dating for the papers for a while, apparently.”

“You called me,” I recall suddenly. “Right before he did.”

“Yes, he suggested it. He felt if you knew I was comfortable with you using me for the papers, you might be less resistant. And then he called you and offered to assist you in keeping your relationship with Danni a secret. We teamed up to help you. Was any of that so awful?”

“Did you send William the screenshots of people gossiping online, too?” I ask, before I realize. “Wait, were they you?”

Alfie stops meeting my eyes. Apparently he doesn’t feel quite so justified in this part of the story. “The comments on Molly’s video of you weren’t. But I was worried that people were already suspecting you, and I wanted you to realize how easily your carelessness might out you online. So, yes, I made a post with some examples of the ways you had slipped up with Danni. But I purposely picked an all-but-abandoned forum, somewhere I knew wouldn’t actually kickstart a rumor. I hoped Danni might get an alert from her name being mentioned, because it couldn’t happen all that often. But as far as I could tell, you didn’t know about the post, so I sent it to William. Just so he could see how careless you were being. He needed to know how to help you change your behavior.”

If it’s true, then it was a remarkable gamble he took, relying on nobody seeing the forum post. All it would have taken was one wrong person to share the post, and the rumors would have immediately snowballed.

“I was supportive of you and Danni. I wanted you to see how easy it would be for you to be with me publicly, and her in private. I even made sure you spent Valentine’s Day together.”

“You invited a date for her. A guy who had a crush on her.”

“Exactly. So it would look like a convincing double date, and hopefully quell any suspicions people might have had regarding the two of you. That’s how you do this, Rosie. You manipulate the media before it can manipulate you. How else were you planning on hiding a secret girlfriend your entire life? Hoping for the best?”

“You outed Danni. You sent that video out. Did William know that part?”