After seeing her on Sunday, I had thought we would be friends again. I kept accidentally thinking that way, and then I remembered she was dead. My mind was going in circles: it didn’t make sense, it couldn’t be real, she was fine, I’d just seen her. It felt like I could call her up and she’d answer and I could tell her about the police station. She would laugh about me fainting, we would turn it into a funny story, an inside joke, part of our shared history.

I sat at the computer and typed in Danielle’s website, Sweet Dreamz.net. I did it without really knowing why. Maybe I just wanted to see her.

A dozen close-up photos of girls were displayed on a pink grid. You could click on each one to watch a teaser or pay eighteen dollars to get the whole video. I saw an image of Danielle. Hair in pigtails, she leaned forward to show her cleavage. I clicked on her picture and it went to a video clip, twenty seconds of her squatting in stilettos, rubbing her shaved pussy and pinching her nipples, fingernails flashing in the studio light. She looked into the camera and moaned. “$17.95” flashed on the screen and Danielle said, “I’m so-o wet. I need to get fucked.”

I clicked on another video, with Danielle and Audrey together. Danielle bent at the waist, licking and squeezing Audrey’s tits. They were smaller than Danielle’s and obviously real, with long brown nipples. Danielle’s ass bounced in the foreground, and Audrey wailed, her face contorted. The image cut to the price screen again, and a man’s voice said, “Hot lesbian sluts. Watch these sluts come!” Another clip showed Audrey being fucked from behind, pounded by a guy, her eyes dazed and huge, her nipples erect.

The videos embarrassed me and I wished I hadn’t watched them. I was sad and turned on, and irritated that I could be aroused by something so tacky. I was mad at myself for watching, for being such a perv. What would I tell Danielle next time I saw her? And then I remembered that she was dead.

I slammed the laptop shut and tossed it aside. I was crying again. I had to get out of the apartment, be around people. I needed whiskey. Several whiskeys. I texted my boyfriend Michael, I need a drink. Meet me? He wrote back, At Harp, come on.

I would tell Michael about Danielle, I would cry while he held me and tried to comfort me. And once that happened, I knew it would seem real. I rode my bike to the Harp, a pub housed in a ramshackle bungalow. I pushed through the crowd to the wooden bar. Pockmarks distorted the neon reflection along its length. Michael sat on a stool in the corner, looking at his phone. The bartender brought my whiskey and I took a long sip. I went over to him.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hi, baby,” he said. He smiled weakly, and I saw that he was very drunk, barely balanced on his stool.