The amount was clear because it was printed.

Some of his words were clear because Laura and the nurse had heard them too.

Other things belonged in a different category: what I believed he intended, what I feared he might do, what I had wanted him to feel when he saw Harper.

Dana asked me to keep those distinctions.

“You can be upset and accurate,” she said.

I needed that reminder.

Garrett had spent enough time treating my distress as a reason to disregard the information causing it that I had started believing I needed to be completely calm before I could be trusted.