I read it twice, to be sure I was understanding it.

And then a second message arrived. She only gets like that when people disrespect her.

I sat in that hospital room, with my injuries freshly photographed, and I read my husband instructing me to apologize to the woman who had assaulted me, and explaining that her violence was, in the end, my own fault for disrespecting her.

And something in me that had been straining for three years let go, all at once.

It did not break.