“Yes.”

“Melissa.” His voice cracked on it. “She was seventeen. She was intubated. She has no idea what her own face looked like that night and about forty million people do.”

“I know.”

“Did you think about it?”

And Melissa Brennan — who had been the only adult in that lobby to tell the truth on camera, who had lost a marriage over it, who had been called a hero in three newspapers — said:

“Yes.”