Apologize to Mom, and we can put all this ugliness behind us. I’ll pick you up at noon.

I stared at the glowing screen through heavy, medicated lenses. The world was still a blurry watercolor of gray and white, but the nerve of his words was clear.

Beside me, my mother said nothing. She simply held up her own phone and photographed his message, timestamp and sender ID and all.

“Reply calmly,” she said, clinical. “Open-ended questions. Play the confused victim.”

My fingers trembled as I typed: I’m so confused, Daniel. I just want to understand why she sprayed that chemical in my face, and why you held my arms so I couldn’t move away.

His reply came at once, without a trace of guilt.