He had told me so that morning.

In the car.

He had said, “Mom, please don’t.

It’ll be worse.”

So I sat in that office and said, out loud, to two professionals, that my son had asked me not to escalate it, and I watched the room change temperature, and I felt the whole thing slide out from underneath me and settle into a shape where the responsible adults had consulted the child’s wishes and the child’s wishes had been respected.

Everybody in that room did something defensible and the meeting produced nothing.