And I understood that some part of her still believed, even now, that she could talk her way out of this if she simply stayed and kept talking.

She had talked her way through her whole life.

She did not yet grasp that she had finally reached a room where talking was not going to be enough, because for once the record did not depend on who told the story best.

That, when I think about it, is the quiet injustice that people like Teresa live under all the time, and that people like Vanessa exploit.

In most rooms, most of the time, the truth is not decided by what happened; it is decided by who is more believable, and believability is distributed unfairly, handed out according to wealth and polish and confidence and a dozen other things that have nothing to do with honesty.