“I can’t believe you don’t have more bruising,” Matthew said again. He seemed to be stuck on this fact.

“I’m sore in weird places. It’s like the first time I waited tables.”

“And that urgent-care doctor told you that you didn’t need an X-ray.”

“You were there. That’s what he said.”

“Are you sure he was a real doctor? He introduced himself as Eric.”

She felt herself softening; she might have grinned. “He did, didn’t he? ‘Hey, I’m Eric.’”

“I just would have felt better if—”

“What would make me feel better would be to turn off this music.”

“Come on.” He laughed. “It’s the best driving music. Doesn’t it make you feel awake?”

“Honestly, when I listen to gypsy-jazz guitar, what I mainly feel is prone to yelling.”

“But in a good way, right?”

That earned a real smile from her, even some unforced laughter.

He turned the music off.

Before urgent care, they’d gone to their local precinct. She’d wanted to leave when she realized she’d been to this same precinct for Leda, but Matthew insisted they stay. The policemen and women could not have been nicer. They gave Matthew a T-shirt, as his running tank was soaked with Sarah’s blood. They were treated to mug shots of solely young black men: “Is that him? How ’bout that one?” She assured them the man hadn’t been black and there was no way she could ever identify the assailant—it happened so fast, he was wearing a mask—but they’d kept it up anyway.

“I’m just so glad you’re okay,” Matthew said.

Silence spread throughout the car, summoning the quiet of the previous night and the deep clean breathing of Matthew at rest. Her limbs had felt heavy and eventually she must have slept because then she bolted awake with the room still so dark that for one brief moment she didn’t know where she was. She relived the smell of the metal and the blood in her mouth and scrambled to find her phone to tell her the time. But, of course, she had no phone. She looked at the clock on Matthew’s side: it had been only twenty minutes. This went on for hours—in and out of sleep—until she gave in to being fully conscious, sat upright in their bed that faced the windows, watching the darkness bleed into dawn.