‘I didn’t mean to make it seem like – like, I don’t know.’ My throat clenched. ‘Like you didn’t care, or. Obviously you care. You were trying to make it easier.’

She nodded. ‘You like that June,’ Mom said. ‘A lot.’

My body tensed but I didn’t look away from the ceiling, partly because it would’ve been too much effort to get back up and partly because after she had said that, I didn’t want to face her. It felt like an accusation. ‘I do.’

‘Does she care about you in the same way?’

‘I think so. I hope so.’

‘Is it … romantic?’

‘I don’t really know any more. Maybe. On my end, anyway.’

Mom’s feet shuffled against the tile. ‘Well. Then I care about her too.’

I went to chew my thumb to keep from crying, but clenching my jaw made the cut on my cheek open, so I just lay there expressionless while my vision blurred and thought about all the things that would come next.

The doctor saw me. Stitched me up, confirmed I had whiplash and sent me home.

I’d asked her if she’d seen June. The doctor had sort of straightened her back, frowned, said, ‘She’s getting X-rayed at the moment. We’re hoping she won’t need surgery. But the main thing was that cut on her head, to get to it …’ She winced. ‘We had to shave a patch.’

Afterwards, Mom and I were led to a side room where one of the police officers who’d found me and June was waiting for us.

My stomach lurched at the sight of him, as if I was back in the worst of it, as if I still needed to be saved from something.

But I swallowed and breathed and when he asked, I told him everything. I told him about my dad and June and Heath and the messages and what he’d done. What happened in the car. I told him I grabbed the steering wheel. I told him everything, anything I could think of, but disconnected, factual, because I wasn’t entirely sure I’d be able to get through all of it otherwise. He asked questions intermittently, prompted me to elaborate, but nothing was pointed or accusatory – he believed me, I could tell. He was sympathetic. He believed me. He was going to do something.

I mentioned that I’d taken a video while we were in the car, but Heath had destroyed my phone.

‘What happens now?’ Mom asked when I was finished. ‘What’s going to happen to him?’

The officer flipped his notebook shut and put his pen in his breast pocket. ‘We’re going to do our best.’

I froze. ‘What does that mean?’

‘Personally – I don’t know if I should be telling you this, but personally – there’s no doubt in my mind that that boy should see jail time. Not a doubt.’