I gaped at her. All the words I wanted to hurl back like grenades, they were suddenly gone and my mouth was empty. She was right. I’d lost my moral high ground. I could no longer talk about these things – revenge porn, the sexualisation of young girls, rape culture – I couldn’t say a word about it because I was the woman who’d said her raped friend was drunk, wearing a short skirt, flirty.

She seemed to realise she’d bested me, and briskly put Cassie’s file away. ‘Alright. I think you should take her home now, and I’ll arrange to have her sit the exams elsewhere. We will of course try to get to the bottom of the matter, but once these things go viral . . .’ Viral. Like a disease. My Cassie. ‘And if I didn’t say so before, please accept my best wishes for your husband’s recovery.’

Outside, Cassie’s ragged sobs went on and on, a sound as repetitive and deadening as the hum of air conditioning. I had to leave now. I had to take her and slink away, ashamed, dirty. Beaten.

‘Sweetheart, I know you don’t want to talk about it, but we have to.’

Cassie slumped in the car beside me, weeping. Her face was red and swollen, her hair limp.

‘How did he get the picture?’

I wanted her to say, He made me. It was how I pictured it. Aaron, wanting sex, putting pressure on. Making her send him a photo to prove her love, then sharing it round his mates in the locker room. Disgusting.

‘Cassie, if he took it, that’s a crime. We can go to the police, get him to stop this. Have it all deleted.’ Although I knew it didn’t work that way, that the picture had already spread from phone to phone like cold sores, that it was maybe even on one of those websites I’d written a piece about. That it would never truly go away.

Her sobs had subsided now, and she hitched in breath. I thought how much she’d had to deal with in these short weeks. Her father on trial, then bleeding in the street. Finding out her best friend was her brother. And now this.

‘Please, honey. Just tell me your side, and I promise I’ll make it go away.’

Cassie took in a long breath. Her eyes stared dully out the window and when she finally spoke, her voice was cold. ‘He didn’t make me, Mum. He dumped me. So I – I wanted him back. I didn’t know it was against the law to send it.’

It took me a few long moments to understand what she was saying. ‘You took it yourself? You sent it – he didn’t ask you to.’

‘No.’ She stared at her hands. ‘He doesn’t want anything to do with me.’