Susi stood at the lectern. She looked nice today. She’d cut back on the eye makeup, thank goodness.

“Domestic violence victims often don’t look at all like you’d expect them to look,” said Susi. “And their stories don’t always sound as black-and-white as you’d expect them to sound.”

Celeste searched for her friendly face in the audience of emergency department doctors, triage nurses, GPs and counselors.

“Which is why I’ve asked these two lovely people here today. They’ve very generously given up their time to share their experiences with you.” Susi lifted her hand to encompass Celeste and the man sitting next to her. He had placed one hand on his own thigh to try to stop his leg from jiggling up and down with nerves.

My God, thought Celeste. She blinked back a sudden rush of hot tears. He’s not a counselor. He’s someone like me. It happened to him.

She turned to look at him and he smiled back at her, his eyes darting about like tiny fish.

“Celeste?” said Susi.

Celeste stood. She glanced back at the man in the sweater, and then over to Susi, who nodded encouragingly, and Celeste walked the few steps to stand behind the wooden lectern.

She searched the audience for that nice-looking woman. Yes. There she was, smiling, nodding a little.

Celeste took a breath.

She’d agreed to come here today as a favor for Susi, and because, sure, she wanted to do her bit to make sure health professionals knew when to ask more questions, when not to let things go. She’d been planning to give them the facts, but not to spill her soul. She would keep her dignity. She would keep a little piece of herself safe.

But now she was suddenly filled with a passionate desire to share everything, to say the bare ugly truth, to hold nothing back. Fuck dignity.

She wanted to give that terrified man in the uncool sweater the confidence to share his own bare ugly truth. She wanted to let him know that at least one person here today understood all the mistakes he’d made along the way: the times he’d hit back, the times he’d stayed when he should have left, the times he’d given her another chance, the times he’d deliberately antagonized her, the times he’d let his children see things they shouldn’t see. She wanted to tell him that she knew all the perfect little lies he’d told himself for all those years, because she’d told herself the same lies. She wanted to enfold his trembling hands between her own and say, “I understand.”

She gripped both sides of the lectern and leaned in close to the microphone. There was something so simple and yet so complicated that she needed these people to understand.

“This can happen . . .”

She stopped, stepped away slightly from the microphone and cleared her throat. She saw Susi standing to one side with the held-breath expression of a parent whose child is performing in public for the first time; her hands were held slightly aloft, as if she were ready to run onstage and scoop Celeste to safety.

Celeste put her mouth closer to the microphone, and now her voice was loud and clear.

“This can happen to anyone.”