“I’m not asking for money or anything, V. I’m just asking for your support. I need to quit this job.”

She nodded. She’d been waiting her whole life to be stable enough to offer support to someone else. After all, it was just Via on Via’s team. She had Serafine, of course, but in terms of a financial safety net, Via only had what was currently sitting in her bank account. She asked herself one question: Do I love Evan? And that was all the answer she needed. When you loved someone, you did everything you could to support them.

“Okay. Do what you need to do, babe.” She leaned down into his kiss and let him sweep her away.

Later, when she slid out of her bed to get a glass of water, trying not to wake up Evan as she did so, Via let the panic flood her. She sat in her dark kitchen, staring at a black window that threw her reflection right back at her. The words flotation device circled in her head like ravens.

IT WAS FOUR weeks into school and Via had joyfully settled into her new schedule. She saw students in the morning and did paperwork in the afternoons. She had regular appointments with a few different students once a week, but most of her time was spent putting out fires with students who’d been flagged by their teachers.

Billy Oaks showed up at school with a black eye? Send him to Miss DeRosa.

Kendra Dobbs’s parents are getting a divorce? Send her to Miss DeRosa.

Jessica Rodriguez hauled off and punched a third grader? Send her to Miss DeRosa.

Miss DeRosa, for the record, was loving it. This was the only reason she’d taken on so many student loans. Why she’d spent so much time in school when she could have been working. Because working with kids who needed her? Truly needed her? There was just nothing that beat it.

Serafine was convinced that Via was in the middle of some cosmic death match with Karma. That because Via hadn’t slipped through the cracks of the system and had eventually been filtered into a loving foster home, she felt that she owed it to other kids to make the system work for them. But Via didn’t really care what the reasons were. All she knew was that at the end of the school day on her fourth Monday at PS 128, she felt like spiking her dang messenger bag.

She’d really, really done her job well. She’d straight-up conquered some problems for some kids. She’d had four appointments that morning, all of which had ended up on a positive note, and she’d finished her paperwork. That staff meeting was lucky she didn’t moonwalk her way right in.

Without thinking, letting her adrenaline rush lead the way, Via found herself plunking down right next to Sebastian Dorner. She hadn’t been avoiding him, but she’d been mindful of just how much all the other ladies at the school enjoyed gossiping about the fabulous Mr. Dorner.