It worried Emma that many of the students who confided in her refused to accept expert help. Apart from their home lives, they faced so many issues: academic and athletic pressure; stress; online bullying; race, gender and mental health discrimination; along with postsecondary planning. Amid all that, Emma had to navigate around legal, privacy and policy restrictions, to decipher the subtext of what students shared with her to identify those at risk of harming themselves, or being violent against others.

It was never easy but she’d made it her life’s mission to help young people. She’d learned long ago from painful, personal experience that one wrong decision could change the course of your life.

Now at thirty-four with a master’s degree, and even after taking every new course available to do her absolute best for the kids she counseled, she was lucky if she could get through to even one each day.

But the one she could not seem to reach was the one closest to her: Kayla, her sixteen-year-old stepdaughter. Emma checked her phone. Still no response to the texts she’d sent her.

Emma realized that Kayla would never accept her as her mother, especially after Kayla’s dad had married Emma three years after Kayla’s mom had died. Kayla’s dad had called his daughter’s relationship to Emma “a work in progress.” But today Kayla had been more distant than usual, picking at the omelet Emma had made for her.

“Kayla, is there anything you’d like to talk about?”

“Not really,” Kayla said to her phone. “I gotta go.”

She hefted her bag over her shoulder, kissed her dad, then left for school. When the door closed Emma had turned to Ben.

“I’m failing with her,” she said.

“No you’re not. She’s still adjusting.”

“We’ve been married a year. We’ve been together longer than that, yet she refuses to let me into her life.”

“She’s still grappling with unresolved grief. She just needs time.”

Emma understood but needed to diminish the undercurrent of tension between them. Kayla did not attend Valley Meadow High School where Emma worked, a blessing because it gave them space but it was also a challenge when Emma wanted to talk to her face-to-face. Emma’s texts to Kayla suggesting a shopping or lunch date had gone unanswered.

Her thoughts shifted to Carson and the time—seventeen minutes late—when her phone chimed with a text. Not Kayla, but one of Carson’s friends. Cheyenne, a sensitive student Emma had counseled who planned to become a nurse.

Cheyenne had written:

Thought you should see this message Carson just sent out. We’re worried, somebody just saw him cleaning out his locker.

Then a screenshot of a text from Carson came through:

Time for me to check out-don’t want to be on this earth any longer. I love you guys.