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ALONE AGAIN FINALLY, Hastings wipes his brow with a spotless white handkerchief and then tosses it into the small brass bin beneath his desk. (He never uses a handkerchief more than once.)

He’s troubled by the fact that in a matter of months, Emma Blake has gone from being one of Ridgemont’s best students to one of its worst. She’s going through a rough patch, but he believes it to be temporary.

She’ll turn herself around, because that’s what Ridgemont students do.

Especially when they have support from friends and family.

Of course, he must admit, family is part of the problem. Emma barely has a family anymore. And her father—the only one left—is the kind of person Hastings might call “problematic.”

What’s also problematic is the fact that Emma never actually answered his question. Does she really want to set herself on fire?

Mr. Montgomery would like to write off her behavior as youthful theatrics designed to create a stir and guarantee attention, but Hastings has been around teenagers his entire professional life—and Emma Blake doesn’t need attention.

Emma is the kind of young person who makes adults feel like maybe the human race isn’t barreling headfirst into a brick wall that’s going to break its collective neck. Or at least she used to be.

Hastings long ago resigned himself to the fact that he would never be a father, but when Emma arrived at Ridgemont—smart, strong, deservedly proud, quick, and funny—he realized she was exactly the daughter he wishes he could have had.

Instead, she’s stuck with the biological father she actually got. One who can’t be bothered.

“Fiona,” he calls, steeling himself, “get Byron Blake on the line for me.”

“Righto, righto,” she chirps.

Emma’s father is a prominent Boston attorney specializing in white-collar defense. His clients, almost exclusively CEOs and VIPs, are men like Hastings’s cousin Charlie, who had to hire Blake to defend him against embezzlement charges.

“He costs fifteen hundred an hour, but he never loses,” Charlie bragged. He was right too: Blake won the case, and Charlie avoided ten years in prison.

Hastings tries not to resent Charlie for risking a decade without his wife and children all for the sake of money. Meanwhile, Hastings has declined two raises in the past five years, asking instead that the funding go to mental health support for the students.

Students that he worries about, students who—no matter how well off they are—are data points on line charts that plot the skyrocketing anxiety and depression rates among teenagers.

Students like Emma Blake. Students who have parents like Byron Blake, and his own cousin Charlie …

parents who’d rather throw money at a problem than actually talk to their kids.

Throwing money around is a major pastime of Byron Blake’s, and a lot of that money has landed at Ridgemont Academy.

A lot.

Hastings tries to slow his pulse as he listens to Fiona addressing Blake’s assistant—“Yes, dear, it’s important”—and then announcing, “All yours, Mr. Hastings.” When he picks up the receiver, a suave British voice asks him to hold for Mr. Blake, and then Blake tersely says, “Yes.”

The word is a simple statement letting Hastings know that he’s there.

“Good morning, Mr. Blake. This is Perry Hastings from Ridge—”

“I’m aware. What is this about?”

“It concerns your daughter, Emma,” Hastings says, maintaining his composure in the face of Blake’s obvious impatience. “I’m calling because she read a disturbing piece in her English class today. It was very upsetting to everyone.”

“What was it about?” Blake asks, but Hastings can hear typing in the background, Blake’s only surviving daughter’s disturbing behavior relegated to multitasking.

“She announced her intention to set herself on fire.” Hastings is pleased when the sound of typing comes to an abrupt halt.

There is silence on the other end of the line. Finally, Blake says, “And?”

“Well, sir,” Hastings says, “I thought you should be alerted. It strikes me as a red flag.” More like a red tapestry, one woven with blood, fire, and the spark of determination he saw in Emma’s eyes.

When Byron merely grunts, Hastings is forced to stumble on. “Though we’re confident we can keep Emma safe,” he says, “we are concerned about her current mental state. Apparently she went into great detail about what burning would be like.”

But Hastings isn’t confident, not at all.

He’s seen Emma finish a soccer match with one eye swollen shut.

She wasn’t bleeding, she reasoned, refusing to be benched.

The coach—probably thinking of the brand-new jerseys recently gifted from the Blake Corporation—let her continue to play, and she scored the winning goal, with only half her vision intact.

When Emma Blake makes a decision, it is irreversible.

“What was the assignment?” Blake demands.

Hastings feels a trickle of sweat slide down his neck. “It was a descriptive essay.”

“Was there an assigned topic?”

“No, but—”

“Were there forbidden topics?”

“I’m not certain about that—”

“You should’ve been clear before you called me. It’s called gathering evidence.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Hastings says, “whether or not her teacher listed forbidden topics, Emma’s essay is cause for concern—”

“But she wasn’t told that she couldn’t write about setting herself on fire.”

“I don’t believe so, but—”

“Obviously it’d make for a gripping essay. I’ll bet you could’ve heard a pin drop in that room.”

Hastings glances down at Emma’s essay, which Mr. Montgomery left on his desk. When exposed to heat, the muscles in my thighs will shrink and retract along the shafts of my femur…

He shudders, feels a cold wave move over his body, despite the sheen of sweat that a phone call with Bryon always causes. How can a man who has handled some of the biggest legal cases in the country be missing the point so entirely?

“I apologize, sir,” he said, “but regardless of the parameters of the assignment or how riveting the presentation may have been, what I’m concerned about here is the intent behind Emma’s essay. Especially in light of the present circumstances and her situation—”

“Which circumstances exactly?”

Hastings can’t bring himself to speak of the deaths in the Blake family. He doesn’t want to say “cancer.” He already said “suicide” once. Why must everyone in the Blake family be so intent on making others uncomfortable?

“Emma’s grades have been slipping,” he finally says, trying to steer the conversation toward something Byron might actually care about—winning.

“She’s the smartest one you’ve got at that school,” Blake says, and Hastings can hear the pride in his voice.

“Emma is extremely intelligent, yes. But if she doesn’t do the work, she doesn’t get the grade.”

“It sounds to me like she’s doing the work, but you WASPy graspers don’t approve of it.”

“Now Mr. Blake, let’s be civil—”

“This is me being civil.”

Hastings sighs. Without thinking, he glances down at Emma’s essay again.

During the burning, my muscles will contract, and this will cause my joints to flex. My hands may pull up into a boxer’s pose…

“English is not the only area of concern, frankly,” Hastings says. “But much more important than Emma’s GPA is her mental health.”

My bones will survive the fire when all other soft tissues have burned away. But they will likely exhibit U-shaped fractures…

“Emma’s fine. She’s strong. Steady,” Blake insists.

“She’s strong, yes, of course, but even strong people get tired.

Right now she may need some extra support.

” Hastings stares out the window at the green lawn, now dotted with students eating lunch.

Emma isn’t among them. “We think it would be best if you could come to the school tomorrow. Maybe check in with her. Take her out to dinner. Have some family time.”

Have what’s-left-of-your-family time, he adds silently.

“I’m in the middle of a trial,” Blake says. “It’s a huge case. Lives are at stake.”

Hastings isn’t bold enough to suggest that a life might be at stake here too, but what Byron said about his own daughter is exactly the problem. She is steady. And she’s clearly set her course.

“Sir,” he says, “Ridgemont cares deeply about its student body. Exceptional students like Emma—”

“Spare me,” Blake says. “I lip-service my clients all day, I know what bullshit smells like—and sounds like.”

Bullshit. This man’s daughter has announced her intention to set herself on fire, and he wants to argue with Hastings about whether or not Hastings actually cares about Emma.

“Sir,” Hastings tries again, not ready to give up quite yet, even if he is irritating their largest donor. “The pressure to do well can be overwhelming, especially when one is struggling with—”

“It was schoolwork. Nothing more than that. Emma was just pushing the envelope. That’s what she does. That’s what I taught her to do.”

And with that, Blake hangs up.