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EMMA GETS TAKEN to the headmaster’s office for the second time in two days. She’d be angry about this if she could feel anything at all besides pain.

Idiot, you shouldn’t have done it, part of her says.

I had to, says another part. I needed to know.

But you didn’t need to do it in the middle of class.

“Emma,” Mr. Hastings says, his voice thick with concern, “first an essay about burning—now an actual burn. What on earth happened in chemistry this morning?”

She blinks at the headmaster. Yes, if she had thought things through a little better, then she wouldn’t be sitting in a stuffy office, facing a balding man in a three-piece suit who’s looking at her like she’s gone absolutely crazy.

But there’s more in his eyes than there was in Mr. Montgomery’s, who was clearly more worried about the effect of the fallout on his career than about Emma’s physical safety.

And Ms. Geller didn’t know whom to care for first—Emma or the classroom full of billionaires’ children who just got their first shot of real trauma.

Emma presses her lips together. She’d like to cross her arms defiantly, but she can’t let the burn touch anything.

The nurse, Mrs. Ereckson, has cleaned and bandaged it and given her two Tylenol and two Advil all at once.

But her arm still feels like it’s actually on fire.

The pain is nearly unbearable. It hurts so bad she can’t imagine it ever stopping.

Which raises the question of whether Emma will be able to follow through when the time comes to make her final, unequivocal point.

“Bunsen burners are dangerous things,” Emma says, keeping her voice noncommittal.

“Yes, they are. You nearly set an entire classroom on fire,” Mr. Hastings says. “But that’s beside the point, believe it or not.”

“It was actually Elliott who knocked it over,” Emma says. “If you care.”

Mr. Hastings’s glance darkens. “It’s my understanding that he knocked it over in an attempt to stop you from holding your arm over the flame.

” He sighs and rubs one pale, bushy eyebrow.

“You’re not here because you’re in trouble, Emma.

You’re here because I’m truly, truly worried about you.

You led me to believe that your essay was a thought experiment.

But self-harm is different. It’s an extremely dangerous thing. ”

“No,” Emma says thoughtfully, tilting her head to one side. “I didn’t lead you to believe my essay was a thought experiment. You chose to believe that for your own comfort.”

Mr. Hastings’s mouth falls open, a flicker of something Emma can’t quite decipher passing over his eyes.

At that moment the door swings open, and Fiona Dundy comes in, bearing a tray with two blue china cups, which she sets down in front of them.

“You’re worried about me, so you invited me to a tea party?” Emma asks Mr. Hastings dryly.

“It’s coffee, dear,” Fiona chirps. “You look so tired! And Mr. Hastings drinks the stuff like it’s water.”

“If you’ll excuse us, Fiona,” Mr. Hastings says through clenched teeth—which, yes, Emma can now see do show distinct signs of coffee stains. Interesting that he doesn’t shell out for teeth whitening. Fiona is still hovering, waiting for Emma to take a sip.

Dutifully, Emma picks up the delicate cup, using her good arm. The coffee tastes like ashes. “Delicious,” she says, “thank you,” and Fiona beams at her before hurrying back to her desk.

When the door closes behind her, Mr. Hastings trains his gaze on Emma again. “I must assume there’s a direct connection between writing an essay about burning yourself and then actually burning yourself,” he says.

He’s a regular Sherlock Holmes, isn’t he? But Emma keeps her mouth shut.

“And as I was saying, self-harm is a very serious issue.”

“It wasn’t really self-harm,” Emma says.

“No?”

“It was an experiment.”

Mr. Hastings frowns. “Are you trying to tell me that you hurt yourself during a science experiment by mistake?”

It’s obvious that he wants this to be true, just like he wanted her essay to be simply a thought experiment. The problem, of course, is that it isn’t.

“Hurting myself was a side effect of the experiment,” Emma says. It’s a sentence that’s open to interpretation.

Mr. Hastings takes a large gulp of coffee, emptying his cup in one practiced flick of his wrist. “I don’t understand.”

For a second, Emma is torn. It’d make the next few days of her life—the last few days of her life—so much easier if she just lied to him. If she pretended it was all a mistake, and that everything was all right.

But people pretending that everything is all right is exactly why the whole entire world is such a mess. It’s the reason she wrote her essay in the first place. So, no, she can’t lie to him. As much as she wants to.

“What I mean is,” she says, very slowly, “the experiment was about measuring how long I could hold my arm over a flame.”

Mr. Hastings pales, his fingers tightening on the delicate handle of the teacup.

“Getting a third-degree burn was a side effect,” Emma says. “Or a result, you might even say.”

“Oh, Emma,” he whispers. He honestly looks like he’s about to cry. He sets the teacup down on the desk, his elbows following quickly after, his head falling forward into his hands.

She watches his fingers dig through what’s left of his salt-and-pepper hair, noticing the flesh puffing on either side of his wedding ring.

Mr. Hastings has clearly gained weight during his marriage, as Emma has read that people in healthy relationships tend to do.

It’s odd to think about Mr. Hastings as a real person, going home to his wife, but for some reason she does hope he’s happy.

She turns away and gazes out the window. Two little brown birds keep flying in and out of the bush outside the headmaster’s office. They’re building a nest for their eggs. She imagines little fluffy, dust-colored chicks peeping, crying out to be fed.

Mr. Hastings pulls his face out of his hands. “I’m calling your father right now.”

She assumes sparrows aren’t the world’s most loving parents.

But at least the dad bird won’t always be flying off to his law office.

And probably the mom bird won’t die of cancer.

Or maybe she will. Emma is sure there’s a study out there somewhere stating that birds are dying of just about everything, because humans are such absolute pieces of shit.

“Emma?” Her dad’s gruff voice comes through Hastings’s speakerphone. “What is going on?”

Emma sighs. “Hi, Dad. How’s trial?”

“We’re not talking about me, Emma, we’re talking about you, and why I’m getting another call from your school.”

As usual, there’s a tone to his voice that doesn’t quite fit his words. Yes, he wants to insist that they’re talking about her and not him, but the annoyance level she’s detecting tells her that talking about her at all isn’t a priority right now. Or probably ever.

“Everyone’s overreacting again,” Emma says.

“To what?”

“I burned myself in science class.”

He waits a beat. “On purpose,” he says. It’s not a question.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to see if I could take it.”

It’s not exactly what she said to Hastings, and it clearly hits him hard.

He gets up from his chair, loosens his tie, walks over to the window.

She hopes he’s watching the sparrows, hopes that he can give his attention to something that actually matters right now, and not this charade of a family phone call.

Her father grunts. She can picture him now: tailor-made suit, Brioni tie, salt-and-pepper hair perfectly combed.

He’s pacing his huge, light-filled office, because Byron Blake doesn’t sit still.

Doesn’t suffer fools. And definitely doesn’t want his daughter causing trouble at her exclusive high school.

And yet—Byron has a touch of chaos in him, just like Emma does.

A rebellious streak. He doesn’t like to play by the rules.

“And could you?” he asks. “Take it?”

“Of course,” Emma says flatly. “You know what you always used to tell us, Dad.”

Then they say it together: “‘Pain is weakness leaving the body.’”

At the window, Mr. Hastings puts his head against the glass, a deep exhalation fogging up the pane.

She remembers Sunday bike rides back when they were kids, their father goading them up hill after impossible hill with that very same phrase, the muscles in her legs burning, her sister pumping along beside her, sharing a glance of mutual misery while also being aware that whoever won would get the bigger ice-cream cone.

“But why did you do it?” her father asks.

Emma answers with a quote. “‘Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.’”

“That’s Aristotle,” says her dad.

“You used to tell us that all the time too.” You’ve always borrowed other people’s lines. Parenting through quotes. He probably has a Pinterest board.

Hastings undoes his tie completely, pulling it away from his neck in one sharp movement. Clearly this phone call isn’t going the way he thought it would at all.

“So you learned that you’re tough,” Byron Blake says.

Emma feels a surge of defiant pride. “Yes.”

Her dad grunts again, but it almost sounds like a laugh. “But we already knew that,” he says. “Your experiment was unnecessary.”

Mr. Hastings finally manages to get his vocal cords working. “Sir,” he says, “this isn’t something we should be proud of. This is something we’re deeply concerned about.”

“How bad did it hurt?” her dad asks, as if he hasn’t heard a single word Hastings said.

Emma clutches the underside of her injured arm. It hurts so much that sometimes it’s hard to breathe. She wonders if it would hurt less now if she had burned it for longer. If she’d killed the nerves that caused the pain. That’s what her research said was supposed to happen.

“The results of Emma’s so-called experiment should not be the focus,” Hastings says. “We need—we all need—to be asking why she did it, and what we can do collectively to support her and ensure it won’t happen again.”

“Searing pain,” Emma says, following her dad’s lead on ignoring the headmaster.

“It felt like someone was pressing a sword through my arm, but the sword was made of red-hot lava. I could feel it in my teeth. My stomach. I thought I was going to throw up.” She looks down at her bandage.

“Now my arm is throbbing. It feels like I’m still being burned.

Like it’s still over the flame. I took Advil, but—”

“That’s enough!” Mr. Hastings practically shouts. “Mr. Blake, we are seriously concerned about your daughter! I’m not sure you understand the gravity of the situation!”

“Emma, promise the man you won’t do anything like this again.

” Her dad sounds bored, and she knows well enough the value of promises.

How many trips to the zoo canceled at the last minute?

Beach vacations for four suddenly reduced to three?

Promises in the Blake family are simply words that you say.

They don’t have to carry any meaning or weight.

Emma chews her lip. She doesn’t want to promise Hastings anything, doesn’t want to follow the family pattern. But it’s the quickest way to get out of this. “I, Emma Caroline Blake, solemnly swear not to burn myself in science class.”

“Again,” Hastings adds.

“And?” her dad presses.

“And I’ll try harder at school. Bring up my GPA.” Blah blah blah.

She sneaks another glance at the sparrows. One of them’s perched on a branch with a fat, disgusting caterpillar in its mouth.

“That’s my girl,” her dad says. “You are the best of the best, Emma Caroline Blake. Don’t let anyone forget that. Including yourself. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Click.

Emma clutches her arm, right above the burn. As much as it hurts now, soon it’ll be nothing but a scab, if she’s alive long enough to finish the process. The body heals so much faster than the heart.