Chapter 122
Summer's POV
When I finally went downstairs, Mom was in the living room with her laptop open, a glass of wine on the side table and containers of pad Thai cooling on the coffee table. She looked up when I came in, and whatever she saw on my face made her close the laptop immediately.
"Come here," she said, patting the couch beside her.
I sat. I didn't cry. I just sat there, staring at the food I couldn't eat, and tried to figure out how to explain something I didn't understand myself.
"What happened?" Mom asked gently.
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Tried again. "If someone you care about is in trouble," I said slowly, "but they won't let you help them, what do you do?"
Mom was quiet for a moment, her eyes searching my face. "What kind of trouble?"
I thought about Lily's story. The blood. The police. The father in prison who was coming home in eight weeks. Kieran's plan to disappear before that happened, to take his mother and sister and vanish from Boston like they'd never been here at all.
"Bad trouble," I whispered. "The kind where they might have to leave. And they're not telling me because they think they're protecting me, but they're not. They're just—" My voice broke. "They're just pushing me away."
I took a shaky breath and forced myself to continue, the words spilling out before I could stop them. I told her everything Lily had told me—about the father who'd beaten his children, about Lily's damaged ear, about the prison sentence that was ending in eight weeks, about Kieran's plan to run before his father came home. I told her about the darkness in Kieran's eyes when he'd talked about his family, the way he'd held himself so carefully, as if one wrong move might shatter whatever control he'd built. The words came faster as I spoke, tumbling over each other in my desperation to make her understand why this mattered, why he mattered, why I couldn't just walk away.
Mom set down her wine glass, her expression growing more troubled with every detail I revealed. When I finally fell silent, she was quiet for a long moment, and when she spoke, her voice was careful. Measured. "Summer, I need you to listen to me. Really listen."
I looked at her.
"I don't want you to keep liking him."
The words didn't make sense at first. I blinked, trying to process them, trying to understand why my mother—who'd encouraged me, who'd told me to keep the door open—was suddenly saying this.
"What?"
"His family situation is too complicated," Mom said, and her voice was firm now, the CEO voice she used when she'd made a decision and wouldn't be swayed. "You told me his father is getting out of prison. You told me there's violence in that family. Summer, those are not small things. Those are not things a seventeen-year-old girl should be trying to fix."
"I'm not trying to fix—"
"You are," she interrupted, and her eyes were sad but unyielding. "You are, because that's who you are. You see someone hurting and you want to help. But sweetheart, some situations are beyond helping. Some people—" She paused, choosing her words carefully. "Some people come from places that are too dark, too damaged. And no matter how much you care about them, you can't pull them out of that darkness. All you'll do is get pulled in yourself."
My hands were shaking. "You don't understand. He's not—"
"He's the son of a violent man," Mom said bluntly. "A man who's going to be out of prison soon. And you're telling me this boy is planning to run, to disappear, because he's afraid of what his father will do. Summer, do you hear what you're saying? Do you understand what that means?"
"It means he's trying to protect his family," I said, and my voice was rising now, desperate. "It means he's been taking care of his mother and his sister since he was fifteen years old. It means he's the bravest, strongest person I've ever met, and you don't get to—"
"And what happens when his father finds him?" Mom asked quietly. "What happens when that violence that's been in his life since childhood comes back? What happens to you if you're there when it does?"
I couldn't answer. I couldn't breathe.
"I know he's special to you," Mom said, and her voice was gentler now. "I know he makes you happy. But happiness isn't enough, sweetheart. Not when there's this much danger involved. Not when his family's problems could become your problems. Not when—" She stopped, and I saw something flicker across her face. Fear. "Not when I could lose you to something you never should have been part of in the first place."
"You won't lose me," I said, but the words sounded hollow even to my own ears.
"You don't know that," Mom said. She reached for my hand, held it tight. "Summer, I love you more than anything in this world. And because I love you, I'm telling you—you need to let this boy go. For your own safety. For your own future. You can't save him, and you shouldn't have to try."
I pulled my hand away. "What if I don't want to let him go?"
"Then you're making a mistake," Mom said, and there was steel in her voice now. "A mistake that could cost you everything. Your education, your opportunities, your safety. Is he worth that? Is any boy worth that?"
I thought about Kieran standing in the rain, telling me he wanted to be where I was. I thought about the flowers he'd bought with money he needed for his sister's medical bills. I thought about him lying in a hospital bed, telling me I was his weakness, the one thing that could make him surrender.
"Yes," I whispered. "He is."
Mom closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, they were bright with unshed tears. "Then I can't help you," she said softly. "All I can do is ask you to be careful. And to remember that you deserve someone who can give you a future, not someone who's running from his past."
She stood up, gathered her laptop and wine glass, and left me alone with the cooling Thai food and the weight of her words.