Chapter 167
Summer's POV
The porch light was on.
That was the first thing I noticed as I pulled into the driveway—the porch light, which Mom always turned off before bed. It was nearly one in the morning, and the house was dark except for that single golden glow and the faint flicker of the living room lamp behind the curtains.
I eased open the front door as quietly as I could, as if silence might somehow buy me forgiveness. It didn't matter. Mom was sitting in the living room, still fully dressed, her legs crossed, a cup of coffee long gone cold on the table beside her. The iPad in her lap showed the Find My iPhone interface, my little dot frozen somewhere in Southie.
She looked up when the door clicked shut. Her eyes were red.
"Sit down," she said.
Not angry. Worse—exhausted. The kind of exhaustion that came from hours of imagining the worst.
I sat.
For a long moment, she just looked at me, and I watched her face cycle through a dozen emotions I couldn't name—relief, fury, hurt, something broken and desperate underneath all of it. Finally, she set the iPad aside and folded her hands in her lap.
"I almost called the police tonight, Summer."
"I know. I'm sorry, I—"
"You've never not answered your phone for that long. You've never lied about where you were going." She paused, her voice cracking slightly. "The GPS showed you in South Boston. Not at any karaoke place. Not anywhere I recognized. I've been sitting here for three hours picturing you in a hospital. In a ditch. In the back of some—" She stopped herself, pressing her fingers to her mouth.
I bit my lip, shame and defiance warring in my chest. Part of me wanted to shrink down, to apologize and promise never to do it again. But the other part—the part that had stood in that street tonight and told Drake exactly what I thought of him—that part refused to back down.
"It was Kieran," I said quietly. "He was... someone hurt him. I had to go."
Her eyes met mine, sharp and frightened. "You went to that neighborhood, to deal with that man, without telling me?"
"I couldn't just leave him there!" The words burst out before I could stop them. "Mom, you didn't see—Drake was threatening his mother, scaring Lily, and Kieran was trying to protect them, and I couldn't just—I couldn't—"
My voice broke. Mom set down her coffee and moved to sit beside me on the couch, her hand finding mine.
"Did he hurt you?"
"No. Mia was there. We... Kieran made sure Drake left before the police came."
"Police?" Her grip tightened until her knuckles went white. "Summer—"
"We're okay. I promise. But I couldn't... I couldn't just wait at home and not know if he was safe. I couldn't do that again."
The last word slipped out before I could catch it. Again. Like I'd already lived through losing him once.
Mom pulled her hand back and stood, pacing to the window. She stayed there for a long moment, her arms wrapped around herself, staring out at the dark street.
"Tell me about this Drake," she said finally, and her voice had changed. Harder. Colder. The voice she used in boardrooms, not living rooms. "Tell me everything."
So I did. Not all of it—not the worst of what Kieran had told me in quiet moments, the things that weren't mine to share—but enough. Drake's drinking. The way he terrorized Sienna and Lily. The bruises Kieran tried to hide. The fact that tonight wasn't the first time, wouldn't be the last time, and that the police never seemed to do enough.
By the time I finished, Mom had stopped pacing. She was standing very still, her face pale in the lamplight.
"Summer." She turned to face me. "Do you understand what kind of man you're describing? This isn't some... difficult father who raises his voice. This is a violent, unstable person. A man who beats his wife and terrorizes his children. And you walked into his house?"
"I was outside. On the street. And Mia was with me—"
"That doesn't matter!" Her voice cracked like a whip, and I flinched. She caught herself, took a breath, and sat back down beside me. When she spoke again, it was more controlled, but I could hear the fear underneath. "People like Drake Cross—men like that—they don't follow rules, Summer. They don't care that you're seventeen, or that you're a girl, or that you were just trying to help. If he'd turned on you—if he'd had a weapon—" She pressed her hand flat against her chest, like she was trying to hold her own heart in place. "You could be dead right now. Do you understand that? My daughter could be dead."
The word landed like a stone in the quiet room. I couldn't speak.
"I don't care where Kieran comes from," she continued, and I looked up, startled. "I don't care if he's from Southie or South Sudan. I don't care about his grades or his bank account or what anyone at the club would say. But his father—" She shook her head. "His father terrifies me, Summer. Not because he's poor. Because he's dangerous. And as long as Kieran is tied to that man, being close to Kieran means being close to that danger."
Mom was quiet for a long moment, studying my face. I could see her wrestling with something—the desire to lock me in my room forever warring with something else. Something that looked like recognition.
"This boy means a lot to you," she said finally.
It wasn't a question, but I nodded anyway.
"And tonight, going to him—that felt more important than staying safe? Than the dinner I'd been planning for weeks?"
I looked down at our joined hands. "Yes."
She sighed, long and heavy. Then she did something I didn't expect. She leaned back against the couch cushions and closed her eyes.