Thoughts fled; the thread snapped. Summer lunged at Jenna, planning on doing a lot more than shoving. Cody cut her off just before she could get her hands around the girl’s neck, keeping himself between them.
“You think I’m scared of you?” Jenna shrieked. “You’re lucky Cody’s holding me back.”
Ashlyn yelled something at Jenna that Summer couldn’t make out because she was trying to break away from Cody, Jenna yelled back, and Cody repeatedly suggested everyone calm down.
“All of you, get to the office now!” Mrs. Crawford bellowed. She and another teacher pushed their way through the crowd that had gathered.
Summer turned to Mrs. Crawford. “But she’s the one who—”
“Not another word!” Mrs. Crawford jabbed a finger toward the exit. “To the office. Now!”
Mrs. Crawford marched Summer, Ashlyn, and Jenna down the hall into the office. She pointed to one side of the room. “Jenna, you sit over there.” She turned to Ashlyn and Summer. “You two over there.” She told the secretary to make sure they stayed on their opposing sides before disappearing into the principal’s office.
The anger that’d been pumping through Summer cooled a few notches. Okay, so maybe lunging at Jenna wasn’t the smartest move. She swore she’d never be one of those ghetto chicks who got into a fight at school, yet here she was, awaiting punishment.
She glanced at Ashlyn. “Thanks for coming to my defense,” she whispered. “I know it’s only been a few days, but it seems like forever. I really missed you.”
Ashlyn put her hands over her heart. “I missed you, too. I’m sorry I’ve been so dumb.”
“I was dumb, too. You can make your own decisions. I just care about you.”
“I know,” Ashlyn said, sounding like she might cry. “Let’s never fight again.” Her gaze flicked to Jenna. “With each other.”
Jenna’s eyes widened, and Summer threw her hand to her mouth to cover her laughter.
“I wonder how much trouble we’re in,” Summer said, trying to see through the office window—Mrs. Crawford had never liked her. Right now, the woman was probably painting Summer as the troublemaker, even though this was the first time she’d been at trouble in school. Besides the ripped pants thing.
Ashlyn shrugged. “My mother will probably consider a fight exercise. Maybe she’ll come in and talk Mr. Strider out of punishing us.”
Summer laughed again, and Ashlyn joined in.
Mr. Strider walked out of his office, flanked by Mrs. Crawford. The intense glare the principal shot them put an abrupt stop to their laughter.
Dad paced back and forth in front of the couch. “What’s gotten into you lately? I thought you were getting better, then you lie to me, and now you’re fighting at school. It keeps getting worse and worse.”
“She shoved me first, though,” Summer said. “And I would have let it go, but then she said something horrible to Ashlyn. I couldn’t walk away after that.”
“While I understand that made you mad, it’s more than what happened today that has me worried. I know…” He ran a hand over his face and sighed. “I know you’ve got some unresolved issues with your mom’s death still. I thought you’d pulled out of it, but now…Maybe you need to talk to someone. A professional who’d know how to help you better than I can.”
Summer imagined how that would go. Yeah, I have issues because I see the Angel of Death on a regular basis. Oh, and I see people dying before they actually die. It’s also my fault that my mom’s dead. Basically, I’m obsessed with death. So what do you think about that?
“Please, Dad, don’t make me talk to anyone. I just have a lot of stress right now.”
Dad sat next to her. “You can tell me about it, you know. Give me something, because, honestly, I don’t know what to do with you anymore.”
Summer shook her head, blinking back tears. Where would she even start? Gabriella? Her failure to make peace with Ashlyn and her mom? The recent revelation that she’d delayed Mom enough to get her killed?
Dad leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and hanging his head. “If your mom was here, she’d know what to do.”
Her breath quickened, and then she just blurted it out. “It’s my fault. It’s my fault that Mom’s not here.”
He slowly raised his head and looked at her, his brow furrowed. “Summer, don’t talk like that. You couldn’t have done anything about your mom.”
“I could have, though! I knew something bad was going to happen, and I begged her to stay, but she went anyway. If I would’ve kept her home or let her go, everything would’ve happened differently.” Tears lodged in her throat. “Instead, I kept her just long enough to be in the store with that man. It’s my fault she’s dead.”
Summer winced, waiting for him to storm out, or for him to yell and ask her why she did that. She deserved it.
She deserved a lot more.
“You can drive yourself crazy with the ‘what ifs,’” Dad said, voice calm. “I keep thinking that I shouldn’t have gone out of town that morning. That if I’d decided to stay home instead of attending that training conference, all of us would’ve been doing something together. That maybe I would’ve been there at the store with her so I could’ve saved her or taken her place.” He swallowed thickly. “But it doesn’t change anything. It just hurts more, and I think you’ll agree it hurts enough without adding to it.”
“But, Dad, I knew something bad was going to happen. Sometimes I get these…” Flashes. Visions. She couldn’t say it. Not aloud. “These very strong feelings that something bad is going to happen. It’s more powerful than a gut feeling. I had one, and I still let her go. I asked her to stay, but I should’ve told her about my instincts. I should’ve tried harder.”
Dad shook his head. “Don’t do that. I don’t want you blaming yourself for the actions of that man. He’s the one who went in with a gun. He’s the one who pulled the trigger.”
“But if I could have stopped her from going, then she wouldn’t have been there.”
“Your mom was very headstrong. Sometimes we’d be in the middle of a conversation or a night out, and she’d have to go somewhere. She said she knew someone needed her help right then and there, and she’d up and leave. Just like that.”
“Did you ever find out where she went? What she was doing?”
Dad looked at Summer for what seemed like forever. “After we’d been dating for several months and were starting to talk about marriage, you mom told me she got very strong feelings, kind of like what you just said, that someone needed her help. At first I joked that she was Superwoman or some other masked avenger. She didn’t laugh, though. Simply asked me to be understanding when she got them, because she had to help, whatever it took. I knew bigger forces than me and her were at work.”
Dad put his hand on Summer’s shoulder, his eyes meeting hers. “I know this might sound crazy to you, but I feel like your mom had a special job to do here. She never said how or who she helped, but she’d come home and tell me that she’d succeeded. Sometimes she’d tell me she was struggling to help somebody. It was like she was a guardian angel to people when they needed one.”
“Not exactly a guardian,” Summer said. “More like a helper.”
“She told you, too?”
Summer shook her head. “Not exactly.” She bit her lip, nervous to hear Dad’s answer, but knowing she needed to ask the question. “You didn’t think she was crazy?”
“Your mom was gifted, not crazy.”
Summer let out the breath she’d been holding, letting what Dad said wash over her. A spark of hope in the dark—a spark she needed so badly she wanted to chase it and cling to it. Gifted. Not crazy. “After everything she did, aren’t you mad a guardian angel didn’t help her when she needed it?”