Needed (Heart on Fire #1)

Chapter 1

Maya

I was so tired I couldn’t remember when exhaustion stopped being temporary.

Four hours of sleep, two cups of coffee, and the same quiet weight I’d carried for thirteen years—the fear that today might be the day everyone turns out to be right.

Twenty-six fourth-graders. Twenty-six personal narratives about "A Time I Was Brave." I'd made it through most of them before my vision blurred too badly to continue.

I pushed myself upright, swung my legs over the edge of the bed, and waited for the dizziness to pass.

This was fine. This was just Tuesday.

The apartment was cold. I kept the thermostat low to save money, and I pulled my robe tighter as I shuffled to the kitchen.

The coffee maker was already prepped from the night before because past-Maya knew present-Maya wouldn't be functional enough to measure grounds.

Small mercies. I hit the button and leaned against the counter while it gurgled to life.

My reflection caught in the window above the sink. Dark circles that no amount of concealer could hide. Skin that looked gray in this light. Thirty years old and feeling fifty.

You're always tired, David’s voice slipped in, uninvited. You're never present.

I poured my coffee black and tried to silence the voice in my head. I took a sip that burned my tongue and checked the clock.

5:47. Thirteen minutes before I had to wake Zoe.

Getting Zoe up for school used to be the best part of my morning.

When she was small, I'd sit on the edge of her bed and rub her back, singing made-up songs until she giggled awake. She'd wrap her arms around my neck and let me carry her to the kitchen, still half-asleep, her head heavy on my shoulder.

Now she was thirteen, and I knocked three times before pushing open her door.

"Zo. Time to get up."

A shape shifted under the comforter. Earbuds trailed across the pillow. She'd fallen asleep listening to something again.

"Zoe. Come on."

"I'm up."

She wasn't up. I could see that her eyes were still closed.

I crossed to the window and pulled the blinds. Weak September light filtered in, doing nothing to warm the room. "I'm making eggs. You need to be in the kitchen in ten minutes."

"I'm not hungry."

"You need to eat."

"I'll grab something at school."

We both knew she wouldn't. But I didn’t have the energy for this fight. Not this morning.

"Ten minutes," I repeated, and closed the door behind me.

In the kitchen, I cracked eggs into a pan and tried not to think about how different things used to be. How Zoe used to tell me everything. Her friends, her teachers, the boy in her class who'd said something mean, the book she was reading that she just had to describe chapter by chapter.

Now I got one-word answers, shrugs, and eye rolls that felt like slaps.

She's thirteen, I reminded myself. This is normal.

But normal didn't make it hurt less. Normal didn't stop me from lying awake at night wondering when I'd lost her, or if I'd done something wrong, or if she was pulling away because she was growing up, or because she was finally old enough to be embarrassed by me.

She shuffled in at 6:12, wearing black jeans and an oversized sweatshirt, her hair pulled back in a messy bun I knew better than to comment on. She dropped into a chair and stared at her phone.

I slid a plate of eggs in front of her. "How'd you sleep?"

"Fine."

"Big day?"

"Not really."

"Sitting with anyone interesting at lunch?"

"Mom." The word was a warning.

I held up my hands in surrender, poured myself a second cup of coffee, and let the silence stretch.

In the car, she angled her body toward the window and scrolled through something I couldn't see. I navigated Queens traffic on autopilot, the same route I'd driven for years.

"Millie mentioned something about a movie this weekend," I tried. "That new horror one. You two could go if you want."

"Maybe."

"I could drop you off. Pick up some snacks for after."

"I said maybe, Mom."

The silence that followed felt heavier than the words.

I pulled up to the curb in front of the middle school building entrance. Kids were streaming past in clusters, laughing at things on their phones, shoving each other affectionately. Zoe already had her hand on the door.

"Have a good day," I said. "Love you."

She was out of the car before I finished. I watched her merge into the crowd, shoulders hunched, not looking back, until I couldn’t tell her apart from anyone else.

P.S. 147 sat on a corner in Sunset Park, red brick darkened by decades of city grime. The building was a hundred years old and showed it. Radiators that clanked, windows that stuck, a gym floor warped from a leak that had been "on the list" for three years.

Walk inside, and you'd find hallways covered in student artwork, self-portraits in wild colors, tissue paper flowers, hand-traced turkeys for Thanksgiving, a timeline of neighborhood history that stretched the entire length of the third floor, which was researched and illustrated by last year's fifth-graders.

This place was held together by construction paper and stubbornness, by teachers who spent their own money on supplies and stayed late because their students needed them, and showed up every single day knowing it wasn't enough.

My classroom was on the second floor, room 207.

Twenty-six desks arranged in careful clusters, a configuration I'd already rearranged twice since school started three weeks ago, trying to find the right balance of personalities.

I set up a reading corner with a rug I'd bought at a garage sale and beanbags donated by a parent three years ago. Posters on the walls read:

READING IS A SUPERPOWER. MISTAKES HELP US GROW. YOU BELONG HERE.

I set my bag on my desk and inhaled the familiar smell of dry-erase markers and hand sanitizer. Outside my window, the city was waking up. Delivery trucks, distant sirens, the rumble of the subway beneath my feet.

By 7:45, the first students started trickling in.

Marcus arrived before anyone else, like always. Ten years old with a backpack bigger than he was, stuffed with library books he'd probably already finished. He went straight to the reading corner without a word.

"Good morning, everyone."

"Good morning, Ms. Cummins!"

The chorus was ragged but enthusiastic. I wrote the date on the board and launched into our morning routine. Attendance, pledge, and a quick check-in where everyone shared one word about how they were feeling.

"Tired," Marcus said.

"Hungry," said a voice from the back. Destiny had slipped in while I was taking attendance, sliding into her seat without making eye contact. She was wearing the same hoodie with the broken zipper that she'd worn yesterday and the day before.

"Excited!" Sofia bounced in her seat.

James, in the front row where I'd learned he needed to sit, squinted at me while thinking hard. "Ready."

"I love that, James." I smiled at him. "Because we're going to start talking about our research projects today."

A collective groan filled the room.

"I know, I know. But you get to pick your own topics. Within reason," I added, catching Tyler's eye. "No, you cannot research why homework should be illegal."

"What about why less homework should be legal?"

"Nice try."

This was the part I loved. The back-and-forth.

The way their faces lit up when something clicked.

The small victories. James was making it through a whole paragraph without getting frustrated.

Destiny was raising her hand for the first time all week.

Marcus was looking up from his book long enough to help a classmate.

Somewhere around ten o'clock, while my students worked in pairs on their topic proposals, Destiny came to my desk.

"Ms. Cummins? Can I do my project on foster care?"

The question landed like a stone in my chest.

Destiny never asked for anything. Never raised her hand, never came to my desk, never drew attention to herself in any way. She moved through my classroom like she was trying to take up as little space as possible.

And now she was standing here, asking about foster care, wearing the same hoodie she'd worn for three days straight.

She wasn’t asking about a school project. She needed to know what happened next.

What happened to kids like her when someone finally decided…

I kept my face neutral. Kept my voice steady. "Of course you can. Any particular angle?"

She shrugged, but her eyes were intent. "I just want to know. Like, what happens to kids when they leave? Where do they go?"

When they leave. Not if.

She already knew it was coming. I could see it.

I thought of another student, years ago. A boy named Tommy Vickers, who'd sat in this same classroom, in the desk Destiny occupied now. He was always quiet and watchful, but he flinched when anyone moved too fast.

I'd filed reports. I watched him come to school with bruises he couldn't explain, listened to him say he was fine, even when his eyes said something different.

The other kids had been cruel in the way children can be.

They targeted his secondhand clothes, his silence, and the way he never had lunch money.

I'd moved his seat closer to my desk. Kept granola bars in my drawer for the mornings he came in with hollow eyes.

Stayed with him at recess when I saw the older boys circling. I'd tried to reach him.

Then one day, he was gone. He stopped coming to class. I'd asked what happened, where he went, and if he was okay.

Privacy concerns, they'd told me. We can't disclose.

I never found out what happened to Tommy Vickers after. Some nights, I still wondered.

"That's a great topic, Destiny," I said carefully. "I'll help you find some good sources."

She nodded and went back to her seat. I watched her go, feeling the familiar weight of all the things I couldn't fix.