A mother finds her fifteen-year-old son's journal and reads words that terrify her: thoughts of wanting to die, planning how he would do it, feeling that the world would be better without him. She does not know what to do, whether to confront him, whether speaking about it will make it worse, whether she is overreacting. A school counselor learns that a student has told friends she is going to kill herself. The counselor must decide what steps to take, balancing confidentiality against safety, knowing that a wrong decision could have permanent consequences.