Chapter 7

The juvenile delinquents at the youth detention center sat in rows, staring at me in my teacher's uniform and firing off all sorts of questions.

"Professor Sterling, my parents have been working away from home since I was little and never cared for me. I got so bored being alone that I started hanging out with all kinds of people. Only when I'm with them do I feel like I haven't been abandoned. Do I have some kind of social anxiety disorder?"

"Professor Sterling, I feel like nobody in the world loves me except my boyfriend. Even though he's fifteen years older than me, he really cares about me and buys me barbecue. Why did they bring me to this detention center to be reformed?"

"Professor Sterling, you came here to be a counselor - have you had your heart broken too? Do you have a boyfriend? Is he handsome? Tall? Rich?"

...

The underage boys and girls had all sorts of strange questions, but most were cases of pulling back from the brink - ones that could still be saved.