He wants to get his damaged brother, Brian, back on his feet. He wants to reconcile with his ex-girlfriend Adele and be a dad to her son, Stephen. And after nine years of teaching, he wants at last to set aside his own traumas-his imprisoned conman father, a mother who abandoned the family years before she died-and become a principal at a high school for troubled kids. Kids he can save, like his teachers saved him.

But things don't always work out the way you want.

When his observation lesson is sabotaged by Mr. Rastik, a fellow teacher with his own agenda, Jason finds his plans slipping from his grasp. With a number of teachers due to be excessed next year, Rastik is ruthless, ready to do whatever it takes-manipulation, even blackmail-to keep himself at Central South High School.

Then there's Jason's father, locked away in West Virginia, holding onto the power of attorney Jason needs should something go wrong with Brian. He'll give it up, he says, if Jason will fl y to Florida into a life he never knew his father lived.

If Jason is to build the home he wants with Adele and Stephen-if he's to maneuver past Rastik's machinations and at last step out from the shadow of childhood-he'll need to understand that things are not always as they seem. Maybe he's not the only one struggling. He's not the only one growing. And whether brother, son, father, partner, principal, or teacher, he still has quite a lot to learn.