I balanced my cup as I opened the letter, hissing as the skin of my thumb split. I popped it into my mouth and set my coffee down, opening the letter with my empty hand. The sweetest pressure settled in my chest as I unfolded it. This was my fresh start. This was my hope.

“Dear Ms. Fitzgerald,” I started to read along. Then stopped.

No. No. No.

How? They’d admitted me. They’d promised me a clean slate, that my grades from last semester wouldn’t matter. They would start me on academic probation and then let up when I did well this first semester.

“Sam?” Ember asked, balancing two cups of coffee as she stood in front of me. I hadn’t even registered her coming in. “Are you okay?”

Failure stung like a bitch. Oh wait, that was my thumb. “Shit.” I squeezed the skin, opening the paper cut, and almost laughed when I saw it wasn’t bleeding. Anything that hurt that badly should at least give you something to show for it.

Kind of like the last two and a half years I’d wasted in college.

My voice didn’t shake, or hold any tone. It was as numb as I was. “Upon further review of your transcript, we regret to inform you that we cannot accept you into Troy University.”

It doesn’t matter what state you move to. You’re still a whore.

Chapter Two

Sam

“Sam? Let me in.” Ember knocked for the hundredth time.

“Go away,” I answered, my head tucked between my knees as I leaned back against my bed. Breathe in. Breathe out. This will pass. It has to.

“That’s so not going to happen,” she called through my bedroom door. “Let me in.”

Let her in? To what? The absolute mess I’d made of my life? Another school rejection. Another chance…lost. God, what if it was my last chance? What if this was it? No college was going to accept me, not when my records came with that giant black mark. Every carefully constructed plan, dream…gone. Again.

And maybe I deserved it for what I’d done.

My stomach rolled and saliva pooled in my mouth.

I bolted to my feet and threw open the door, tripping past Ember as I raced to the bathroom. The bath mat cushioned my knees as I fell and curled over the toilet in time to bring up what little coffee I’d managed to drink.

Ember pulled a curl from my face as I dry-heaved, the pain nothing compared to the shredding my heart was taking.

“Here,” she whispered, handing me a cup of water as I flushed the toilet.

I swished and spit, keeping my eyes on the cup.

“Is this why you’ve lost weight?” she asked as we sat on the bathroom floor, leaned back against the tub.

“I haven’t—” She cut me off with a glare. “It’s been hard lately,” I finished.

“You’ve been my closest friend since we were thirteen, Sam. I want to help.” She reached for my hand and squeezed my fingers.

The irony was almost funny. I hadn’t even told my best friend, and here she was, desperately trying to help me. But if she knew? No. Ember would never understand. She planned out every minute detail of her life and controlled every situation she found herself in. Ember was a fixer.

I was a wrecker, in more ways than one.

I slid another brick into the wall I’d been building between us and forced a smile. “Nothing you can do, Ember, really. I have to figure this out for myself.”

“What are you going to do? Do you want to come back to Nashville? You can stay with me until your mom comes home.”

Fuck my life, what was I going to tell Mom? My stomach turned over, and I breathed through the need to heave, reminding my body that it had just done that, thank you very much.

She’d lecture. She’d judge. She’d be disappointed. And if she really knew? She’d say, “I told you so.” And she’d be right.

To hell with that.

“No. I’m staying,” I said with more conviction than I felt. “I’m staying right here.” Are you convincing Ember or yourself?

“Okay?” She tilted her head to the side.

“I’ll get a job, work through the summer, and keep applying to schools.” And keep opening rejection letters.

“Okay.”

“There’s a ton of places I can apply to for a job down here, and maybe with a solid work reference, I’ll have a better chance at getting back into a good school.” The more I spoke, the faster my words came, like my brain was vomiting because my stomach couldn’t.

“Okay.” She nodded her head slowly.

“Right. That sounds like a plan. Work. Apply to schools. Get in. Get my life back.”

“Okay…”

“Will you stop saying okay?” I snapped. “It’s not okay. It’s shit, but it’s the best I can do, and it’s not like I didn’t do this to myself, right?” Staying here? Was I nuts? You will not go back to Mom with your tail between your legs.

Ember sighed. “People flun—” Her eyes widened. “Shit. I mean, people leave college all the time. It’s not the end of the world.”

I rolled my eyes. “Flunk. You can say it. I flunked out of college. Flunk-a-fucking-roo, there went two and a half years of my life down the toilet.” My head fell back, knocking the glass of the sliding shower door.

Silence stretched between us, more uncomfortable than the tile floor currently making my ass numb.

“You can talk to me about it, Sam. Holding it in isn’t doing you any good.”