Page 3 of Forbidden You

“I’m pretty sure they live in the night.”

“Oh, yeah. Shit. So, no werewolf?” I muse.

“What’s going on? Are you drunk? Why aren’t you in your bed?”

Where to fucking start?

I sigh, pressing my fingers into my eye sockets, trying to prevent the tears stinging in my blue retinas from falling down my cheek. “I got kicked out.”

Silence.

Which is actually worse from the indignance I was preparing myself for.

I bring my head up, waiting for her response as I look out of the window when the campus is no longer in sight. Her lack of words slowly suffocates me, making it that much harder to keep a straight face and not let my emotions get the best of me.

“Got kicked out of where?Exactly?” She sounds shocked.

I can’t blame her. Stanford was my dream, and it all came crashing down before I had the chance to walk up that stage in a red and black cap and gown.

That all vanished like smoke in the air the moment I packed my bags.

“School. Campus. University.” I pause, sucking in a deep breath to build the courage to say the last word out loud. ”Stanford.”

“What the fuck, Kayla? Are you fucking shitting me?” The tone of her voice is filled with disbelief and laced with a little suspicion. As if she’s expecting me to tell her ”April fools!”in the next few sentences.

Which, fair, is totally something I would do in January.

“It would get real messy if I’d be shitting on you right now.”

“I’m serious, Keeks!” she yells.

I think it’s safe to say I established the level of indignance I was aiming for.

“I know, Rae. So am I.” The words leave my lips reluctantly, because it all feels like a scam. Like I’m looking at someone else’s life.

This is not my life. Kayla Lockheart doesn’t get kicked out of Stanford University when she got a full scholarship.

You’re right.

She doesn’t.

She ain’t the type to sneak off in the dark to head home, either. Nah, she’s the girl who’d kick open the door, make an entrance that sticks, and exit with a bang.

But here we are, with a departure that’s quieter than a cat’s footsteps.

“What happened?” Rae’s voice is small and cautious this time, like she doesn’t want to upset me any further.

But in the last six months, my skin has gotten a lot thicker than it used to be.

“My grades have degraded. I failed.” The words sting on my tongue.

A loud exhale moves through the phone, sounding like a gust of wind on the other end of the line.Here it goes. There’s a 99.9 percent chance she isn’t going to let me get away with this explanation since I’ve been a straight A student my entire school career, so I rehearsed this part in my head like ten times.

“You don’t fail, Kayla.”

“Maybe not in high school. But Stanford is not Red Wood Creek High. I thought I could do this. But I went to a few parties too many, and it seems like getting good grades while drunk doesn’t really mix. On the bright side, I know San Francisco like the back of my hand right now?”

“Keeks,” she grunts in a reprimanding tone.

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