Page 8 of Lost Paradise

Fuck. I’m doomed.

I’m fucking fated to get kicked out of this college, and I haven’t even been here for twenty-four hours.

“Let me try,” I say, and he gets down the chair. I put one leg on and hop on. “It’s jammed. Is there something I can smash it with?”

“If I found something, don’t you think I would have tried that already?” Byron looks at me, blinking. He isn’t stupid, but he was gullible enough to allow this Astro asshole to lock him down here.

There’s always going to be that one kid in high school who will be picked on again and again. Although we’re young adults now, and this isn’t high school, people like Astro will always exist in the sinister shadows, targeting unsuspecting victims.

I try smashing the window with my elbow and manage to crack it, and with one more hit, it shatters, along with the glass cutting into my skin.

“Dammit,” I curse all sorts as I pick a small piece out of my flesh.

Suddenly, the basement door crashes open, and a series of flashlights flash downwards, and two cops follow.

“Don’t move,” one says to us. “I got two more down here,” he shouts to his talk piece.

Fuck.

Chapter 3

My phone buzzes anotification, and the last thing I want to see is another post on my online socials about how my crew in New York are enjoying their lives without me. Not one of them even bothered to phone or text to see how I’m doing.

All I have to do is step outside my circle, and it’s like socially jumping off a cliff. I know that if I go back to Manhattan tomorrow, I’ll be accepted back as if I never left.

But is that what I want?

I could forge a new circle, which is what’s going on with Emily, Maeve, and Amelia, but honestly, it's so tough to keep up and be liked by these people. The only reason I immediately gelled with them isn’t because of my bubbling personality but because of the weekly price of this single room in Whitley House, which has the same monthly rental price tag as a three-bedroom apartment in the West Village.

Money.

It forms bonds.

None that are genuine.

Affluent people can smell other people’s money, and we don’t even have to talk about it. We simply gravitate towards each other like imaginary magnets.

My phone buzzes again, and with extreme reluctance, I turn around in my bed and reach out to grab it from the charger.

Fuck, fuck, and more fuck.

I’ve been summoned this morning to the dean’s office.

That is never a good sign.

I seriously thought I got off last night. After they raided the house, they brought me, Astro, Zane, and Byron tothe main room, where all the drugs were confiscated. We were asked to do a rapid drug test and had to provide a urine sample.

Drugs are something I tried years ago and wasn’t into, so I didn’t have an inch of a need to try any of Astro’s samples, regardless of how pretty he made everything look. I knew there was no way Zane would have touched the stuff either. He hardly drinks alcohol, let alone take anything that would harm his body. He’s a hardcore health nut. I guess one has to if they’re on a sports scholarship. And I have no idea about Byron. He spoke two words to me and then snubbed me for the remainder of the evening.

Byron’s cute in his own nerdy way, and if he opened up a little, he could be a lot sexier because he’s fucking handsome. There was no surprise that his drug test was negative, too.

Astro was the biggest shocker of all. For some dickhead dealer with a growing rumor on campus that he’s fresh out of prison, his test was negative, and they even had a cop present in the bathroom with him when he peed in his cup. That act alone makes me think campus security knows a lot more about Astro Doukas than just grape-vine whispers flowing among the students. Word is that he spent eighteen months in a Californian State prison and was banned from traveling to the US.

Yet, for the life of me, I do not understand how a prestigious institution like Hawthornes could allow such an individual through its doors.

What the fuck am I talking about?

There is a much bigger question pending here.

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