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I’ve been living here for the past nine months, and it isn’t the life-altering fresh start I convinced myself it would be. I spent the first three months holed up in my apartment while waiting for Kingsford’s autumn term to begin.

I did everything normal people do when they begin a new life, unlike me, they weren’t giving life one last chance.

Wow. Nothing like a suicidal thought to kick off the morning.

The sweet aroma of coffee fills my lungs as I take the cappuccino from the barista and step outside. I take a long sip of the hot cappuccino, like a small act of defiance against myself.

Not because I want to hurt—I don’t.

I’m not a masochist; I don’t like pain. But because I’ve promised not to give in to those darker, self-destructive instincts until the time comes.

Shit, it’s really hot.

However, it’s a habit, as if to prove my existence, that I am still capable of feeling anything at all.

I wrap my red scarf around my neck—a loose thread hanging from the edge as if it’s been torn apart—and make my way to the university.

It’s different here at Kingsford University, the so-called school for rich kids.

Ninety percent of the students come from money: never worked a day in their lives, never picked up their own plates after eating, never seen a crease in their uniforms. That kind of money.

The remaining ten percent are students like me. Scholarship students. We’re the statistical anomaly that lets

Kingsford call itself inclusive.

Ironically, I wasn’t always one of them. I was rich when I had parents, I’m talking about money, not rich in life, never that.

My parents could afford chauffeurs, housekeepers, and private schools. They just couldn’t afford to stand up for their own daughter when the society turned against her.

But I don’t hold it against them. I’m just glad they leave me alone.

The dead are good at that.

Unfortunately, the living aren't.

Because, of course, I see Roman Volkov making a beeline towards me, clearly intent on being a nuisance. The man is all muscle and no brain, convinced he’s funny, sexy and ooh, don’t forget charismatic.

But according to the founding and only active member of Judge them Until You Kill Them committee i.e., me? He’s painfully fucking delusional.

“What up, loser?” He chimes, bumping his shoulder into mine, not in a friendly way.

Hot coffee splashes over my clothes and soaks the red scarf wrapped around my neck. My mother’s only keepsake.

Just kidding. She hated red. Or me.

I don’t give him the reaction he’s hoping for. Instead, I squint at the hot coffee dripping onto the concrete.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

I slammed his sister’s head into a cafeteria table last week after she thought it’d be funny to dump soda all over my clothes.

What is it with the Volkovs and their obsession with ruining perfectly good outfits?

I was suspended for an entire week. Seven days with nothing but my own company. Trust me, I’m the last person anyone should be left alone with.

Don’t believe me? Ask my brain, it pitches at least twelve ways to kill myself every single day.

Frankly, I was expecting expulsion. So a suspension feels nothing short of a miracle. And miracles don’t happen at Kingsford.