Chapter 1

The day the official notice voiding my college entrance exam scores arrived, Mom dropped to her knees outside the principal's office.

It was June, and the pavement was hot enough to fry an egg. She knelt there for 40 minutes until her knees were scraped bloody.

Standing beside her, I tried to pull her up, but she shook me off and told me not to touch her.

She wouldn't even look at me. Ever since the day the scandal broke, she hadn't looked me in the eye once.

Finally, the principal, Kenny Smith, walked out, sighed, and said there was nothing he could do. It was a directive from the State Admissions Board, and the school did not have the authority to overturn it.

Mom collapsed onto the floor, while Dad suffered a stroke that night. He spent seven hours in the ER being resuscitated, and though he survived, the left side of his body was completely paralyzed.

I crouched outside the ICU and wept so hard I couldn't even make a sound.

My name was Kiara Callaway. I was 18 years old, and I ranked first in the state mock exams.

Everyone used to say that acceptance to the world's most prestigious Ulsmore University was a guaranteed lock for me, but now, none of it meant a thing in the face of the words "Scores Voided".

The person who reported me was Sabrina Collins. We were deskmates for three years and best friends who shared a bunk bed.

In the whistleblower letter she submitted to the State Admissions Board, she claimed that I had obtained the answer keys before every mock exam. She claimed she had seen me making deals with people outside the school and that I had a special "connection".

She even had two classmates testify against me. One said he saw me acting suspiciously at a print shop, and the other claimed my phone contained screenshots of chat logs with the person selling the answers.

The screenshots were photoshopped. I had gone to the print shop just to print my study materials, but no one listened to my explanation.

The investigation team stated that with both witness testimonies and evidence present, my defense was dismissed.

I would never forget the day the voided score notice was displayed. On the school bulletin board, my name was followed by a line of text. "Cheated on exams. All scores voided."

Sabrina stood in the crowd wearing an expression I couldn't quite decipher back then. Later, I finally did, but it was too late.

Dad was paralyzed, Mom had broken down, and my life was in ruins.

On the day of the actual exam, I locked myself in my rented apartment. Every bell announcing the start of an exam felt like a knife driven into my heart.

I swallowed an entire bottle of sleeping pills. There was just a single thought in my mind—if there was a next life, I would force Sabrina to say it out loud. I had to listen to her explain why she destroyed me.

I died without feeling at peace.

When I opened my eyes again, the classroom's harsh fluorescent lights stared down from above my head. A math test paper lay spread out on my desk with an unfinished final question. The rustling sound of students turning pages came from desks around me.

My heart pounded so hard it felt like it was going to leap straight out of my throat.

I looked down at my hands. They were clean, holding a pen, and the tip was still trembling.

I looked at the countdown tracker written on the blackboard. There were seven days left until the exam.