Chapter 1

My homeroom teacher, Grant Sutton's hand froze on the mouse.

"Conor..." His voice tightened. He turned to look at me, disbelief filling his eyes behind his glasses, along with a trace of cautious concern.

"Something's wrong. I'll contact the Department of Education and Briarwood University's admissions office right now. We'll get to the bottom of this."

He sounded genuinely anxious to help.

But as I stared at the name "Conor Hale" on the screen, every detail I'd deliberately ignored over the past year came crashing back.

The day the SAT results came out last year, my mother, Meredith Hale, had looked at her phone and said coldly, "Conor, you only scored 1280. That's more than a hundred points below your target."

I'd been stunned.

Even my lowest estimate had been around 1450. How could I have scored only 1280?

I cried and demanded to check the results myself, but Mom snatched the phone away and called me immature. She said I'd always thought too highly of myself, and now that I'd done badly, I couldn't even accept it.

That night, Cassidy Vaughn came to see me. She patted my shoulder, her voice as gentle as it had been countless times before.

"Conor, don't be upset. It was just one bad exam. Take another year and try again. I'll be waiting for you at Briarwood. Once you get in next year, we can always be together."

I believed her.

I believed my own mother, the person closest to me. I believed the girl I'd grown up with, the girl I'd always given my whole heart to.

Branded as the kid who'd failed his SAT, I endured the neighbors' gossip and Mom's growing impatience and gritted my teeth through another year of prep classes.

I studied until the early hours every day, all because of that one promise: "I'll be waiting for you at Briarwood."

But now I knew I'd never failed at all.

I hadn't scored 1280. I'd gotten into Briarwood University.

My own mother had taken my score, my enrollment record, my entire future, and handed it all to someone else.

And the childhood sweetheart I'd believed was waiting for me had known the truth. Worse, she'd gone with the impostor and stood beside him on Briarwood's campus.

"Mr. Sutton." I cut him off, my voice so calm it sounded strange even to me. "There's no need."

Grant stared at me. "Conor, this isn't a small matter. Your entire future—"

"I know." I looked up at him, not a ripple of emotion in my eyes. "I'll handle this myself."

After I supposedly failed the exam, Mom cut off most of my spending money, claiming, "You had it too easy last year. All those material comforts distracted you from studying."

She seemed to have forgotten that I'd worn clearance-rack clothes my entire life and always used the cheapest notebooks I could find.

Those so-called material comforts were nothing more than an excuse she'd made up for herself.