Keep You Forever ✓ | AVAILABLE WORLDWIDE AS A PAPERBACK/EBOOK! [Sample]

03 | the bad boy

// a big thank you to @ucancallmerose for this awesome fan art//

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It wasn't supposed to happen this way.

I've just been dragged out of bed at seven o'clock and informed that school starts a week earlier at Juniper Hills. Which means today is going to be my first day at Hills High, and I'm nowhere near prepared.

What have I gotten myself into?

I didn't go down for dinner yesterday, so apart from my own embarrassment at not knowing when school starts, I am now being thrown scrutinizing looks from my uncle and aunt—mostly because they suspect that I'm going through serious homesickness symptoms. I don't clear their doubts.

"Oh god, come on, Lissa M-eh-ra," Riley screams for the fifth time from downstairs, as I run a brush through my brown waves (they're so dark, they look black), braid them and sigh in annoyance.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

If I'd remembered to double-check my school date, I wouldn't be looking like one of the walking dead right now. I'd have loose beach curls as hair, an eyeliner, mascara and gloss on my lips, and there wouldn't be this fluttery feeling in my stomach that on one hand can't wait to get to school, but on the other knows I'm not going to be making any new friends. Who on earth would want to be friends with a girl who can't keep her tongue in check and keeps taking pictures of things like a crazed idiot?

No one except Riley Kingston.

For what it's worth, I'd have done a week's studies in advance and made colour-coded notes of everything important. No, that wasn't meant to happen either.

This might be the first time in my life that I'm going to be late for school.

I sigh again at my crumbling destiny and stuff my untouched textbooks into a baby blue backpack. Riley hollers again, and I'm half sure she's going to lose her voice or have a vocal cord burst any moment so I daintily make my way downstairs. Aunt Alexa and Riley eye me up and down again, pouting slightly at my white lace top, black jeans, messy braid and sneakers. I know they think it's too simple for the first day of school, but I'm not here to impress anyone. No one knows me. Who am I going to show off to?

"Let's go," I say to Riley and spot Katy in a tight blue dress, exiting from the door behind us. Riley turns her red-haired head and follows my gaze, her eyes widening a little bit. When we all hear an engine rev and speed off from outside it becomes clear that Katy has left with her car, leaving me and Riley to walk to school on foot. Now our fight from yesterday doesn't seem so necessary.

I'm about to wail silently when another thought strikes me: I'll be able to explore Juniper Hills if I walk.

Optimism solves it all.