Fighting Fate (Granton University #1)(2)

“Hmm. So, are there any available hotties there asking you out yet?”

Paige rolled her eyes. “Not hardly.”

“What! No available hotties at all? What kind of college are you at?”

With a snicker, Paige corrected, “No one’s asked me out.”

“Oh.” Kayla sighed. “Well, they will.”

“Kayla, I didn’t come here to date a bunch of—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re there because of Trace. And I’m telling you right now, that’s the worst reason in the world to move so far away from home to attend a school you don’t even like.”

Paige’s back straightened with indignation. “I never said I didn’t like—”

“Well, you don’t love it the way he did. Paige…” Kayla sighed again, this time sounding like a wise old parent tired of repeating the same lecture.

“Look, I can’t talk about this right now.” It was her first day of school. Besides, they’d been over it before. A lot. Nothing had changed her mind so far. Nothing would change it now.

So what if her best friend in the world thought Paige was crazy for trying to live a dead boy’s life for him? It wasn’t as if she had her own future to look forward to. After Trace’s funeral, her world had collapsed. Her parents had turned away from her, too entrenched in their own misery to help her deal with hers. Her mother had descended so far into depression she’d looked right through Paige. And after her mom was gone, her father had drowned himself in booze. Paige had lost everything.

The only way she’d been able to dig her way out of the agony had been to focus on Trace’s lost dreams, to decide she’d live them for him and become what he’d always wanted to be.

“I really need to get to class,” she said, standing up and slipping into the sandals she’d set out last night to wear with her first-day outfit.

Kayla sighed. A third time. Really, it was too much. “Sweetie, you know I love you. I just want you to be happy. But—”

“Love you too,” Paige broke in with fake enthusiasm. “Talk later.” Disconnecting the line, she cringed, telling herself she’d call back and apologize after she actually survived her first day of school. Right now, she had other worries.

She had college to start, a first class to find, a dead boy’s life to fulfill.

Busy, busy, busy.

A minute later, Paige pushed her way from her dormitory and halted in her tracks. The campus of Granton sprawled before her, teeming with activity. Thousands of students strolled the sidewalks while another thousand sat cross-legged in clusters on the grass as bicyclists darted between the foot traffic and an endless amount of cars filed into the parking lots. Half a dozen digital billboards sat perched in front of buildings, scrolling messages and advertisements across their screens. And a marching band practiced the Party Rock Anthem somewhere in the distance.

It was so hectic, so crowded. So intimidating. After living in a town of two thousand people her entire life and attending a school of barely three hundred, Paige huddled against the entrance of her dorm building, tempted to scurry back inside and hide under her blankets for the rest of the semester.

“Trace.” She groaned under her breath, squeezing her fingers around his gaudy amulet. “Why’d you have to pick such a huge school to dream about?”

If her brother were here now, she’d be tempted to strangle him…right after she hugged him silly and reprimanded him to never die on her again.

“I can do this, I can do this, I can do this,” she chanted as she forced her numb legs to move, trudging down a slight decline to the cafeteria. But when she entered Gibson Hall, the smell of bacon and sausages made her stomach churn, and not in a good way.

“I can’t do this.” At least not food. Not right now.

She turned around and walked right back out. Okay, so she’d just get to her first class and set up early. Unfolding her map of the campus, she hunted for her eight a.m. course.

As the first to arrive, she selected a seat in the front row, changing spots a few times until she had herself positioned near the exit yet close enough to the center to provide a decent view of the instructor’s podium. She wanted to be the perfect, exemplary student.

When a trio of chatty guys entered the lecture hall, she’d already tugged a laptop from her bag and set it on top of the desk. After it booted, the screen lit with its wallpaper. Trace had picked out the M. C. Escher design as the background as soon as he’d bought the laptop, saving all the money he’d made mowing lawns between his junior and senior years of high school.

His computer had only been six months old when he’d died.

A year ago, Paige had decided she wouldn’t let his hard-earned mowing money go to waste. She wouldn’t let his dream of Granton die with him. She’d taken over his computer, and now here she sat, ready and willing to take over the rest of his life. In another four years, she planned to graduate with a Bachelors of Business Administration and find a job he would be proud of in the marketing world.

Logging into the processor, she pre-saved a word document and minimized the screen, prepared for an hour of copious note taking. Nothing was going to distract her from her studies. She had a goal to meet, her brother’s dream to realize, and his future to begin.

“Good morning!” A loud voice ripped her attention from the two Escher hands drawing each other on her computer. “This is World Regional Geography. If you’re in the wrong room, there’s the door. If you have no respect for professorial authority, feel free to follow the other lost souls out the exit because I will not accept impudence.”