I knew my life was f****d the second I saw the stupid red notification glaring at me from my phone screen.
Test: 2 PM.
Shift: 2 PM.
Like, of course the universe had to screw me over today of all days. Not next week, not next semester—today. And it wasn’t even just a normal shift I could ditch. This was the one. The shift that paid enough to cover the damn ticket. Without it, there was no game. No flight to New York. No chance to scream my lungs out in the stands like I’d been dreaming about for months.
I couldn’t miss it. I wouldn’t miss it.
But the test… if I skipped, I was toast. The lecturer had said no makeups. No excuses. Fail, end of story.
So there I was, sitting in the back of the lecture hall, bouncing my knee like a psychopath, spinning my pen until it slipped out of my han
