Chapter 1

The SAT practice test had just ended when a beggar outside the school gate pointed straight at me and said, "Zero."

I let out a small laugh. "Yeah, right. The top SAT scorer in the state isn't getting a zero."

He gave me a long, knowing look. "The top scorer is your best friend. You're the one with zero."

I chuckled and shook my head.

That was impossible. I'd always been number one.

Just as I turned to leave, he nodded toward the bracelet on my wrist.

"A charm that swaps luck for scores," he said. "When she turns in a blank test, your score drops to zero."

I froze.

My best friend had given me this friendship bracelet not long ago. I'd told her it got in the way when I wrote, but she'd insisted I wear it.

No matter how hard I tried, it wouldn't come off.

Lately, my grades had been slipping, while hers kept climbing. She'd been top of the class three times in a row.

I swallowed. "So what do I do?"

"Give it to someone close to you," the man said quietly. "Only someone who truly cares about you can share the weight of your fate."

He lifted his hand and pointed to the boy waiting a few steps away. "Him, right?"

I turned.

Standing not far from me was my childhood sweetheart, waiting with a soft smile.

*****

"No." I yanked my hand back and covered the bracelet.

I'd known my childhood friend, Jackson Rees, for eighteen years.

After my dad passed away and my mom got sick, he was the one who walked me through the darkest years. He even used his own allowance to help cover my living expenses.

I could dump this curse on anyone else—just not him.

"The longer you wait, the tighter it'll lock around your wrist," the beggar said. "And once it seals completely, you won't be able to transfer it. You'll be stuck with a zero."

He didn't care about my panic at all. He just pulled out a cigarette and lit it like this had nothing to do with him.

I held the bracelet and walked away.

Maybe he'd made the whole thing up. A bracelet that swaps scores? No way. That couldn't be real.

I checked my answers. I'd barely missed any questions. First place should've been a given.

But when the results came out, I'd dropped all the way to the mid-teens.

And first place—again—was my best friend, Natalie Berry.

But the best she'd ever done before was around fifteenth.

Still dazed, I walked into the classroom—only to hear a familiar voice.

One of my classmates asked, "A score-swapping bracelet? Seriously? That's pretty messed up. Why do it? Aren't you and Evelyn childhood friends?"

Jackson twirled his pen between his fingers, looking completely unbothered. "I've told her a hundred times—even if she doesn't get into college, I'll take care of her.

"But Natalie isn't like that. She actually cares about her academic future, and Evelyn's been sitting on her first-place spot forever.

"She could've stepped aside just once, but she wouldn't. We ended up fighting over it."

He sighed like the victim, "That bracelet took a lot of favors to find. And since Evelyn refused to compromise, I didn't have much of a choice."

My back slammed against the wall as my breath caught.

I had always been the top student.

Natalie had joked since junior year about beating me someday. I always laughed and told her it wouldn't happen, and I still tutored her whenever she asked.

But she had never—not once—beaten me.

And then one day she broke down, sobbing over her test paper, crying so hard I couldn't calm her down.

Jackson told me to let her take first place once. I refused. We fought.

He backed down in the end. And after that, he never mentioned it again.

But the truth was the bracelet had been his idea all along.

Wiping my tears, I ran to find the beggar before he packed up for the night. "What counts as someone close to me? Does it have to be blood-related?"

He stopped and looked at me. "If you see him as family, then he is."

I clutched the bracelet. "Please help me."

That night, my wrist had to be dislocated just to slide the bracelet off. My skin was torn raw, blood dripping down my arm.

He gave me a replacement—an identical decoy—and crushed the real score-swapping charm into pieces, then reshaped the fragments into several different colored bracelets.

*****

The next day, I slipped the bracelet onto Jackson's wrist.

He asked, "Lucky charm?"

Jackson narrowed his eyes at the newly recolored bracelet. "Since when did you start believing in stuff like this?"

I chuckled, "I just want us to get into the same college."

His gaze flicked to my wrist.

When he saw my bracelet was still there, he finally smiled, "Silly girl. Even if we don't end up at the same school, I'll still come see you."

I lowered my head, pretending to be shy, while hiding the cold glint in my eyes.

Before I even reached the classroom, shouting echoed down the hall.

When I pushed the door open, Natalie was pinned by the hair, crying her eyes out.

"Did you steal my patent? That was my key application for early admission! You've got some nerve!"

The girl yelling was Julia Linwood, the school board director's daughter.

She'd just finished a patent project and was preparing her recommendation package.

But it had gone missing yesterday.

Security footage showed only one person entering the classroom at the time—Natalie.

"I didn't! I swear I didn't!" Natalie was shaking uncontrollably.

Julia slapped her across the face. "Keep pretending. You talk trash about me all the time—say my patents are just for show, say I'm a fraud, that you look down on me. You think I don't know?

"If you're jealous, try beating me with actual work. Stealing mine doesn't count. Now hand it over!"