Busy Work & Broomsticks - College & Calamities, #1

Meet Kenna Moore. Problems? Her father's betrayal and her mother's monsters. College? Expelled. Life? Unpredictable. How's this witch going to make her mark? My first year of college, I was almost afraid to leave home. I was scared of what would become of my mother. After all, once I left, what would she have? A mediocre job running the front office at the elementary school? An event planning business that was barely limping alone? An empty house? She'd already lost my father and her best friend...when they hooked up the first time she left town, to take me on a college tour.
Naturally, I felt responsible. How could I abandon her? Still, she gladly dropped me off, assuring me this would be the start of a whole new life and a huge adventure. I thought she was being overly optimistic and visited as often as I could. The second year was easier. I picked my major. I made some friends. And we vowed that senior year, we'd rent an apartment together off campus. Sadly, I didn't make it that far.
Imagine me, Kenna the people pleaser, kicked out of college my junior year, days after my twenty-first birthday. I was so good, I was boring. I was so straight-laced, I made nuns blush. Then I woke up on my birthday, planning to live my best year yet, only to discover that I'd been pranked. My hair was purple.  I thought I was crazy. I tried washing it out. I tried going to a salon for a color correction.
I tried dying it back. Nothing worked. And Kenna the wallflower was now Kenna the oddball. Although I'd always been happy to blend in, now I stuck out. My mother was going to kill me. To think I imagined this was the worst thing that could happen to me on my birthday. I never should've gone to biology lab, but this was a required course to be a vet. I was going to help animals.  Instead, I showed up to dissect a rat and ended up bringing this rat back to life, and giving him wings.  Imagine the ensuing chaos.
Then multiply it by ten. Because kids were freaking out over a flying rat. Personally, I think it was the tail. Or could be the squealing. Both of those were pretty unnerving. And soon, the noise attracted the attention of nearby labs...like chemistry, right next door, during a critical and dangerous experiment. I'm talking explosions, fire and brimstone level of destruction. At the heart of all this destruction and devastation: me, and the vermin that wouldn't leave me alone.
Bat rat followed me. Everywhere. Right to the Dean's office. Where I was promptly expelled.  I was trying to figure out where I could go, since home to disappoint my mother who was already dealing with way too much didn't feel like an option. Only I found my mother and her friends waiting for me at the dorm. She didn't know what to say, but at least she didn't judge me. Her friend, Camille, however, said almost too much. "Kenna, honey, " she began with a smile, "you're a witch." I thought she was joking, until she asked me to take a seat. So, I came home.
It's not like I had any other options. I feared no one would ever love a freak like me. And who would hire me? At most, I hoped I'd feel normal again. I didn't want to completely give up on my dreams. Back in NOLA, I hung out with my mother and discovered she wasn't nearly as helpless as I imagined. I had some real talk with Attie, and her wolf shifter, Gunner. Maybe I wouldn't die alone. Soon, life didn't feel quite so bleak.
Finally, I met Tabitha, who agreed to mentor me, and discovered that dreams change, but magic was forever.