The Last Lesson Was Losing Me

I'm ridiculously easy to fool. I trust every word that comes from others. One particularly awful year, an older student scams me out of all the money I have to live on. Dustin Emerson gives me half of what he has. He's the one person I know won't lie to me. He tells me, "You're not stupid. People are just awful, so stop trusting them and trust me instead." An hour before my grad school entrance exam, Dustin texts me. "I got into a car accident. I'm at the hospital. Come quick." I rush to the hospital, only to find Dustin and my best friend, Emily Levine, sitting at a convenience store eating nachos. Emily bursts out laughing, slapping her thigh. "See? I told you she'd fall for it. One text, and she came running instead of going to her exam." Dustin picks up a chip and holds it to her mouth. "Alright, you win. A bet's a bet. I'll take you to the theme park today." I stare at them in disbelief. Dustin pulls out a tissue and wipes the sweat from my face. "You're about to graduate, and the real world can be brutal. This is your first lesson." My voice shakes. "My entrance exam is today!" Emily purses her lips. "Okay, okay. Sharon's so upset she's about to cry. Let's get her back before she fails and blames us for it." The moment Dustin sees me crying, he gets worried too. He floors it and gets me to the exam center with just one minute to spare. I'm just starting to relax when a proctor stops me. "This exam ID is fake. You need to leave." When I look down at the paper in my hand, I realize someone has swapped out my real exam ID. There's a huge doodle of a pig's face on it, with a message written beside it. "Sharon, you dummy! I'm keeping your exam ID safe for you. Surprise!" Underneath is another message. "Don't make the same mistake twice. This is lesson number two." I recognize Emily's handwriting and Dustin's. I may not always know when I'm being lied to, but now I know who truly means well and who doesn't. I won't be so quick to trust anyone again. Chapter 1 I stumbled out of the exam center in a daze and spotted Dustin Emerson's car by the campus entrance. He glanced over at me, clearly amused. "That was fast. Looks like you lucked out thanks to Emily. Get in. You're coming to the theme park with us. You used to go on and on about wanting to go, remember?" My voice came out strained. "Dustin, do you have any idea how hard I worked for this exam? I spent an entire year preparing for it. I got up at 6:00 am every day to study and didn't leave the study room until 1:00 am. "All those hours sitting at a desk left my lower back aching, and I still have to use pain patches. You knew all of that, didn't you?" Dustin turned the AC down four degrees, to the temperature Emily preferred. "I did. But we're trying to help you. If you can't even tell when someone close to you is pulling something like this, grad school won't make you any less easy to fool. "Once you're out in the real world, people will take you for everything you've got. Besides, you can always take the exam again next year." Emily stuck her head out the passenger window. "Sharon, we're just trying to wise you up so you don't keep getting fooled." As she said it, she pulled my real exam ID from her pocket, waved it at me, and tore it to pieces right in front of me. "It's useless now anyway. Keeping it would only upset you every time you looked at it." She tossed the scraps out the window, and they hit me square in the face. Dustin shot me an impatient look. "Get in and stop embarrassing yourself. If you really don't want to go, you can walk back to school." We were at the new campus in the suburbs, about 12 miles from downtown. My phone was almost dead, and I didn't even have enough money for a cab. Exhausted, I had no choice but to get in. The AC blew straight into the back seat. With sweat still clinging to my back, the cold air made me shiver uncontrollably. Emily turned around and held out a small cartoon blanket. "Sharon, are you cold? Here, use this." Chapter 2 Emily blinked. "I always crank the AC all the way down. Dustin was worried I'd catch a cold, so he insisted on buying me this blanket." I'd ridden in his car once with a low fever. My lips had gone pale from the cold, and I begged him to turn the AC up. He kept his eyes on the road and said flatly, "You'll get used to the cold. Don't be such a baby." I reached for the blanket, but Dustin pushed Emily's hand back down. "Keep it. If you give it to her, what are you going to cover up with?" Emily pouted. "I'm not cold." "Just keep it. You're on your period. If you get too cold, your cramps will get worse, and you'll keep me up again tonight. She can just put on a jacket. Don't worry about her." I pulled my hand back and dug my fingertips into my palm until it stung. Then, as if by magic, Dustin pulled a big bag of snacks from the center console. They were all Emily's favorites. Emily let out a delighted cheer, grabbed a chip, and held it to Dustin's lips. "This new flavor is so good. Try it, Dustin." Dustin was a total clean freak who couldn't stand the smell of food in his car. Once, my blood sugar dropped while I was riding with him, so I ate a saltine. Looking annoyed, he pulled over and made me get out. He wouldn't let me back in until I'd cleaned every crumb off the floor mat. But now he turned toward Emily and took the chip right from her hand. "Mmm, that's good." The line at the theme park entrance was already long. After ten minutes in her three-inch heels, Emily started frowning. "Dustin, my ankles hurt." Dustin turned to me. "Sharon, hold our place. Emily's feet hurt, so I'm taking her to sit in the shade for a bit. Call us when you get to the front." I didn't move. All those late nights studying had left my lower back badly strained. "My back hurts." Impatience flickered in Dustin's eyes. "You can sit in the library all day just fine, but now your back hurts after a few minutes on your feet?" He sighed and looked at me like I was a kid making a fuss over nothing. "Quit using your back as an excuse. Emily's wearing heels and you're in flats. What's wrong with standing in line for her?" He ignored me, took Emily's hand, and led her to a bench in the shade. Then he crouched down, propped her ankle on his knee, and gently massaged it. Sweat ran down my forehead and into my eyes, stinging. Half an hour later, I was parched, so I texted Dustin. "Can you get me a bottle of water?" Two minutes later, my screen lit up. "No, I'm not buying you one. Emily's on her period, and if she sees you with something cold to drink, she'll want some too. Just wait until we get inside." My fingers started trembling despite myself. Just then, the little girl in front of me turned and held out an ice-cold bottle of water. "You don't look so good. Have some water." I managed a smile. "Thank you." Even a stranger could be kind to me. 40 minutes later, I finally reached the front. I texted Dustin. "It's our turn. Come back." One minute passed, then two, but he still didn't reply. The attendant impatiently urged me forward, so I called Dustin. The phone rang and rang before he finally picked up. "Hello?" "It's our turn. Where are you?" He paused. "Oh, I forgot to tell you. Emily's on her period, so she can't go on most of the thrill rides. She didn't think it was worth it, so we got a refund and went to the aquarium instead." Then he hung up. Everyone around me had someone beside them, smiling and laughing. I stood alone, drenched in sweat, my lower back in agony. I opened my email and accepted the job offer in Harborcrest. I'd planned on grad school so I could stay here, close to Dustin. But now I no longer needed to. I turned around and took a cab home alone. Chapter 3 That night, I came down with a high fever. Still groggy, I opened my eyes and felt a cool washcloth on my forehead. Peaches, my Samoyed, licked the back of my hand. I'd raised Peaches since she was a puppy. Dustin brought her to me sophomore year and said she was part of our family. I ended up taking care of her most of the time. Dustin sat by the bed, his eyes bloodshot. He exhaled in relief when he saw me awake. "Finally." He picked up the glass of water from the nightstand and brought it to my lips. "Take your medicine." Once I'd swallowed the pills, he set it back down. "Do you have any idea how worried I was? I called you all night and sent you over 70 messages, but you never answered. I thought you'd gotten caught up in another scam like you did freshman year." Freshman year, an older student from my hometown had lured me to a rental house in the middle of nowhere. When Dustin couldn't reach me, he called the police that night and helped them search room by room. He eventually kicked open a metal door and pulled me out. He held me tight, his voice trembling. "Don't trust anyone else from now on. Just trust me. Trust me." Dustin grabbed a tissue to wipe the water off the edge of the blanket. "I didn't think things through yesterday. You ended up standing in line all that time for nothing. But the theme park was Emily's reward for winning our bet. "She wasn't feeling well because of her period and didn't feel up to the rides anymore, so I couldn't exactly force her." He felt my forehead, his voice softening. "To make it up to you, I made a reservation tonight at that restaurant on Velmora Quay. Haven't you always wanted to go for the river view?" I remembered bringing up that restaurant on our anniversary, excited about it. He hadn't even looked up. "It's just dinner. What difference does it make where we eat? Why waste money on some overhyped place just because it's trendy?" I knew the gesture wasn't as kind as it seemed, but I swallowed the bitterness just as I had swallowed the fever pill. "Okay." At 8:00 pm, the server came by for the third time to refill my water. "Ma'am, will your guest be much longer?" "I'll wait a little longer." I pulled out my phone and opened my chat with Dustin. His last message was from two hours ago, saying he'd already left. "Where are you?" I sent the message, but Dustin didn't reply until three hours later. "Stop waiting. I'm not coming. Someone gives you their word, and you'll sit around for hours without even questioning it. Sharon, you're way too trusting. This is lesson number three." He wrote as if he were the one in the right. Meanwhile, Emily posted a photo of the river at night with the caption, "The night breeze by the river is cold, but with someone beside you, it feels warm." I liked the post. I walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows and looked down from the 73rd floor. Far below, two tiny figures stood beneath a streetlight, leaning into each other. They looked perfect together. I looked away and opened my chat with Dustin. "Dustin, let's break up." I returned to my table and waved the server over. "Go ahead and bring out the food. I'll be eating alone." Chapter 4 When I got home, Dustin was already there with Emily beside him on the couch, his face grim. He looked up when he heard the door. "So you've got the nerve to send me a message like that now? I'm trying to teach you a lesson about the real world, and this is how you repay me?" Emily grabbed my wrist. "Sharon, don't be so ungrateful. Dustin's doing this for your own good. Better to learn the hard way now than get cleaned out by some scammer later, right?" She sighed, looking deeply hurt. "If that post bothers you so much, I'll delete it right now. Don't let me come between you two after all these years." She pulled out her phone and deleted the post right in front of me. Dustin frowned and pulled Emily away. "Why'd you delete it? We were just enjoying the river view. What's there to hide?" His tone softened as he turned to me. "Alright, enough." He pointed to the thick stack of books on the coffee table. "I had someone get you these study guides from top prep instructors, and I signed you up for an intensive prep course. Just focus on studying. You'll get in next year." I'd once searched every used bookstore around campus for an out-of-print book of past exam questions. Now a whole stack of them sat carelessly on the coffee table, but I'd already accepted the job in Harborcrest. I wasn't planning on grad school anymore. I looked at him and thought of the shredded pieces of my exam ID. He'd lied to me so many times. Now it was my turn to lie to him. "Okay. I'll get in next year." Dustin gave a satisfied smile and pulled me into his arms. "That's more like it." The next morning, I went to my dorm to pack the last of my things. My phone rang, and the moment I answered, Emily blurted, "Sharon! Come back! Peaches is missing!" This was the second time they'd pulled the same trick. Last year, Emily told me Peaches was missing, and I spent the whole night searching for her in the rain. I later found out she'd taken Peaches to Dustin's place. I gripped the phone tighter. "Emily, that trick's getting old." She was sobbing so hard she could barely breathe. "I'm not lying! She really is missing. I've been looking for half an hour, and I still can't find her." I hung up. Was this supposed to be lesson four or five? But ten minutes later, a sudden sense of dread came over me. I dropped what I was doing, rushed out of the dorm, and grabbed a cab. The moment I opened the apartment door, the living room was eerily quiet. Peaches didn't come bounding over with her tail wagging, and I didn't hear her usual excited bark. Emily's eyes were red, and her shoulders shook with sobs. Dustin sat beside her, wiping her tears. "Don't cry. It was an accident. Nobody wanted this to happen." My throat tightened. "Where's Peaches?" Emily cried even harder. "I'm sorry, Sharon. I'm so sorry. I was just going along with Dustin to teach you another lesson. I was going to hide Peaches, wait until you came rushing back looking for her, then bring her out as a surprise. "But when I took her downstairs, she slipped her leash and ran off. By the time I found her, she'd been hit by a truck and killed. I had the building staff bury her." My ears rang, and my whole body went cold. Dustin got up and stepped in front of Emily. "What's done is done. Emily's shaken up too, and she didn't mean for this to happen. Besides, if you'd believed her when she called and come back sooner to help look, Peaches might still be alive. You were the one who didn't trust her." My legs went weak, and I had to brace myself against the wall. "Get out." Dustin's face darkened. "Sharon, calm down." "Get out!" He scoffed and took Emily's hand. "Fine. Cool off on your own. I'll come back when you can talk to me properly." The moment the door closed, all the strength drained out of me. I sank to the floor, staring at Peaches' unfinished bowl of food in the corner. Tears slipped down my face. The next morning, I dragged my suitcase out of the apartment without looking back. When I got to the airport, Dustin texted me. "Are you done being mad? She was just a dog. There's no need to make such a big deal out of this. When you get into grad school next year, I'll buy you a show-quality Samoyed as a reward. It'll be way smarter than Peaches." I stared at the message, unable to get past the way he'd dismissed Peaches as "just a dog." I didn't reply. I turned off my phone and headed for security.