The Last Lesson Was Losing Me Chapter 1

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.

* * *

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."