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The Last Lesson Is Goodbye

The Last Lesson Is Goodbye

قصة قصيرة · Romance
بواسطة:  Canalمكتمل
لغة: English
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ملخص

Bias

Mistress

Male POV

Tragic Love

Melodramatic

Campus

Winning Back the Husband

Awakening

I was easy to fool. I believed almost everything that people said. During the worst year of my life, a girl in the grade above me tricked me out of my entire living allowance. Juno Halloran split hers with me and helped me get by. She was the only person who had never lied to me. "It's not that you're dumb. Other people are just rotten," she told me. "Stop trusting them. Trust me instead." Then, 1 hour before I was supposed to walk into my grad school entrance exam, she texted me. [I was in a car accident. I'm at the hospital. Get here now.] I rushed to the hospital and found her and her best friend, Brent Ostrow, sitting in the convenience store downstairs, eating nachos. Brent laughed so hard he slapped his thigh. "See? I told you he'd fall for it. One text and he ditches his exam to come running." Juno held a chip to his mouth. "Fine, a bet is a bet. I'll take you to Starfall Park today." I stared at them in disbelief. Juno pulled out a napkin and wiped the sweat from my face. "You're about to graduate, and the world is a nasty place. Consider this lesson number one." My voice shook. "Today's my grad school exam!" Brent rolled his eyes. "Okay, okay, Cooper's about to cry. We'd better get him back before he flunks and blames us for it." When she saw my eyes reddening, Juno panicked too. She sped the entire way there and got me to the exam hall with only 1 minute to spare. I had barely breathed a sigh of relief when the proctor stopped me. "Excuse me, your admission ticket is fake. I need you to leave." I looked down at the paper in my hand. At some point, someone had switched out my admission ticket. In its place was a huge drawing of a pig's head with a message scrawled beside it. [Dumbass Cooper, I'm holding on to your ticket! Surprise!] Beneath that was another line. [Don't trip in the same spot twice. That's lesson number two.] It was Brent's handwriting. It was Juno's idea. I still could not tell truth from lies, but I could tell the difference between genuine care and fake concern. From that day forward, I never trusted anyone so easily again.

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Chapter 1

When I stumbled out of the exam hall in a daze, Juno's car was still parked by the school gates.

Juno Halloran turned toward me, her eyes crinkling with a smile. "That was quick. Lucky for you, Brent's letting you tag along. Get in. You're coming with us to Starfall Park. Haven't you been begging to go forever?"

My throat felt dry. "Juno, do you have any idea how hard I worked for this exam? I spent an entire year preparing for it. I got up at six every morning to study, and I did not leave the study hall until one in the morning.

"I sat for so long that my lower back has been hurting this whole time. I still need pain patches for it. You knew all of that, didn't you?"

Juno lowered the AC by two degrees, to the temperature Brent liked best.

"I knew. We're helping you. If you can't even see through the little tricks people pull on you, you'll get eaten alive in the real world, grad degree or not. Besides, you can always take it again next year."

Brent poked his head back from the passenger seat. "Cooper, we just wanted to help you face reality so you stop getting played like some naive little pushover."

As he spoke, he pulled my real admission ticket from his pocket and waved it in front of me. Then he tore it into pieces right before my eyes.

"You won't be needing this anyway. Keeping it would only make you feel worse."

He flicked his wrist, and the scraps flew out the window and hit me square in the face.

Juno shot me an impatient look. "Get in, and stop making a scene. If you really don't want to come, you can walk back to school by yourself."

The new campus was 12 miles outside the city. All I had in my pocket was a phone with an almost dead battery. I did not even have enough money for a cab. I was too exhausted to argue, so I dragged myself into the car.

The air vent pointed directly at the back seat. Sweat clung to my back, and the moment the cold air hit it, I could not stop shivering.

Brent turned around from the passenger seat and held out a small blanket covered in cartoon bunnies.

"Cooper, are you cold? Here, wrap yourself in this."

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11 فصول
Chapter 1
When I stumbled out of the exam hall in a daze, Juno's car was still parked by the school gates.Juno Halloran turned toward me, her eyes crinkling with a smile. "That was quick. Lucky for you, Brent's letting you tag along. Get in. You're coming with us to Starfall Park. Haven't you been begging to go forever?"My throat felt dry. "Juno, do you have any idea how hard I worked for this exam? I spent an entire year preparing for it. I got up at six every morning to study, and I did not leave the study hall until one in the morning."I sat for so long that my lower back has been hurting this whole time. I still need pain patches for it. You knew all of that, didn't you?"Juno lowered the AC by two degrees, to the temperature Brent liked best."I knew. We're helping you. If you can't even see through the little tricks people pull on you, you'll get eaten alive in the real world, grad degree or not. Besides, you can always take it again next year."Brent poked his head back from the
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Chapter 2
He blinked. "I always crank the AC all the way down when I'm in the car. Juno was worried I'd catch a cold, so she insisted on buying me this blanket."Once, I rode in her car with a low fever. My lips had gone pale from the cold, and I begged her to turn the AC up a little. She kept her eyes on the road and said coldly, "Just get used to the cold air. Don't be such a baby."I reached for the blanket, but Juno suddenly grabbed Brent's wrist."Keep it for yourself. If you give it to him, what are you going to use?"Brent pouted. "I'm not even cold.""Be good. If you catch a chill, your stomach will act up in the middle of the night and keep me awake again. He can put on a jacket. Don't worry about him."I lowered my hand and dug my fingertips into my palm until it stung.Then, as if performing a magic trick, Juno pulled a huge bag of snacks from the center console. Every single one was Brent's favorite flavor.Brent let out a delighted cheer, grabbed a chip, and held it to Juno'
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Chapter 3
That night, I came down with a high fever.When I groggily opened my eyes, a cold towel rested on my forehead, and Peaches, my Samoyed, was licking the back of my hand.I had raised Peaches since she was a puppy. Juno brought her to me during our sophomore year and said she belonged to both of us, but I was the one who took care of her most of the time.Juno sat beside the bed with bloodshot eyes and let out a relieved breath."You're finally awake."She picked up the glass of warm water from the nightstand and held it to my lips."Take your medicine."I swallowed the pills, and she set the glass back down."Do you have any idea how worried I was? I called all night and sent you more than 70 messages, and you didn't answer a single one. I almost thought you'd gotten lured into a pyramid scheme again, like you did freshman year."During freshman year, an upperclassman from my hometown tricked me into going to a rental house in the middle of nowhere. When Juno could not reach me
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Chapter 4
When I got home, Juno was there too.She sat on the couch with a dark look on her face, and Brent sat beside her. At the sound of the door opening, Juno looked up."Look who grew a backbone. You actually had the nerve to send me that message? I'm trying to teach you how the world works, and this is how you repay me?"Brent caught my wrist."Cooper, don't be ungrateful. Juno's only doing this for your own good. Isn't it better to learn the hard way now than to get scammed out of everything once you're out in the real world?"He sighed, looking utterly heartbroken."As for that post, if it really bothers you that much, I'll delete it right now. The last thing I want is to come between you two after all these years."As he spoke, he took out his phone and tapped delete right in front of me.Juno frowned and pulled him back."Why are you deleting it? We went to look at the river. There's nothing to hide."She turned to me, her tone softening slightly."Okay, enough. Stop making
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Chapter 5
"Here's your boarding pass."The ground staff member handed my documents back to me."Thank you."I took the boarding pass, my voice calm.A notification popped up at the top of my screen. Brent had posted something new. It was a photo of fireworks over Starfall Park, captioned: [She promised to make it up to me with a whole fairy tale.]I locked my phone, pulled out the SIM card I had used for the past 4 years, and tossed it into the trash.At that same moment, 1,900 miles away at Starfall Park, Brent was wearing an oversized bunny-ear headband and holding a half-eaten ice cream cone."Juno, this sea salt one is way too sweet. I don't want it anymore."Without a trace of embarrassment, he shoved the ice cream into Juno's hand and looped his arm through hers."Let's go on the Hyperspeed Coaster, okay? We didn't get to ride it last time."Juno took the half-eaten ice cream and tossed it into a nearby trash can."Didn't you say your stomach hurt?"Brent winked at her playfull
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Chapter 6
Brent's face quickly settled into an easy smile."Yeah, he did. He texted me just now and said he's at the library, focused on studying. If he's not answering you, he's obviously still mad and just trying to get your attention. You promised you'd spend today having fun with me."He hooked his arm through hers. Juno slipped her phone back into her pocket. The explanation sounded perfectly reasonable, and it was enough to bury the faint unease that had been nagging at her."Fine. Let's go to the next ride."The fireworks show went on that night as scheduled, and bursts of color lit up the sky over Starfall Park. Juno stood among the crowd and watched a cluster of green fireworks bloom overhead. Green was my favorite color. Once I calmed down, she would buy me one of those new limited-edition collectible figures and bring me back here again. That would be enough. She accepted that conclusion without a second thought.Her certainty lasted until the next morning, when she showed up at
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Chapter 7
I had just finished a full day of orientation and was walking out of the office building when someone grabbed my hand.Juno's eyes were bloodshot, and she looked as though she had not slept in days. She grabbed both of my shoulders and looked me over frantically."Are you hurt? Do you have enough money? Did anyone scam you out of your living allowance? Is the place you're renting safe? You don't even know your way around here. Do you have any idea when people are overcharging you?"Back in freshman year, when she broke into that pyramid scheme hideout and pulled me into her arms, she had used that same anxious tone. She told me that from then on, I only needed to trust her. Now the biggest liar of all was standing right in front of me."I'm fine. No one scammed me."I stepped back, putting some distance between us."Juno, we broke up. What I do is none of your business."Her hands froze in midair. She stood there in a daze for a few seconds before the panic slowly faded from her
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Chapter 8
For the next 2 weeks, Port Delford was trapped under a relentless stretch of rain. As a new hire, my workload was brutal, and I rarely left the office before 10 p.m.Juno really had not left.At 11 p.m. one night, I walked out of the office building and found her standing beneath a streetlight. She always had a bottle of cold water in her hand."Have some water. Don't let yourself get dehydrated."I did not take it. I did not even look at her."Excuse me."I was too busy to waste time stopping and telling her to leave. Unfortunately, she took my indifference as a sign that I was starting to soften.One day, I got into a cab to meet a client, only to realize the moment I sat down that Juno had paid the driver extra to pick me up. The AC was set to exactly 79 degrees.She was trying to make up for every little thing she owed me, one by one.It all felt ridiculous.Then, on a rainy night near the end of the month, I walked out of the office building after another late shift and
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Chapter 9
In the days that followed, Juno retreated into the shadows across the street. She no longer waited at the bottom of the steps with an umbrella, and she no longer showed up carrying neatly packaged grad school prep materials. Instead, she simply followed me from the other side of the road, never too close and never too far.On Friday evening, I was sitting in a corner booth at a diner, eating a bowl of chicken noodle soup, when a middle-aged woman slid into the seat across from me. She pulled out a bottle of supplements with a foreign label and flashed me a friendly smile."Hey, handsome. You look awfully pale. I can tell you're run-down. These are special imported supplements. I'm trying to hit my sales quota today, so I'll give them to you at half price."I had been working late every night, and my back pain and migraines really had been getting worse. Thinking she might be genuine, I took out my card and got ready to pay.A slender hand suddenly came down on the card reader she h
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Chapter 10
After I turned down yet another old man trying to sell me a fake SIM card, Juno spoke quietly."You've learned. Now you can see through people's lies at a glance."My tone remained calm."You don't have to follow me anymore."Juno lowered her eyes, and a bitter smile tugged at the corner of her mouth."Right. You're not the same fool who could get scammed out of his entire living allowance anymore. You don't need me now either."I no longer hated her. Her lessons about spotting scams had helped me avoid plenty of traps over the past few months. In a way, I was even grateful. That was as far as it went, though. Forgiving her was out of the question.The next day, she left Port Delford, and my life finally became quiet again.That peace lasted exactly 1 month.A deposit of $1,500 suddenly appeared in my bank account. There was no memo and no sender information. Since there was no way to return it, I left it alone. On the same day the following month, another $1,500 arrived, agai
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