No Longer Your Joke: A Luna’s Exit Chapter 06

No Longer Your Joke: A Luna’s Exit Chapter 06

Before long, Nessa and Declan showed up at Ravencrest Academy too.

They’d just finished a celebration dinner.

There was still barbecue sauce on Declan’s collar, and Nessa was wiping her mouth slowly, completely

unbothered.

Like Isolde vanishing was no big deal.

“Lucian, don’t worry,” Nessa said, moving closer, her voice soft. “I know Isolde. She’s just a sore loser-she

thinks we messed with her yesterday, so she’s trying to get back at us.”.

Declan frowned, irritated.

“So we made her run around a little. Is that really worth running away over?” he said. “I just realized-she

actually blocked me.”

Nessa nodded. “She blocked me too.”

Lucian pulled out his phone and tried calling my number, a confused look on his face.

No surprise.

“The number you have dialed is temporarily unavailable…”

He let out a cold laugh.

“Isolde, you’ve got guts. When I find you, I’m going to-

He stopped mid-sentence.

An email from Silverlake had just come in.

An old friend had sent a congratulations.

[Lucian, your sister is incredible.]

[Not just anyone gets an S-grade scholarship from Silverlake Elite Academy.]

Attached was a photo-Silverlake Elite Academy’s honor roll.

Under the silver wolf emblem, Isolde Veyra’s name sat at the very top.

Lucian froze.

“What’s wrong, Lucian?”

Declan leaned in, glanced at the screen, and went quiet too.

“What’s with you guys? You both look terrible,” Nessa said.

She grabbed Lucian’s phone and read the email out loud.

“Lucian, your sister is incredible…”

Her eyes went wide as she read the rest.

She zoomed in and out on the photo, searching for any sign of Photoshop.

Nothing.

The photo was real. Unaltered.

“This… this can’t be!” she said, her voice breaking. “How could Isolde get into Silverlake Elite Academy!”

She looked like she was about to cry.

“Right, right-that’s it!”

“Yesterday she said ‘I made a joke’ in the group chat-this must be what she meant!”

“The email, the photo-she faked it all! Ha, Isolde finally learned to fight back.”

But this time, Lucian and Declan didn’t go along with her.

Declan spoke quietly. “Isolde’s grown up.

Those words hit Lucian like a punch to the chest.

Grown up?

Did that mean the little wolf who always followed them around-would never follow them again?

No!

He couldn’t accept that!

He immediately messaged the friend who’d sent the congratulations.

“Hey… could you help me get Isolde to meet up?”

“She doesn’t really want to see me right now.”

To his surprise, the friend shot him down immediately.

“Sorry, I didn’t know your family was like that.”

“I’m not going to bother that amazing girl.”

And with that, the old friend blocked him too.

Lucian stared at the screen, He’d been blocked. His stomach dropped.

Had she really given up on them?

What had he even done wrong?

Was it really just because of some stupid joke?

Or because he hadn’t even driven Isolde to college?

“I’m booking a flight to Silverlake right now,” he said. “It’s not too late.”

Lucian grabbed his jacket and headed for the door.

After a moment of silence, Declan followed.

Only Nessa stayed behind, still staring at that email, lost in thought.

Looking back after I left, I finally understood why Nessa did all of it.

Because her whole life, she couldn’t stand one thing-I was better than her.

When we were kids, I scored a ninety-eight on a test. She got an eighty-nine.

The next day, my paper was scribbled over in black. She called it a joke.

In high school, when I got my first love letter from a guy in class, she showed up in a cute dress, asked him out, and they ended up together.

She called that a joke too.

For eighteen years, those “jokes” played out over and over again.

They got used to me forgiving them. They got used to me backing down.

But this time, I made a joke too.

Funny how they couldn’t take it.