My Fake Boyfriend Is the School Bad Boy novel Chapter 122

Chapter 122 Finding His Library Hiding Spot

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I waited for an explanation. I held my breath. He offered no defense. He stood up. He shook the dust from the dark wool blanket. He

folded the thick fabric with sharp, rigid movements.

“We should go,” he said. His voice sounded like cracked stone. He turned his back. He walked toward the iron door. He left the remains of

our dinner on the tar.

I followed him down the concrete stairwell. The descent felt ten times longer than the climb. The space between us hummed with unspoken questions. He opened the heavy steel door. We stepped into the neon glow of the city street.

The ride in the blue Ford truck offered zero comfort. He gripped the steering wheel. His knuckles turned stark white against the dark leather. He kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead. I leaned my head against the cold passenger window. The streetlamps cast rhythmic yellow shadows across his sharp profile. The tension threatened to shatter the windshield.

The engine idled outside my small house. He kept his foot on the brake. He waited for me to exit. I grabbed the strap of my canvas bag. I looked at him. I wanted to break the silence. I wanted to demand the truth. I closed the door instead.

I locked my bedroom door. The house sat empty. My mother worked her shift at the diner. I dropped my bag onto the floorboards. I sat on the edge of my bed. My mind spun in a chaotic, relentless loop.

I needed order. I needed to dissect the variables. I grabbed a black pen and a blank spiral notebook from my wooden desk. I sat back on the mattress. I clicked the pen. I pressed the tip to the blue lines.

I swallowed the lump forming in my throat. I moved the pen down the page. I pressed harder on the paper. The ink bled through the

page.

I dropped the pen. The plastic cylinder hit the floor with a sharp crack.

The timeline shattered. The parameters of our arrangement felt like a cruel joke. We drafted a contract in the chemistry lab to fix his midterm grades. I believed I was a convenient target. I believed I was the invisible scholarship student he selected at random.

He did not select me at random.

The boy who fought in the East Side warehouse, the boy who broke metal lockers with his bare fists, spent years memorizing my life. He built a museum of my habits in his head. He watched me sketch in the margins. He learned my mother’s favorite dessert. He memorized my favorite constellation.

The raw devotion stole the oxygen from my lungs. It terrified me. It humbled me. The monster of Crestview Prep harbored a quiet, bleeding reverence for the invisible girl in the corner. He did not use me for a passing grade. He used the failing grade as an excuse to

cross the room.

I needed to understand the depth of the deception. I needed to see the full picture.

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Chapter 122 Finding His Library Hiding Spot

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Wednesday morning arrived with a heavy downpour. The rain lashed against the windows of the transit bus. I walked through the double

doors of the school. The damp air clung to my uniform.

I stood near the entrance of the B-wing. I did not go to my locker. I pressed my spine against the beige cinderblock wall. I watched the

flow of students.

I spotted Trent Lawson. Trent walked with the lacrosse team. He bumped a freshman into the wall and offered a cruel smirk.

A memory surfaced. Sophomore year. October. Trent cornered me near the gymnasium. He knocked a stack of heavy history textbooks from my arms. The books scattered across the linoleum. Trent laughed and called me a charity case. I dropped to my knees to gather the pages. The humiliation burned my cheeks. I felt small. I felt powerless.

The next morning, Trent arrived at school with a split lip and a bruised eye. The administration suspended Ryder Steinmann for three days. The rumor mill claimed Ryder started a fight in the South parking lot over a drug deal. I believed the rumors. I stayed away from the dangerous boy in the leather jacket.

I stared at Trent. The pieces shifted. The drug deal was a lie. The random violence was a myth.

Ryder did not fight over territory. He fought the boy who knocked my books to the floor. He enacted a violent retribution for a girl who did not know his name. He took the suspension. He accepted the monstrous reputation to keep me safe.

I pushed away from the wall. I walked down the corridor. My legs felt numb.

I reached the library. I pushed through the heavy wooden doors. The scent of old paper and floor wax greeted me. I bypassed the computer lab. I walked to my assigned table hidden behind the nonfiction stacks. I set my bag on the carpet.

I sat in the wooden chair. I folded my hands on the table. I looked around the room. I analyzed the sightlines. I tracked the angles.

If he watched me, where did he sit? He avoided the open areas. He avoided the tables near the front desk.

I looked past the reference section. A small, secluded alcove sat tucked behind the towering history shelves. It offered a single, cracked leather armchair. The spot remained hidden in permanent shadow. From that chair, a person possessed a clear, direct view of my table. They could see the textbook pages. They could see the movement of my pen.

I stood up. I walked toward the alcove. My heart hammered a frantic rhythm against my ribs.

I reached the shadowed corner. The cracked leather chair sat empty. I looked at the side of the wooden bookshelf next to the seat. Generations of bored students carved their initials into the wood. The varnish peeled away.

I knelt on the carpet. I traced the deep, jagged scratches near the bottom shelf. The marks looked deliberate.

They were not initials. They were stars. A cluster of tiny, crude stars carved into the hard wood. And in the center of the pattern, a deeper gouge represented the Orion Nebula. A storm of creation.

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