My Fake Boyfriend Is the School Bad Boy novel Chapter 45

Chapter 45 Cracks in the Carefully Built Persona

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“You wrote a script for the weekend,” he repeated. It wasn’t a question.

“We need a unified narrative, I insisted, my knuckles turning white around the barrel of my pen. “If I say we went to the pier and you say

we stayed at your house, the entire alibi falls apart. We have to treat this like a group project. We need an agenda.

‘An agenda, Ryder echoed, the word tasting bitter in his mouth.

He reached out. His large, calloused hand clamped down on the edge of the yellow legal pad. He didn’t pull it toward himself. He just held

it, his long fingers pressing hard enough to dent the paper.

“On Friday,” he started, his voice dropping an octave, becoming a heavy, dark rumble that vibrated straight through the wood of the desks. “When we were sitting on the bleachers. Was that on your little agenda, Petrova?”

A hot, humiliating flush swept up the back of my neck.

I swallowed the dry lump in my throat. I couldn’t look at his hands. I couldn’t think about the way his fingers had laced through mine.

“Friday was… an improvisation,” I managed to say, my voice trembling entirely too much. “It worked. But we can’t rely on adrenaline. We need a structure. We need boundaries, Ryder. If we don’t plan our interactions, we’re going to make a mistake.”

“A mistake, he bit out, the muscle beneath his bruised cheekbone ticking sharply.

He let go of the legal pad. He shifted his weight, dropping his heavy boots to the floor and standing up. He towered over my desk, casting a long, dark shadow that completely blocked the weak morning light filtering through the classroom windows.

“You think holding your hand was a mistake?” he demanded, the low, terrifying menace bleeding back into his tone.

“I think it wasn’t part of the plan!” I snapped, my anxiety suddenly spiking into genuine, desperate frustration. I threw my pen down. It clattered loudly against the desk. I pushed my chair back and stood up to face him, my chest heaving. “I am trying to keep my scholarship. I am trying to survive this semester. I can’t do that if I don’t know what you’re going to do next!”

Ryder closed the tiny distance between us. He stepped directly into my personal space, the sheer physical heat of his body overwhelming

the cold air of the room.

‘You want to know what I’m going to do next?” he asked, his eyes darkening to a deep, mossy green. The shards of gold in his irises burned with a raw, intense anger that made my breath catch in my throat. “You want me to memorize my lines? You want me to read off a piece of paper so you don’t have to deal with the fact that you actually felt something on those bleachers?”

That’s not what this is! I lied, my voice cracking horribly.

I reached for the legal pad, desperate to put a physical barrier between us.

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12:50 Fri, Jul 10

Chapter 45 Cracks in the Carefully Built Persona

Ryder’s hand shot out.

He didn’t grab my wrist. He grabbed the yellow legal pad. His large fingers crushed the paper, crumpling the neat, rigid lists into a tight,

ruined ball in one swift, aggressive motion.

The loud crunch of the heavy paper echoed like a gunshot in the quiet room.

He threw the crumpled ball onto the linoleum floor. It bounced once and rolled under the teacher’s desk.

I’m not a puppet, Raisa,” he snaps, showing a crack in his cool exterior.

The absolute, devastating rawness in his voice stripped the air completely out of my lungs.

He wasn’t the indifferent bad boy leaning against a locker. He wasn’t the terrifying enforcer who shoved teachers into cars. His chest was rising and falling with heavy, jagged breaths. The anger in his eyes was completely tangled up with a deep, visceral hurt.

He was looking at me like I had just slapped him across the face.

“Ryder,” I whispered, the fight completely draining out of me. My hands fell to my sides, useless and trembling.

“I don’t do scripts,” he rasped, his voice thick and rough. “I don’t fake what I do. When I touch you, it’s because I want to. When I sit next to you, it’s because I choose to. If you want a prop to hold your backpack and read off an index card, go find Chase Montgomery.”

He didn’t wait for me to respond.

He turned around, grabbing his dark canvas bag off the desk. He didn’t pick up the coffee he had brought for himself. He just walked toward the heavy wooden door, the thick tread of his boots striking the floor with a heavy, final rhythm.

“Ryder, wait, I called out, the panic clawing at the back of my throat.

He didn’t stop. He pushed the door open, the metal hinges groaning loudly, and stepped out into the hallway. The door swung shut behind him, the latch clicking into place with a sharp, heavy finality.

I stood completely alone in the dusty, quiet classroom.

The steaming cardboard cup of black coffee sat on my desk, the heat radiating against my cold hands. The crumpled yellow paper sat discarded on the floor, a physical representation of my desperate, pathetic need for control.

I closed my eyes, a single, hot tear escaping and tracking down my cheek.

I had wanted to build a wall to protect myself from the terrifying reality of his feelings. But instead of protecting me, the script had done exactly what I feared the most.

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