My Fake Boyfriend Is the School Bad Boy novel Chapter 61

My Fake Boyfriend Is the School Bad Boy

Chapter 61 Panic Rising During Midterm Pressure

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I stared down at the thick, stapled packet of the AP Calculus midterm. The harsh fluorescent lights overhead reflected off the stark white paper, making the complex derivative equations swim and blur before my exhausted eyes. The air in the classroom was stifling, thick with the smell of fresh graphite, nervous sweat, and the sharp, acidic scent of pink erasers rubbing desperately against the grain of the paper.

Normally, test days were my sanctuary. The rigid, predictable logic of mathematics was the one thing in my life that made perfect, undeniable sense. You followed the formula, you applied the rule, and you arrived at the correct answer. There was no ambiguity. There

were no hidden variables.

But today, my mind was a completely shattered landscape.

I gripped my yellow number two pencil so tightly that my knuckles ached, the wooden barrel digging a painful groove into the side of my index finger. I had been sitting at this desk for forty-five minutes, and I had only completed the first two pages.

Every time I closed my eyes to calculate a limit, I didn’t see numbers. I saw the suffocating, pitch-black shadow of the library reference section. I felt the hard mahogany bookshelf pressing into my spine, and the solid, burning wall of Ryder’s chest caging me in.

Amber and wood. The phantom scent haunted me, lingering in the back of my throat and completely scrambling my focus. He had worn it for me. The boy who supposedly didn’t care if the entire world burned to the ground had completely altered his own routine just to match a passing, thoughtless comment I had made in a crowded hallway.

A heavy, jagged breath shuddered past my lips.

I pressed the heel of my free hand against my forehead, trying to physically force the chaotic memories out of my skull. I couldn’t afford this. If I dropped my grade in Mr. Harrison’s class, my scholarship would instantly be flagged for review by the alumni board. My mother couldn’t pay the Crestview tuition. We couldn’t even afford the textbooks.

Focus, Raisa, I mentally screamed, dragging my eyes back to question fourteen.

I forced my pencil to move, scratching the lead against the paper in short, jerky strokes. I checked the clock. Twelve minutes left. Panic, cold and sharp as crushed ice, slid directly into my stomach. I accelerated my pace, abandoning double-checking my work, simply desperate to fill in the blanks before the bell rang.

When the harsh, metallic shriek of the dismissal bell finally tore through the silence, my entire body went completely limp.

“Pencils down. Pass your packets to the front,” Mr. Harrison commanded from his desk. He didn’t look at me. He hadn’t looked in my direction since the incident in the parking lot.

I dropped my pencil. My right hand was trembling violently from the strain. I passed the thick packet forward, the dread settling heavy and permanent in my chest. I knew I hadn’t done well. For the first time in my academic career, I had walked into a test completely unprepared, defeated by a distraction I couldn’t control.

I packed my bag mechanically, my movements slow and uncoordinated. The other students flooded out into the C-wing, their voices a

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Chapter 61 Panic Rising During Midterm Pressure

loud, buzzing rush of relief.

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I slung my heavy canvas backpack over my shoulder and stepped out into the corridor.

The immediate rush of cooler hallway air did nothing to clear my head. I felt hollowed out, as if the sheer emotional exhaustion of the last forty-eight hours had scraped out the inside of my ribs.

I didn’t head toward the cafeteria for lunch. I needed air. I needed to be outside, away from the suffocating pressure of the brick walls and

the prying eyes of Harper Vance’s spies.

I pushed through the heavy side doors and stepped out into the old stone courtyard.

It was a secluded, older part of the Crestview campus, enclosed by high ivy-covered walls and shaded by ancient, sprawling oak trees. The sky was a flat, bruised gray, the damp air biting right through my thin uniform blazer. The ground was slick with morning mist, the smell

of wet earth and crushed leaves rising from the cobblestones.

I walked toward a worn stone bench sitting beneath the thickest oak tree and stopped.

I wasn’t alone.

Ryder was standing near the far wall of the courtyard.

He was leaning his broad shoulders against the rough, gray stone, his long legs crossed at the ankles. He wore his heavy leather jacket over a dark gray hoodie, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. The stark white medical tape wrapped around his right hand was a glaring contrast against the dark leather.

He had been waiting for me.

The air in my lungs completely stalled. I stood frozen on the cobblestones, the strap of my backpack digging into my collarbone.

He slowly lifted his head.

His hazel eyes locked onto mine across the misty courtyard. The distance between us was entirely physical, but the heavy, charged weight of the library nook instantly snapped back into place, pulling the air taut. He didn’t wear the indifferent, bored mask today. He looked incredibly tense, the sharp, bruising lines of his jaw locked in a rigid, unforgiving angle.

I forced my legs to move. My loafers scuffed softly against the wet stone as I closed the distance, stopping three feet away from him.

“How was the midterm?” he asked. His voice was a low, gravelly rumble that barely carried over the rustle of the damp oak leaves.

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