My Fake Boyfriend Is the School Bad Boy novel Chapter 68

Chapter 68 A Front Page That Changed Everything

The smell of fresh, chemical black ink completely overpowered the usual scent of floor wax in the A-wing intersection on Monday

morning.

I pushed through the heavy oak double doors of Crestview Prep, bracing myself for the cold, calculating stares that usually accompanied my solo walks to homeroom. The weekend had been an agonizing stretch of silence. I hadn’t texted Ryder. He hadn’t texted me. We were both standing on opposite sides of a massive, terrifying fault line, waiting to see who would crack first.

But as I stepped onto the linoleum, the atmosphere in the hallway felt entirely wrong.

It wasn’t the terrified, parting-of-the-Red-Sea reaction that happened when Ryder walked beside me. It wasn’t the malicious, whispering gossip of Harper Vance’s rumor mill.

It was a completely distracted, stunned quiet.

Students were clustered together against the metal locker bays in groups of three or four. They weren’t looking at their phones. They were holding large, oversized sheets of coarse gray paper.

The Crestview Chronicle.

The student-run newspaper was published on the first Monday of every month. Usually, the massive stacks of papers dumped on the library circulation desk went completely untouched, eventually thrown into the recycling bins by the janitorial staff. Nobody actually read the Chronicle unless their name was printed in the debate team scores.

Today, every single person in the corridor seemed to be holding a copy.

A cold prickle of dread crawled up the back of my neck. My fingers tightened around the canvas straps of my backpack. I kept my chin level, speeding up my pace, my loafers squeaking faintly against the polished floor.

I walked into room 112 for homeroom and dropped my bag next to my desk in the second row.

Jenna was already sitting across the aisle.

She wasn’t applying her usual layer of lip gloss. She wasn’t reviewing her AP Chemistry flashcards. A copy of the Chronicle was spread wide open across her laminated desk. When she heard the heavy thud of my backpack hitting the floor, her head snapped up.

The smug, condescending pity she had weaponized against me last week was entirely gone. Her perfectly plucked eyebrows were raised so high they practically disappeared into her hairline. She looked completely, utterly shocked.

Good morning, Jenna,” I said mechanically, sliding into my hard plastic chair.

She didn’t offer a polite, fake greeting. She simply grabbed the edges of the oversized newspaper, lifted it, and dropped it directly onto the center of my desk.

1/3

79

12:54 Fri, Jul 10

Chapter 68 A Front Page That Changed Everything

The coarse, cheap newsprint felt rough beneath my knuckles.

6 79

“I thought everyone agreed this was a business transaction, Jenna whispered, leaning across the aisle, her eyes locked onto my face. “I

thought the general consensus was that he was just using you to pass European History.”

“He is,” I lied automatically, the defensive script slipping off my tongue out of sheer, panicked habit.

“Raisa, Jenna interrupted, tapping a manicured fingernail against the gray paper. Her voice lacked its usual sharp edge; it was just quiet

and awe-struck. “Nobody looks at a business partner like that.”

My heart gave a sudden, erratic flutter against my ribs.

I looked down at the newspaper.

It was the front page of the Student Life section, right below the fold. The photo took up a massive block of space, printed in dark, grainy,

black-and-white ink.

The air completely stalled in my lungs.

It was Benji Higgins’s candid shot from Saturday afternoon. The background was slightly blurred, but the rusted metal of the truck tailgate and the flickering neon ice cream cone sign of Dixon’s Dairy were unmistakable.

The photo captured the exact, split-second moment I had dropped my plastic spoon onto the asphalt.

In the picture, I was laughing. My head was thrown back, my dark hair falling loose and messy over the shoulders of my thin trench coat. The severe, tightly controlled scholarship girl was entirely absent. I looked completely free, completely unguarded.

But it wasn’t my face that made my chest crack wide open.

It was Ryder.

He was sitting next to me on the rusted tailgate. He wasn’t looking at the camera. He wasn’t looking at the melted ice cream on my coat. His broad shoulders were angled entirely toward me, as if his body possessed a desperate, magnetic pull that only answered to my gravity.

He was reaching out. His large hand was captured mid-motion, his rough thumb gently swiping the stray drop of vanilla ice cream from

the edge of my chin.

The expression on his face was laid completely bare in the dark, printed ink.

The heavy, indifferent mask he wore to survive this school was gone. The terrifying, violent bad boy persona was completely erased. He was looking at me with a raw, agonizing, completely unshielded level of devotion. It was a soft, private, devastatingly tender look that screamed louder than any contract or alibi ever could.

He was looking at me like I was the only oxygen left on a dying planet.

2/3

12:54 Fri, Jul 10

Chapter 68 A Front Page That Changed Everything

Spring Fever at Crestview: Students Finding Sweet Escapes Off Campus, the bold caption beneath the photo read.

I couldn’t breathe. My hands started to shake, the violent tremors rattling the edges of the cheap newspaper.

I had known the truth. I had felt it when he kissed me on the plush gray rug at Chase Montgomery’s party. I had felt it when he pinned me in the dark library aisle. I had known it for absolute certain when I saw him sitting on the alphabet rug at the community center,

teaching Mia how to subtract.

79

But feeling it in private was one thing. Seeing it printed in black and white, broadcasted to the entire student body of Crestview Prep, was

entirely different.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify