My Fake Boyfriend Is the School Bad Boy novel Chapter 70

Chapter 70 A Photograph Hidden Like a Treasure

When the bell rang for third period, I stepped out of the C-wing and turned toward my locker to grab my AP Biology textbook.

I stopped dead in my tracks.

Ryder was standing at his locker at the far end of the B-wing.

The hallway was packed with students scrambling to get to class, but a wide, cautious perimeter had formed around him.

He was wearing his heavy, scuffed leather jacket. His broad shoulders were pulled rigidly tight, tense and coiled like a spring about to snap. His jaw was locked so hard the muscle beneath his fading bruise was a stark, ticking line.

In his right hand, completely crushed in a tight, white-knuckled fist, was a copy of the Crestview Chronicle.

He wasn’t looking at the paper. He was staring straight down the corridor, his eyes scanning the crowd with a dark, feral intensity.

He was looking for me.

Our eyes locked across the fifty feet of polished linoleum.

The distance between us vanished. The chaotic roar of slamming lockers and chattering teenagers faded into absolute nothingness. The only thing that existed was the heavy, suffocating static electricity sparking between us.

He looked absolutely terrified.

It wasn’t the fear of getting caught. It was the raw, paralyzing panic of total exposure. He had spent his entire life building a reputation of violence and indifference to keep people from seeing the boy inside, and Benji Higgins’s camera lens had stripped him completely naked in front of eight hundred people.

He knew I had seen it. He knew I knew exactly what that look on his face meant.

For two agonizing seconds, neither of us moved. He didn’t offer a sarcastic smirk. He didn’t put the bad boy mask back on. He just stood there, clutching the ruined newspaper, looking at me with a desperate, silent plea.

Don’t look at me like I’m a good guy, Raisa. His broken whisper from the stairwell echoed loudly in my skull.

I took a half-breath, my foot shifting a fraction of an inch forward. I wanted to close the distance. I wanted to grab the lapels of his leather jacket and tell him that it was okay to be seen.

But the late bell shrieked violently above our heads.

The sharp sound broke the spell. Ryder’s chest heaved. He tore his gaze away from mine, shoved the crushed newspaper into his locker,

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12:55 Fri, Jul 10

Chapter 70 A Photograph Hidden Like a Treasure

slammed the metal door shut, and walked in the opposite direction.

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I stood alone in the emptying hallway, the cold air-rushing back into the space between us.

At three-fifteen, I didn’t stay for my usual afternoon study session. I took the city bus home, the diesel engine rumbling beneath my feet,

my heavy backpack resting against my knees.

The house was empty when I unlocked the front door. The air smelled of stale coffee and the lingering scent of fryer grease from my

mother’s uniform. It was quiet. Safe.

I walked straight up the narrow stairs to my cramped bedroom and shut the door.

The radiator in the corner hissed, spitting out a meager stream of heat. I dropped my backpack onto the edge of my narrow twin bed. I didn’t take off my uniform blazer. I immediately unzipped the canvas bag and pulled out the folded newspaper.

The cheap ink smudged slightly against the pads of my fingers, leaving a faint, dark residue on my skin.

I carried the paper over to my small wooden desk. I flattened it out against the scratched surface, smoothing the harsh creases with the palm of my hand.

I stared at the photo again.

Without Jenna sitting next to me, without the pressure of the crowded classroom or the heavy tension of the hallway, the emotional impact of the image hit me with the force of a physical blow. A jagged breath shuddered past my lips. My chest ached-a sharp, profound pressure right behind my sternum that made my eyes burn with hot, unshed tears.

He loved me.

It wasn’t an implication. It wasn’t a desperate hope. The proof was sitting right in front of me, captured permanently by a camera lens.

I opened the top drawer of my desk. My fingers brushed past color-coded highlighters and loose index cards until I found the pair of orange-handled scissors.

I picked them up. The metal blades were cold against my skin.

I leaned over the newspaper. I didn’t want the article about spring fever. I didn’t want the caption about escaping off campus. I didn’t want the massive, chaotic, suffocating world of Crestview Prep interfering with this one, perfect moment.

I opened the scissors and pressed the metal blade against the coarse gray paper.

Snip.

The sound was soft and satisfying in the quiet room.

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Chapter 70 A Photograph Hidden Like a Treasure

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1 carefully navigated the edges of the photograph, cutting away the white borders and the surrounding black text. I worked slowly, my tongue poking out of the corner of my mouth in absolute concentration. I reduced the massive, overwhelming front page down to a single,

three-by-four-inch square of grainy black-and-white ink.

I set the scissors down. The metal clattered softly against the wood.

I reached into my backpack one more time and pulled out my personal journal.

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