My Fake Boyfriend Is the School Bad Boy novel Chapter 99

Chapter 99 Facing The Whispers Alone

I walked toward the group of juniors. My canvas backpack pulled at my shoulder, a heavy weight matching the dread in my stomach.

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Jenna froze. Trent clamped his mouth shut. The smug satisfaction drained from their faces. They expected me to run. They expected tears.

I offered neither.

“Are you finished?” I asked.

Jenna cleared her throat. She gripped the edge of the library printing station. “Raisa, we were just talking about the upcoming midterms.”

‘I heard what you were doing,” I interrupted. I looked at Trent. The lacrosse player shifted his weight. “If you have an opinion about my relationship, state it to my face. Do not hide behind a bookshelf and whisper like a coward.”

Trent recovered his bravado. He puffed out his chest in his navy letterman jacket. He remembered Ryder was not standing behind me. “We all see it, Petrova. He dropped you. The tutoring sessions are over. He got his passing grade. The entire school knows the fake dating stunt in the paper was just PR for his father.”

“You have no idea what happens between Ryder and me,’ I stated.

“I know a transaction when I see one,” Trent fired back. A cruel smile twisted his mouth. “He is a billionaire’s son. You are a scholarship case. He used you to fix his transcript. Now you are useless to him.”

I did not wait for a rebuttal. I turned my back on them. I walked out of the library, letting the heavy double doors swing shut.

My hands shook. I reached into my blazer pocket. I pulled out my phone. I opened my messages and selected his name. We had not

exchanged a single text since the rain.

Meet me in the abandoned drama corridor. Ten minutes. If you do not show up, I am taking the bus to the East Side tonight.

Five minutes passed. The heavy wooden door clicked open.

Ryder stepped into the dim corridor. He wore his scuffed leather jacket over a gray henley. His dark hair looked messy. It fell over his forehead in an untamed tangle. The fading bruises on his jaw caught the faint light filtering through the frosted windows. His chest

heaved. He ran across the campus.

His hazel eyes locked onto mine. The cold, mechanical mask he wore all week shattered. Panic laced his features.

“You are not going back there, he commanded. His voice carried a rough scrape. “Tell me you are joking.”

“I needed you to show up, I said.

Ryder ran a hand through his hair. He stopped three feet away from me. He maintained the distance.

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13:03 Fri, Jul 10

Chapter 99 Facing The Whispers Alone

“You cannot use the East Side as a threat, Raisa. It isn’t a game.”

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“Nothing about this is a game,” I countered. “You ignored me for two days. You refused to look at me in class. You decided my life for me. You locked me in a tower.”

“I kept you safe.”

“You made me a target, I fired back. The anger flared in my chest. “You think pushing me away protects me. You think you are a noble martyr. You are wrong. I just spent five minutes in the library listening to Trent Lawson and Jenna. They brought back the original

rumor.”

Ryder went still. The panic in his eyes vanished. The muscle beneath his cheek ticked.

“What did Lawson say?” he asked. The tone dropped an octave. It held a dangerous edge.

“They think you used me, I explained. I crossed my arms over my chest. They think the fake dating was a stunt. They believe you needed a passing grade for midterms. Now that the semester is ending, they think you threw me out like garbage.”

Ryder stared at the wooden floorboards. His jaw locked tight..

Harper Vance smells blood in the water,” I continued. “The entire school thinks I am a naive scholarship girl who got played. Without you

standing next to me, they are coming for my throat. You traded the monsters on the East Side for the monsters in the hallways.”

Ryder closed the distance.

He did not stop until his boots bumped against my scuffed loafers. He planted his large hands on the brick wall on either side of my head.

He caged me in. The familiar heat radiating from his chest washed over me. The scent of worn leather and sharp peppermint filled my

lungs.

‘Lawson is a dead man, Ryder murmured.

“Hitting him will not fix this,” I said. I looked up into his eyes. “Punching another locker will not stop the whispers. It will prove them

right. It will prove you are unstable and I was a mistake.”

“Then tell me how to fix it,” he pleaded. The gravel in his voice fractured.

“We fix the public image,” I stated. “We go back to the contract. We pretend.”

Ryder flinched. We both knew the feelings were real. The kiss in the rain was real.

I cannot go backward, he rasped. He leaned his forehead against mine. “I cannot pretend with you anymore. Not after the rain.”

“You have to, I whispered. My breath brushed against his lips. “If you want to keep me safe from them, you have to stand by my side. You

cannot ignore me.”

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Chapter 99 Facing The Whispers Alone

He absorbed my words. The tension in his broad shoulders shifted. The guilt morphed into a territorial resolve.

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