Share

Falling For The Boy I Was Never Supposed To Love
Falling For The Boy I Was Never Supposed To Love
Penulis: Ink& echo

The Rumor That Changed Everything

Penulis: Ink& echo
last update Tanggal publikasi: 2026-05-21 16:18:44

Amara Bennett learned two years ago that humiliation had a sound.

It sounded like thirty people laughing while screenshots of your private confession spread through the entire school cafeteria before lunch period ended.

Ever since then, she avoided anything remotely capable of destroying her dignity again.

Which was exactly why she knew the universe hated her when she walked into first-period literature Monday morning and found an unfamiliar boy sitting in her seat.

He looked up slowly.

Dark hair falling over his forehead. Gray hoodie sleeves pushed carelessly to his elbows. A face unfairly attractive in the calmest possible way.

The kind of attractive that didn’t try.

Which made it worse.

Amara stopped beside the desk.

“You’re sitting in my seat.”

The boy blinked once before glancing at the empty chair beside him.

Then back at her.

“I had a feeling you’d say that.”

Her eyes narrowed immediately. “Do I know you?”

A smile tugged briefly at the corner of his mouth.

“No.”

Something about the way he answered made her suspicious.

Before she could respond, Mrs. Holloway entered the classroom carrying three books and the exhaustion of someone who regretted becoming a teacher every weekday morning.

“Class, this is Julian Reyes. He transferred here last week.”

Of course his name was Julian Reyes.

It sounded like the kind of name people wrote songs about.

Half the girls in class straightened instinctively.

Amara rolled her eyes internally.

Mrs. Holloway pointed toward the empty chair beside him. “Amara, you can sit there today.”

Perfect.

Absolutely perfect.

She dropped into the chair with all the enthusiasm of someone attending their own execution.

Beside her, Julian quietly slid her fallen pen from the floor onto her notebook before she even noticed she’d dropped it.

“Thanks,” she muttered automatically.

“You tap your foot when you’re annoyed,” he said casually.

Amara froze.

“What?”

He nodded toward her leg bouncing beneath the desk.

“Oh.” She stopped immediately. “Congratulations. You can observe basic human behavior.”

That smile appeared again.

Small. Quick. Dangerous.

“I’m starting to think you don’t like me very much.”

“You just arrived.”

“And you already look exhausted by my existence.”

“That’s because I am.”

To her irritation, he laughed softly.

Not offended.

Not annoyed.

Like he genuinely found her amusing.

Mrs. Holloway began discussing poetry, but Amara struggled to focus because every few minutes she caught Julian glancing at her notebook.

At first she thought he was judging her handwriting.

Then she realized he was reading the tiny song lyrics scribbled in the margins.

Embarrassing.

She flipped the page quickly.

Julian leaned back slightly. “You crossed out the last line.”

Her head snapped toward him. “Why are you looking at my notebook?”

“You write like you’re arguing with yourself.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means the first version sounded sad.” His voice softened slightly. “The second version sounded angry.”

Amara stared at him.

Nobody had ever noticed things like that before.

And honestly?

It irritated her more than if he’d insulted her.

Before she could answer, Ivy suddenly dropped into the empty desk behind them.

Her eyes immediately widened.

“Oh my God,” Ivy whispered dramatically. “You’re the new guy everybody’s talking about.”

Julian turned politely. “Should I be concerned?”

“Yes,” Ivy answered immediately. “This school eats attractive people alive.”

Amara snorted before she could stop herself.

Julian looked at her instantly, clearly pleased he’d managed to make her laugh accidentally.

Which was annoying.

Again.

By lunchtime, the entire school already knew Julian Reyes existed.

And apparently, according to Chloe’s text messages, half the female population had collectively lost their minds over him.

Chloe: IS THE NEW GUY ACTUALLY HOT OR ARE PEOPLE BEING DRAMATIC??

Amara: Dramatic.

Pause.

Amara: Unfortunately.

Chloe responded with seventeen screaming emojis.

Ivy nearly choked laughing beside her in the cafeteria.

“You admitted he’s attractive,” she gasped.

“I admitted humans possess eyesight.”

“That’s basically a love confession coming from you.”

Amara ignored her.

Mostly because Julian had just entered the cafeteria.

And somehow the room actually reacted.

People looked up.

Whispers started instantly.

He seemed completely unaware of it.

Or maybe just uninterested.

Noah Carter walked beside him saying something animated while Julian scanned the crowded room absentmindedly—

Until his eyes landed directly on Amara.

Then stopped.

Her stomach did something uncomfortable.

He smiled slightly before walking toward their table.

Absolutely not.

“No,” Amara muttered under her breath.

Ivy looked delighted. “YES.”

Julian stopped beside their table. “Mind if we sit here?”

“We do,” Amara answered.

Noah burst out laughing.

Julian pulled out the chair anyway. “I’ll take that as a maybe.”

“You’re strangely persistent for someone who’s known me six hours.”

“You’re strangely defensive for someone who doesn’t care.”

Ivy physically looked between them like she was watching live television.

Amara stabbed aggressively at her fries.

“This conversation is painful.”

Julian rested an elbow lightly against the table. “You always this nice to new students?”

“Only the suspicious ones.”

“And I’m suspicious because…”

“You notice too much.”

Something flickered briefly across his face then.

Something quieter.

More serious.

“You noticed that already?”

The question caught her off guard.

Before she could answer, Noah suddenly looked toward the cafeteria entrance and groaned.

“Oh no.”

Three girls from the dance team were walking directly toward their table.

Amara immediately understood the expression on his face.

One of the girls smiled brightly at Julian. “You disappeared after chemistry.”

“I was in class,” Julian answered.

“You should sit with us tomorrow.”

Julian glanced once toward Amara.

Then back at the girl.

“I think I’m okay here.”

The girl’s smile faltered slightly.

And unfortunately, several nearby students noticed.

Whispers spread instantly.

Amara closed her eyes briefly.

Wonderful.

Absolutely wonderful.

By the end of lunch, someone had already posted:

NEW GUY REJECTED SIENNA FOR AMARA BENNETT???

The attached blurry cafeteria photo made it look significantly more romantic than reality.

Ivy grabbed Amara’s arm dramatically. “OH MY GOD YOU’RE TRENDING.”

“I hate this school.”

Julian looked at the photo over Noah’s shoulder and actually laughed.

Which made Amara glare harder.

“This isn’t funny.”

“A little funny.”

“You’ve been here one day and people already think we’re dating.”

He met her eyes calmly.

“Would that really be so terrible?”

And for one horrifying second—

Her heart forgot how to beat properly.

---

Lanjutkan membaca buku ini secara gratis
Pindai kode untuk mengunduh Aplikasi

Bab terbaru

  • Falling For The Boy I Was Never Supposed To Love   The Boy Who Stayed

    Julian's POV Julian Reyes had a rule about first days. Actually, he had a lot of rules, mostly because constantly moving schools sucked and having a strict system made the transition slightly less annoying. Rule number one was simple: keep your head down, learn the layout of the school, don't do anything stupid, and definitely don't make people remember your name before you knew whether they were even worth remembering. It was a solid strategy that had worked perfectly at four different schools over the last three years. But the thing about rules was that they assumed normal circumstances—and there was absolutely nothing normal about walking into Blackwater High knowing that somewhere inside the building was a girl whose handwriting he could recognize from across a room.She was a girl whose worst day he had witnessed from a hallway twenty feet away; a girl he had written letters to for two years without ever signing his name. She was also a girl who had absolutely no idea he even

  • Falling For The Boy I Was Never Supposed To Love   What He Left Out

    Amara spent the entire walk to school that morning trying to force her mind onto any topic other than the note. It proved entirely impossible. By the time she reached the heavy glass doors of the front entrance, she had already replayed the final moments of the previous afternoon at least twenty times in her head.The weight of the paper in her hand. The echoing quiet of the hallway. Looking up to find Sienna watching her from the far end of the corridor with that small, unbothered smile. It hadn't been a smile of triumph or malice, but something worse: certainty. People didn't smile like that unless they believed they were several steps ahead of everyone else.By the time the warning bell rang for first period, Amara was done pretending she wasn't consumed by it. She tracked Julian down at his locker, navigating the crowded hallway until she stopped right beside him. He was halfway through shoving a heavy chemistry textbook onto a shelf when she reached out and held the folded square

  • Falling For The Boy I Was Never Supposed To Love   Pretty Poison

    Amara had spent two years learning how to read people. Not perfectly. Nobody could. But she'd learned enough. Enough to tell the difference between someone who was genuinely kind and someone who just knew how to look kind when people were watching. Enough to recognize when a smile didn't quite reach someone's eyes.So when Sienna Davis slid into the seat beside her in English on Tuesday morning and greeted her with an easy smile, every instinct Amara had sharpened over the last two years quietly woke up."Morning," Sienna said."Morning."Sienna set down her notebook and uncapped a pen. "You look tired."Amara glanced at her. "Thanks."A laugh slipped out of Sienna. "You know what I mean.""Do I?""Rough weekend?"There it was. Amara kept her face neutral. "I'm fine."Sienna nodded slowly. "Okay." She hesitated. "I just wanted to check. After Friday night... things looked a little intense."*A little intense.* That was one way to put it."I didn't mean to make anything worse," Sienna

  • Falling For The Boy I Was Never Supposed To Love   The Space Between Us

    ---The thing about pretending you were fine was that it required energy Amara didn't have on a Monday morning.She'd spent Sunday doing everything right. She'd slept. She'd eaten. She'd sat at her desk and stared at her homework until the words stopped swimming. She'd told herself, very firmly and very rationally, that what Julian had revealed didn't change anything fundamental about who she was or what she wanted.She'd almost believed it.Almost.The problem was the letter.Not a physical one — she didn't have those anymore, she'd thrown them away twice and printed them again twice, which said something embarrassing about her that she refused to examine. The problem was the feeling of the letters. The voice of them. Calm and steady and never asking for anything. She'd read them when she was sixteen and thought: whoever this is, they see me.And now she knew who it was.And she didn't know what to do with that.So she did what she always did when she didn't know what to do.She walk

  • Falling For The Boy I Was Never Supposed To Love   The Day He Was There

    The screen had gone dark before she could see what the photo actually showed.But Julian had seen it. She was certain of that. The way the color had left his face, the way he'd gone completely still — that wasn't the reaction of someone reading a threat. That was recognition.She looked at him now, trying to find the answer in his face since he wasn't giving it to her in words."You know what's in it," she said.Julian didn't deny it."What is it?" she asked. "What does it show?"He didn't answer immediately, and the silence was its own kind of response — the kind that meant yes, I know, and I'm deciding how much to tell you. She was starting to recognize that particular silence of his. She didn't like it."Julian.""It's from that day," he said finally.Her stomach dropped.She didn't ask which day. There was only one day that made sense. The one she'd spent three years trying to bury under other memories, better ones, anything that would sit on top of it and stay."You were there,"

  • Falling For The Boy I Was Never Supposed To Love   The Truth He Didn't Tell

    The rain had stopped, but the air still smelled like it — wet pavement and something cold that clung to her jacket.Amara stood very still.Julian hadn't moved either, which was almost worse. He was close enough that she could see the way his throat worked when he swallowed, the small tell he probably didn't know he had."You found me on purpose."She hadn't meant it to come out so quiet. Almost gentle. Like she was giving him a way out of it.His expression did something complicated — not guilt, not exactly, but something that lived in the same neighborhood. Something that looked like a man who'd been carrying a thing for so long he'd forgotten what it felt like to put it down.Her stomach turned."Oh my God."Neither of them spoke.She'd always been good at reading silences. Her mother's silences, her teachers', the loaded kind that filled up classrooms before bad news. She knew what this one meant before Julian opened his mouth, which is why when he finally said *I didn't plan for

Bab Lainnya
Jelajahi dan baca novel bagus secara gratis
Akses gratis ke berbagai novel bagus di aplikasi GoodNovel. Unduh buku yang kamu suka dan baca di mana saja & kapan saja.
Baca buku gratis di Aplikasi
Pindai kode untuk membaca di Aplikasi
DMCA.com Protection Status