All Chapters of Built with a Dare, broken by the Truth: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

Morning arrived with a heaviness none Edan never expected.Randy woke up earlier than usual, long before his alarm, with a strange tension in his chest. Something didn’t feel right, it was the kind of feeling that sat behind the ribs, refusing to move. He rubbed his eyes, grabbed his phone, and checked for messages.Nothing from Edan.That was the first red flag.Because Edan, quiet, anxious, overly polite, Edan always responded. Even if it took him a few minutes, he never ignored them.Randy sat on the edge of his bed, staring at the blank message page, thinking back to the previous day. Edan had looked shaken, but he insisted he’d explain today. Randy didn’t push him,now he was regretting that.He typed quickly:Randy: Hey man, you up? Where are you?He waited,one minute,then two and five,Still nothing.Randy’s stomach twisted.He sent anotherRandy: Please answer,just say you’re okay, still no reply.That’s when he stood up abruptly,this wasn’t normal, Edan didn’t vanish. H

It's was around 9:12 am that the email arrived It was brief,clinical and almost polite.Subject: Notice of Administrative ActionBody: Effective immediately, Dean Michael has been placed on temporary administrative leave pending an internal investigation.No explanation followed, no names were mentioned. No accusations were listed.But the campus felt it anyway,By the time Edan read the message for the third time, his hands were shaking.He sat on the edge of Randy’s bed, phone clenched in his grip, the screen glowing too brightly in the dim room. .Outside, students moved through the courtyard like nothing had changed—laughing, shouting, late for class.Life continued.His didn’t.“They did it,” Sandy whispered, standing by the window. “They actually did it.”Brian scoffed from the corner. “Temporary leave isn’t justice.”“No,” Jayden said quietly, seated at the desk with his notebook open. “But it’s the crack in the wall. Everything comes after.”Edan swallowed hard,the word inves

The room was quiet in a way Edan had learned to fear.Not peaceful,not calm,Controlled.The walls were painted a soft beige, the kind institutions chose when they wanted people to feel safe without actually offering safety. The lights were dimmed just enough to be gentle. The table between them was small, deliberately so, to remove any sense of distance.Edan sat with his hands folded in his lap, fingers pressed so tightly together they ached.Across from him sat the counselor. To her right, a legal representative,to her left, a recorder—small, black, blinking red.Recording.Everything mattered now.“Before we begin,” the counselor said softly, “I want to remind you that you can stop at any time. You don’t owe us anything beyond what you’re comfortable sharing.”Edan nodded, though the words didn’t settle.Comfort had never been part of this,He took a slow breath. The air felt heavy in his lungs.“Whenever you’re ready,” she continued.Edan stared at the surface of the table,the

Randy's povI didn’t realize how loud silence could be until Edan stopped talking,not completelyHe still answered questions. Still nodded and said “I’m fine” when people asked.But the pauses between his words grew longer,the space behind his eyes felt farther away.And that terrified me more than anything the dean ever did.I’d been there when everything exploded—when the truth finally clawed its way into the light. I’d watched power collapse, watched a man who thought himself untouchable escorted out like he was suddenly small.Everyone called it justice,but no one warned me what came after.No one told me how helpless I would feel once there was nothing left to fight.Edan didn’t cry much after it was over.That should’ve been a relief.Instead, it felt wrong.He moved carefully, like the world was something fragile that might punish him if he made the wrong sound. He startled at raised voices. He avoided closed doors. He flinched when authority figures spoke too sharply.An

Months Later,The university campus smelled like spring rain,wet grass, blooming trees, and the faint tang of coffee from nearby stalls. Students moved with purpose, books clutched, laughter spilling through open courtyards. Life had returned to its own rhythm, slower than the chaos months ago but richer, steadier, freer.For Randy, the shift had been profound,the trauma, the deception, the suffocating secrecy of the Dean/Edan incident—it all felt like a distant storm now. He still remembered the fear, the helplessness, the rage—but the storm had passed. What remained was the calm after the lightning, the green shoots of new beginnings.Jayden, Brian, Sandy, and Edan had settled into this new rhythm with him, Edan was quieter now, less guarded, but he still laughed in bursts that startled Randy at first. The boy’s walls were slowly softening, though he refused to admit it aloud,Randy didn’t push he understood the importance of time.Brian and Barry had become impossibly loud, a fo