All Chapters of My Bully Next Door: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

Ella The next few days are dangerous. Not because Beckett and I fight. Not because he’s confusing me. Not even because we’re still trying to figure out whatever this thing between us is. They’re dangerous because they’re easy. And honestly? That’s so much worse. Because Beckett tries. He really, genuinely tries. Not in the grand romantic gesture kind of way. Not in the movie-moment way. In all the small ways that sneak up on you when you’re not paying attention. He waits for me in the mornings before school, leaning against the kitchen counter with a cup of coffee already made exactly the way I like it. The first time it happened, I stared at him. “You remembered?” His shoulders lifted in a shrug like it wasn’t a big deal. “You put three sugars in it every morning.” Then he walked away like memorizing my coffee order was completely normal. Like it didn’t make my stomach do stupid things. Movie nights become dangerous too. Mason always ends up stretched across both o

Ella “Maybe you’re just supposed to be yourself.” The words come out before I can overthink them. Honestly, I don’t even know where they came from. Maybe because I’m tired. Maybe because watching Beckett fight himself is exhausting. Or maybe because for the first time, I can actually see the person underneath all the confidence and sarcasm and reputation. Whatever the reason, the second I say it, Beckett goes completely still. Not frozen in an awkward way. More like nobody has ever suggested that possibility before. Like he’s spent so much time trying to be who everyone expects him to be that the idea of simply being himself never occurred to him. The look on his face makes something in my chest ache. Because for all the ways Beckett drives me insane, I don’t think he’s nearly as confident as people think he is. The evening air settles around us. The neighborhood is quiet. The sun is starting to disappear behind the houses. And suddenly I’m painfully aware of how close

Beckett The pep rally should’ve been easy. Loud music. Stupid games. Teachers trying way too hard to convince everyone that Friday night’s game was somehow the most important event in human history. The band played half a song nobody recognized. The cheerleaders threw out t-shirts. Coach yelled something motivational into a microphone that immediately screeched with feedback. Normal school chaos. The kind of thing I usually enjoyed. The kind of thing I normally would’ve been front and center for. Instead, I spent most of it staring three rows up into the bleachers. At Ella. She was sitting beside Lila in one of those oversized hoodies again. Arms folded across her stomach. Shoulders slightly rounded. Like she was trying to take up less space. And every time I saw her do that now, it pissed me off. Not at her. At myself. Because I knew exactly why she did it. Years of comments. Years of whispers. Years of people deciding she was an easy target. And if I was being h

Beckett By the end of the day, everybody knew. Not the rumor version. Not the “I heard something happened at the pep rally” version. Everybody knew. People stared when I walked through the halls. Conversations stopped when I passed. A couple of freshmen actually moved out of my way like I was carrying a weapon. Which, considering how close I’d come to punching Colt in the gym, wasn’t completely unreasonable. The weirdest part? I didn’t really care. At least not about that. What I cared about was Ella. Because she was avoiding me. Every time I caught sight of her between classes, she disappeared before I could get close. At lunch she sat inside with Lila instead of eating in the courtyard. After Chemistry, she was gone before I even got out of my seat. I couldn’t blame her. But that didn’t stop it from driving me absolutely insane. By the time practice rolled around, I was already in a terrible mood. Sean took one look at me while we were changing and shook his head.

Beckett I don’t know when it happened. That’s the part that drives me crazy. If someone asked me to point to a specific moment—an exact second when Ella Monroe stopped being the girl who lived next door and became the person I looked for first in every room—I couldn’t do it. Trust me, I’ve tried. I’ve replayed the last few months in my head more times than I’d ever admit out loud. Was it the swimsuit? No. That would’ve been easier, honestly. People already think that’s what happened. Half the school has basically decided I saw Ella in a swimsuit, discovered she has curves, and immediately lost my mind. The problem is that explanation doesn’t fit. Because if it was just physical, this would’ve burned out already. Instead it keeps getting worse. It wasn’t the almost-kiss either. It wasn’t the late-night hot chocolate conversations. It wasn’t even the first time she stood up to me. It was a hundred little things that shouldn’t have mattered and somehow became everything.