Dating My High School Bully: Three Years Later, He’s on His Knees Calling Me “Baby”
Dating My High School Bully: Three Years Later, He’s on His Knees Calling Me “Baby”Three years ago, Summer Carter was the nobody of Riverton High—the poor transfer girl cornered behind the gym, the one Ryan Reed, the golden boy of the school, pinned to the floor and called trash until her hand was shattered and her future with it.Three years later, she has a new city, a new university, a carefully rebuilt life…and a secret online boyfriend who calls her “good girl” and “baby”, waits up to tutor her through exams, and swears he’d never let anyone hurt her again.The night a group of guys blocks Summer in a dark alley, a familiar phone chime saves her—and the campus “bad boy” who drags the leader off her is none other than Ryan Reed himself. His screen lights up with the chat she just sent.Her sweet, gentle online boyfriend…is the same boy who once ground her palm into concrete and laughed.Summer doesn’t run.She smiles, calls him “Ryan,” and lets him fall harder and harder for the girl he thinks he saved.In reality, she’s quietly collecting every crack in his perfect life:a vicious stepbrother eyeing Reed Corporation, a scheming campus queen who tried to have Summer “dealt with” once already,and Ryan’s own guilt, nightmares, and buried family secrets.By the time he drops to his knees, grabbing her wrist—the same one he once ruined—begging, “Summer, don’t leave me.”she’s ready to return every word he threw at her on that grimy high school floor.The only problem?Somewhere between plotting his downfall and watching him bleed for her…Summer might have actually fallen for the boy she swore she’d destroy.Chapter OneRyan Reed used to beat me up.Three years ago, I begged him to let me go. He ground his heel into my hand, looking down on me while he called me trash.Three years later, he was the one on his knees, crying and begging me not to walk away, and I threw those same words back in his face.When the school bully had me backed into a corner, I sent one last message to my online boyfriend. Then the bully’s phone went off.Ryan Reed pulled out his phone. The cold, vicious look in his eyes faded in an instant and turned warm and soft.The moment he hit send, my own phone buzzed, so light it was almost nothing.It was the custom tone I had set for my online boyfriend.I stared at him in disbelief. He was standing under the streetlamp, his profile sharp and perfect, his cool, handsome features exactly like the Ryan I knew so well.But with a cigarette tucked between his lips and that dark, cruel expression, he looked nothing like the gentle boy in his photos.For a second, I honestly couldn’t tell if he was my sweet Ryan or Ryan Reed, the campus thug dating Lily West.“Ryan, she’s the bitch who sliced my bag open. She can’t afford one herself so she’s jealous of me. Poor people are always like this.” Lily West jabbed a finger at me, her eyes full of smug satisfaction.“I didn’t.”I hadn’t ruined Lily’s bag.That day she slapped me out of nowhere. When she swung at me again, I dodged. She missed, stumbled, and went down, scraping the side of the brand new designer bag she had just dropped twenty grand on.She screamed at me to pay for it. I couldn’t. So she told me to wait, that her boyfriend, Ryan Reed, would come take care of me.I knew who Ryan Reed was. Rich kid. Family ran a big company. People said he had connections, fought dirty, never showed mercy, and wasn’t afraid of anything. Everyone was scared of him. They called him a devil.I never imagined the gentle “Ryan” on my screen and that devil on campus were the same person.Ryan Reed got to his feet and walked toward me, one slow step at a time. Warm yellow light from the streetlamp fell over him, but his eyes stayed icy, no warmth at all. His tall frame loomed over me.My fingers curled tight before I even realized it.Then he spoke, voice flat.“Two options. Pay up, or get on your knees and apologize.”That cold, dismissive tone was nothing like the Ryan on my phone, the one who always sounded soft and tender.I couldn’t even say what I was feeling. Something in my head just shorted out. I looked up at him, stubborn, refusing to back down.“Do you believe me. I didn’t ruin her bag.”Ryan stared at me for a moment, then let out a short, mocking laugh.“You really don’t know what’s good for you.”He turned away, sounding impatient.“Teach her a lesson then.”All the blood in my body seemed to freeze. My ears went numb.His guys forced me down onto my knees. Someone kept slapping me again and again. Someone else kicked me in the stomach. It hurt so much I couldn’t even scream.Ryan leaned against the wall like it had nothing to do with him, smiling gently at his phone screen as if he were waiting for a message from someone.I curled up as small as I could and took the punches and kicks in silence. I couldn’t stop the tears from falling.After a group of grown men beat me like that, I couldn’t get up for a long time. Two of my teeth were knocked out. Blood kept filling my mouth until it soaked the collar of my shirt.I lay there on the ground like a dead fish for three full hours before I finally had the strength to crawl home. I didn’t dare tell my parents what had happened. They were honest farm people who had come to Riverton to work themselves to the bone, barely making enough to get by.All that bullying started because my family was poor. “Hick,” “broke trash,” “selling you wouldn’t even cover it.” Every line cut straight into me.That was when I learned that if you are poor, you don’t get to have dignity. You just get shoved into the mud and stepped on.I sucked in a sharp breath.I cleaned and bandaged myself up in secret.It hurt so much.My phone kept chiming with that special tone. Every notification was from my sweet Ryan.The words were still soft and affectionate, but a cold disgust crawled up my spine.I typed out line after line, deleting every one of them.In the end, I only sent him one message.He paused for a moment on his end, then replied almost right away.
Chapter TwoAlmost like he wanted to prove it, he sent a photo from the library.In the picture he was in a white shirt, smiling in that bright, sunny way, standing by the shelves, looking like every parent’s dream of the perfect honor student.All of it was fake.I was glad I had never sent him my photo. Glad he had not recognized me. It was the only reason I had gotten to see who he really was.I was scared my grades would slip if I missed class, so I did not dare take a day off.When morning study period ended, Lily dragged me into the girls’ bathroom. She had a whole group of girls with her and they boxed me in by the sinks.“Summer Carter, you really have the nerve to show up at school,” Lily said. “Guess we did not hit you hard enough last night.”“Please, it is because she is too cheap to feel anything,” one girl snorted. “She is ugly and broke. If her skin were any thinner, she would have offed herself already.”“No wonder her name is Summer Carter. Summer the Pig. Thick skin, all meat and no brain.”They took turns tossing out insults. Someone splashed a bucket of filthy water over my head. It soaked my hair and ran down into my collar. The sour, rotten smell made me gag.“Look at you, Summer Carter,” Lily clicked her tongue. “You really are as gross as a pig.”She yanked my hair and slapped me across the face, once on each side. Then she looked at her hands in disgust, went to rinse them off, and finally sauntered out of the bathroom.I slid down the wall and ended up sitting on the floor. I buried my face against my knees and forced myself not to cry.Lily locked me in there for the entire morning. It was not until the lunch bell rang that someone finally came by and let me out.I thought that would be the end of it.Lily was not done.After that, my desk was always a mess. My homework kept “disappearing” for no reason. After a few times, the teacher stopped believing my explanations.Lily showed up everywhere I went, like she had made it her hobby to make me look pathetic.That night I stayed in the library, studying until late, hoping I could avoid her.She did not leave. She waited for me at the door with her crowd.She slapped my cup out of my hand. It hit the floor with a crack and the coffee I used to stay awake splashed all over my legs.The new white pants I had just changed into were instantly stained.I glared at her and opened my mouth, but then I saw Ryan watching me, warning in his eyes.He was standing right beside her, a cigarette between his lips, looking at me like I was beneath him.“What, Summer Carter, you got a problem with that,” Lily said and shoved me hard.I fell straight into the puddle of coffee on the ground. The smell of coffee mixed with dirty water made my stomach churn.Her followers burst out laughing. They said I looked like a pig rooting around in slop.Then they started forcing my head down, trying to make me drink the coffee off the floor.My face was only a few inches from the ground when the librarian came in to lock up and saw us.“What are you doing.”Lily and one of the girls let go of me right away. Lily pasted on a smile.“We are just playing truth or dare with Summer,” she said.“Yeah,” another girl chimed in. “Summer lost and has to drink the coffee on the floor.”“That is not true.” I shook my head and looked up at the librarian, desperate. “Sir, they are forcing me.”He frowned, and just as he was about to say something, Lily jumped in again with that fake little laugh.“Do not listen to her. She just does not want to take her punishment, so she is making stuff up.”“Summer, do not be such a sore loser,” she added. “You lost, just accept it. Why are you trying to tattle to the teacher.”Her girls backed her up from every side.“Yeah, Summer, you are being so dramatic.”“It is just a game. If you do not want to do the dare, fine, but you do not have to drag the teacher into it.”There were a lot of them, and they all told the same story.Of course the librarian believed them. His face tightened. He glanced at me, then turned to Lily.“Enough. You are at school to study. Stop fooling around.”He left. He clearly did not want to get involved.Lily looked down at me from above, smug.“See, Summer Carter. Everyone is on my side. No one is ever going to believe you,” she said.“You can run to the teachers all you want. I have a hundred ways to walk away without a scratch. You will not be that lucky.”
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