Untouchable - Chapter 3
Friday
Back home I’d worked every day at a diner down the street from my house.
It was small and quaint and hadn’t prepared me at all for this.
I gripped the tray tighter in my hands, staring at the way the other waitstaff held the trays expertly with one hand.
Surely they couldn’t balance all that with… nope they were doing it. Perfectly.
“Ready for the time of your life?” Kennedy asked with a grin. “Just kidding, it’s the worst. Let’s do the damn thing.” She pushed through the double doors out of the kitchen and into the ballroom, looking every bit the part of the waitstaff supreme.
I quickly followed so that I wouldn’t have to try to open the door. “Wild mushroom tart?” I asked everyone I passed. I kept my head down, trying to remain the invisible human I’d become. It was easy. I thrived at invisibility.
After several minutes, my biceps were already aching from the tray.
The only reprieve was that my tray got lighter as I got rid of more tarts.
I opened my mouth to say “wild mushroom tart” for what felt like the hundredth time, but swallowed down my words.
Because I was staring at the back of Matthew Caldwell in a fitted tux that clung to his muscles like it was made for his body.
He didn’t have to turn around for me to know it was him.
The golden hair. The broad shoulders. It didn’t hurt that his older brother, Mason, and the Hunter brothers were standing next to him, also ignoring me and my stinky tarts, thank God.
Besides, I’d had time to study the back of his head in our entrepreneurial studies class.
I’d memorized it better than any of the lessons.
My stomach clenched when he laughed. All the Untouchables were handsome.
But there was something about Matthew that made my eyes always gravitate to him.
He was why I found myself staring at their group at lunch.
And in the hall. And after school. A bad habit that was already getting me in trouble with girls like Isabella.
Which was ridiculous. It’s not like any of them were looking back at me.
Even when I was offering them free little tarts.
I’d never be a threat. Just an invisible observer of perfection.
Matthew started to turn his head.
Shit. I practically ran in the opposite direction and almost smacked my tray into Kennedy’s face.
“Jesus, what are you doing, Brooklyn? You almost bulldozed me and my spanakopita triangles.”
I somehow mustered the balance to pull her and my tray away from the boys I was avoiding. “The Untouchables are here,” I whisper screamed.
The expression on her face morphed from annoyed to mortified. “Oh God, really? Well, that’s awkward.” She peered over my shoulder and sighed. “At least Isabella and her posse aren’t…” her voice trailed off. “No, they’re here too.”
I turned around to see that Isabella had appeared.
She was flirting shamelessly with James, the older of the Hunter brothers.
In school he always looked handsome in the required uniform blazer and tie.
But when he was in a tux? I swallowed hard.
What teenager owned a tux, let alone wore one so well? Matthew, that’s who.
I was about to turn my attention back to the Untouchable that I could never not stare at when James looked up from the champagne flute in his hand.
A champagne flute that I was vaguely aware he was too young to hold.
When he caught my gaze, I felt locked in place.
Not because he was James Hunter. Or because he was drinking underage and I’d caught him red-handed.
Or because he smiled. At me. But because I felt this overwhelming sadness roll off of him and onto me.
His smile didn’t reach his eyes. It was as fake as the one I forced onto my face at school.
It was a crime for someone so beautiful to be so sad.
Maybe it was because his rumored girlfriend, Rachel, wasn’t at the party with him?
Or that Isabella was unabashedly marking her territory on him when he wasn’t single?
He downed the rest of the champagne and grabbed another glass.
Or maybe I wasn’t the only one standing in this ballroom feeling lost. And depressed. And barely holding on.
James downed another glass and I turned away. The last thing I ever thought was that the Untouchables were relatable. They were the gods of Empire High. They weren’t like me. Right? “What do we do?” I asked.
Kennedy shrugged. “We keep being invisible. It’s not like they’ll deign to speak to us here when they don’t at school. Besides, they probably don’t even recognize us.”
She was right. We were just as invisible in the halls of our high school. And James’ smile hadn’t been one of recognition, just politeness. Very sad politeness. There was just one problem. “Well…Isabella spoke to us today.”
“Yeah, just to be a bitch. But she wouldn’t do that here in front of all these people.”
“Are you sure about that?” Because I certainly wasn’t. I didn’t think Isabella’s bitchiness was a switch she could just turn on and off. It was just her. I looked down at my Keds with the hole in the side. The butterflies I felt when I had seen Matthew died and rolled over in my stomach.
“Positive. That would be admitting that she even knows us. Which is probably mortifying for her.” She must have seen the look on my face, because she added, “offload the rest of those tarts on me and take a breather in the back. I’ll join you in a sec.”
I slid my tarts onto her tray and made a beeline for the kitchen. My reaction to seeing them was ridiculous. Everything Kennedy said made sense. Regardless, I was suddenly finding it hard to breathe. I leaned against a wall in the kitchen and tried to force myself to stop freaking out.
“Spill it,” Kennedy said.
I jumped. How did she always sneak up on me like that? I was starting to think she was a ninja. “Spill what?” I was trying very hard not to spill anything tonight.
“What is it with you and the Untouchables? Please don’t tell me you want to be one of them. You’re way too nice.”
“You don’t know whether they're nice or not.”
She raised both her eyebrows. “I’ve been walking around Empire High for a year and they’ve never said one word to me.”
“Well, have you said one word to them?”
She laughed. “Touché. But seriously, what gives?”
I leaned my head back on the wall. How could I tell her that I walked around completely numb?
That it only went away when seeing Matthew made my stomach erupt with butterflies?
That the feeling was the only thing that was keeping me afloat?
I knew how it sounded. Pathetic. “I’m fine with being an outsider if I have you,” I said.
“But what’s the harm in staring at them? They’re so beautiful.”
“Nothing’s wrong with staring at perfection. But getting caught up in it? Wanting it? Guys like that will never end up with girls like us, Brooklyn. That’s not how things work.”
“James is dating Rachel. You said she goes to a public school.”
“Yeah…he’s dating her now . But everyone in that room out there knows that he’s going to marry Isabella.”
I hadn’t known that. And I didn’t believe it for a second. But then I pictured James’ sad smile. Life didn’t always turn out the way you wanted it to. I knew that better than anyone.
“Don’t tell me you were hoping James would marry you?” Kennedy said with a laugh.
“No.” I could never be with someone who was as sad as me. It’s not like I could save him when I needed saving myself. We’d just end up drowning together.
“Oh God. You want to marry one of the other ones, don’t you?”
“I never said that.” I pushed off the wall.
Marriage? Now that was ridiculous. My life wasn’t a fairytale.
I didn’t grow up dreaming of my wedding.
I grew up thinking I had to fend for myself.
That men like my father lurked around every corner.
I couldn’t even say that Matthew was nothing like my father, because I’d never met either of them.
I started filling up my tray with more tarts. Kennedy followed me back out in the ballroom, keeping close to me as we flitted through the guests.
“Is it Mason then?” she asked. “I wouldn’t mind waking up to that perfect specimen every day either.”
I laughed. “I’m not dreaming about marrying any of them, trust me.
” But I glanced over at Mason. The Caldwells’ distinguishing feature was their broad shoulders, which made them the perfect Empire High football stars that they were.
High school royalty with championship game wins under their thousand dollar belts.
Not that they needed the wins to be the Untouchables.
Mason, the older brother, had the female student body practically begging for one night with him.
Even though I hadn’t been at school long, I could see that before Kennedy had told me.
He was promiscuous. Devastatingly handsome.
And horribly sad. After seeing James’ smile, it was like the facade around the Untouchables had cracked.
They were more like me than I thought possible.
And I could see the sadness in Mason’s eyes just like I’d seen it in James’.
Did people see my sadness when they looked at me too?
Old wealth probably carried responsibilities I could never imagine.
Is that why the two eldest brothers looked tired?
Because they carried the weight of the world on their shoulders?
That was something I could relate to. But mine wasn’t the same burden.
The weight I carried had nothing to do with familial obligations.
For years mine had been time. Two weeks ago, I’d run out of it.
And now? My burden felt like it was living.
Living without the only person that would ever love me.