Elite - Chapter 4 #2
He was the sweetest person I had ever met.
“Yes.” I was smiling so hard it hurt. But as I stared down at him, I knew I needed more from him.
Because I was barely holding on as it was.
And he’d hurt me before. I didn’t want him to do it again.
“As long as you promise not to break my heart. Because it already feels broken and I can’t…
” I took a deep breath. I didn’t want to cry.
He was being wonderful and I refused to ruin this moment. “I can’t handle you breaking it too.”
“I’ll never hurt your heart. You’re my forever, Brooklyn.” He smiled up at me.
I was pretty sure he looked as happy as me. “Get up,” I said with a laugh. I wanted his arms around me.
Instead of standing, he pulled out what he’d been hiding behind his back.
And I was relieved it wasn’t a jewelry box.
“And since you’re now part of my family, I thought maybe you could adopt some of my family’s traditions.
” He handed me one of the foil packets he was holding as he stood up.
“I know you like to eat healthy. Sometimes you need a little comfort food though. And whatever you don’t eat you can feed to the birds. ”
I pulled back one of the layers of foil and laughed. “I don’t think ducks like hotdogs.”
“But they do like bread.” He tore a piece of bread off his hotdog bun and tossed it in the water. Sure enough, one of the ducks swam over and grabbed the bread in his beak.
I smiled as I watched the water ripple where the bread had been. The duck slowly swam away to find more food.
“You need to eat something,” Matt said. “Please.”
I looked up at him. And for the first time I could see how worried he was about me.
I could feel him staring at the dark circles under my eyes.
I wouldn’t be surprised if I had lost some weight.
The last few days had been terrible. I smiled to help reassure him, and then took a bite of the hotdog. “Oh my God, this is so freaking good.”
He laughed. “I thought you might like it.”
“Where did you even get this?” I looked over my shoulder at the empty path.
“The best hotdog vendor is just right over there.” He pointed down a path in the opposite direction, but I couldn’t see any farther because of the trees. “There’s so many things about this city that I can’t wait to show you. Stick with me and this will feel like home in no time.”
I tried to hide my smile as I took another bite. I had no problem sticking with him. The issue was that it was hard to stick to someone who wasn’t allowed to be seen with you in public. “So you told your mom about me, huh?”
He nodded.
“How did that go?”
He smiled. “Good. She saw you at the funeral. She said you were pretty.”
I wasn’t sure why, but I was expecting a bigger reaction than that. I couldn’t be someone that his parents approved of. But then something hit me. He’d told her after the news broke. He told her after everyone believed I was related to the Pruitts. I suddenly wasn’t hungry anymore.
“But we mostly talked about how we can get you out of staying with the Pruitts,” he continued.
“Wait. Aren’t your parents friends with them?”
“No, not really. They used to be in business together, but then they had a falling out.”
Interesting. “Is your mom the only person that knows about us?” I was happy he finally told someone.
But it made me a little sick to my stomach that he only fessed up after he realized I was related to a monster.
A rich monster, but still. And I was happy that Matt wanted to ditch class with me this morning.
But I wasn’t an idiot. He’d given Kennedy the note to give to me so we wouldn’t be seen together.
And we were in the middle of central park because no one at school was allowed to know I was seeing him.
All of it was twisted. And it resulted in my stomach twisting into knots.
I was his girlfriend right here right now, but I wouldn’t be at school later today. He’d keep his love for me hidden.
“I told Rob too. Technically he borrowed James’ car yesterday so we could find you. And that combined with the fact that he overheard our conversation on the phone…I didn’t have much of a choice.”
He didn’t sound mad. But he also seemed to purposefully avoid the word love again.
I was worried I knew why. It felt like my heart was beating too fast. I didn’t want him to take it back just because I was a Pruitt.
I didn’t want anything to change. But everything already had.
I’d given him a condition for being my boyfriend – to not break my heart.
Maybe he had a condition too – we’d be in a relationship only if I could get away from the Pruitts.
“Did you tell Rob why you’re keeping our relationship a secret? ”
He lowered his eyebrows as he looked down at me. “You know I can’t.”
Honestly, I didn’t. That was the whole problem. I knew there was some secret that Isabella was holding over his head. I knew it would hurt James if it came out. But that was all I knew. “Didn’t Rob ask why?”
“I think he just assumed it was because of…you know. Our economic differences.”
Economic differences? Something about the way he tried to make it sound fancy pissed me off.
It was almost as if he was confirming why he finally told his mother about me.
Because maybe we weren’t so economically different now.
“You mean because I’m poor and you’re rich?
” I took a step back from him. “You let him think that you’re embarrassed to be with me? ”
“That’s not…”
“That is what you did. And that is what he thinks. Of course that’s what he thinks.”
“Hey.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me into his chest. “I just need a bit more time. But I promise I’ll figure it out, okay?” He cupped the side of my face with his hand. “I could never be embarrassed of you. I love you.”
I couldn’t exactly stay mad at him when he said that.
I had worried he wasn’t going to say it ever again.
But there it was. “I love this hotdog,” I said and took another bite to stall.
He’d told his mom so he could get me out of this mess with Mr. Pruitt.
And he’d already told me our relationship had to be a secret for now.
Nothing had changed really. Except my living arrangements and possibly my last name.
He laughed. “Anything else you love?”
“This view.” I gestured to the water. His stupid perfect face and perfect smile were tipping the scales back in his favor.
“Is that all?”
I smiled up at him. “No.” I bit my lower lip, pretending to think.
But there was nothing to think about. I’d still love him even if we had to hide from the world for a few more days.
Or weeks. God, hopefully not months. I stared into his chocolaty brown eyes.
“Oh right. I’m pretty sure I love you too. ”
He leaned down and kissed me.
And I knew I could never stay mad at him when I craved his lips this much. I was pretty sure the taste of cinnamon on his lips somehow soothed my soul. And I needed more. I gripped the back of his neck.
He groaned into my mouth and pulled away far too soon.
“As much as I want to keep doing that right now, I have one more stop on our adventure before we need to go back to school. I have a test third period that I can’t miss.
” He grabbed my hand before I could respond and we started running through Central Park.
***
We did need a car to get to our second destination. So he hailed a taxi. He didn’t ask me to close my eyes this time. And as we made one turn after the next, I knew exactly where we were going.
When the taxi pulled up in front of the cemetery, I was already having a hard time keeping a straight face.
He knew how important it was for me to say goodbye. He knew how much missing the second half of the funeral weighed on me. He was already fixing everything.
I tried to hold it together as Matt opened the taxi door for me. And as he held my hand, winding me through the tombstones until we got to a patch of fresh dirt. And as I forced myself to not fall to my knees.
If Matt wasn’t here, I knew what I’d probably do.
I’d cry big ugly tears. I’d sit on my uncle’s grave and have a conversation with him, like I so often did at my mom’s gravesite.
I’d cry some more. I’d pray to go back in time.
And most importantly, I’d tell him I was sorry that he gave up his last several weeks on earth to take care of me. I owed him everything.
But Matt was here. So I didn’t do any of those things.
Instead, I just stared. I stared at the gravestone and tried to tell myself to hold it together.
But in the end the grief won. I wasn’t strong enough to hold it in.
I missed my uncle. I missed him so fucking much.
And I regretted that the whole time my uncle was here with me, I’d been missing my mom instead of appreciating him.
He’d never know how grateful I was that he’d taken me in when I didn’t have anyone else. He’d never know.
Instead of saying a word, Matt just held me so I wouldn’t fall.
He let me cry all over his school blazer.
I was pretty sure some snot got on there too, but he didn’t even flinch.
When I’d sat on my mother’s grave, I had never felt so alone in my life.
I expected the same thing to happen right now.
But it didn’t. Because I wasn’t alone. I had Matt.
I closed my eyes hard and tried to stop the tears from falling.
And my thoughts latched on to the first distraction, even though it wasn’t a great one.
My mother didn’t want me to know who my father was.
My uncle wanted to keep me from it too. Even Mrs. Alcaraz wanted to protect me from whatever went on under the Pruitts’ roof.
Standing there on top of the dirt I was devastated.
I couldn’t even stop the tears streaming down my cheeks.
But mostly? I was terrified. Because I didn’t know why I needed protection from my own father.
I knew his daughter was cold and cruel. It was likely Mr. Pruitt was those things too. But what if it was something worse?
Right now the only thing that felt worse, though, was knowing what moving in with the Pruitts would mean.
It would force me to see Matt even less.
There would be no late-night sneaking into my bedroom.
Or coming over for dinner. I’d be living with Isabella…
the one person that wouldn’t allow our relationship.
She’d take Matt away from me for good. And he was the only thing holding me together.
But there was nothing to say. Matt knew it too. He was doing everything he could to fix it. So I just had to wait. But I’d never been good at that. I’d never been good at wasting time. Because time was the only thing that was limited.
I started to cry harder. I cried for my uncle.
I cried for my mother. And I cried for myself too.
Because it was then that I realized that I had been wasting time.
I’d been taking life for granted. The one thing I knew for sure I couldn’t.
I’d wasted away the time I had with my uncle.
My last real home. My last real semblance of normal.
It was gone before I ever really got a chance to appreciate it.
And now I had to spend all my foreseeable time with a family I hated.
A family who might have secrets worse than their cruelty.
A family everyone who loved me tried to protect me from.
“He knew that you loved him,” Matt said and kissed the top of my head. “He knew.”
I was too embarrassed to tell him that I was mostly crying because I was scared.