Elite - Chapter 13 #2
Homecoming. Crap balls. I’d told both Felix and Matt that I’d go with them.
But seeing as Matt and I were over and he was never allowed to be with me in public in the first place…
he was out of the race. Which was good. Because telling one of them that I overbooked would have been very uncomfortable.
So really, the breakup saved me. Yup. “I don’t know yet.
As soon as I do, I’ll make sure to tell you. ”
“I’ve found a few dresses online that I thought you might want to see,” Kennedy said. “But I guess you can kind of buy whatever dress you want now, right?”
I didn’t want to talk about this. I wanted to forget about the Pruitts, not picture myself in one of the stupid dresses Diane Cartwright had fitted me for.
They probably all showed my midriff and Cupcake would just make fun of me all night.
“Do you guys want to watch a movie or something?” I asked.
It was a lame segue, but I prayed that it would work.
“Sounds good to me.” Felix put his arm behind me on the couch, being careful not to touch me.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Apparently my segue was perfection.
Kennedy abruptly stood up. “Better idea. Let’s play never have I ever.”
“Oh, good idea, babe,” Cupcake said.
Felix looked at me like he was waiting for me to make the decision for both of us.
“Yeah, let’s do it.” I was actually feeling a little too wired to sit and watch a movie anyway. All the sugar had made me forget about the fact that I hadn’t slept at all. I’d just be careful not to bring up homecoming during the game. “Miller, you’re up first,” I said with laugh.
He just stared at me, but I swore I saw a hint of a smile.
“I can go first,” said Cupcake. “I always forget, do I say I haven’t done something, and if you guys have done it you raise your hands?”
“Yup,” Kennedy said as she settled herself into his lap.
He nodded. “Got it. Never have I ever…used a public restroom.”
I laughed. He clearly didn’t understand the game. That was just a flat out lie. I was about to correct him, but Kennedy beat me to it.
“Wait,” Kennedy said. “Your thing is supposed to be something you haven’t done.”
“Right. I’ve never used a public restroom. That’s what I just said.”
“Wait,” Kennedy said again. “Are you seriously telling me that you’ve never used a public restroom?”
“Never.”
Her jaw dropped. “How is that humanly possible?”
“I always just go home.”
“So if you had to pee right now…”
He shrugged. “I’d go home.”
No freaking way. That was the weirdest thing I’d ever heard in my life. Had he never had a bathroom emergency? Oh, no, what if he had? That meant he’d probably wet his pants in his fancy town car.
“But you’d have to drive like 20 minutes,” she said.
“You’re supposed to raise your hand if you have done that thing,” Cupcake said. “You’re not supposed to question it.”
“I’m sorry, babe. It’s just…you’re serious?”
“Of course I’m serious. Public restrooms are gross.”
So is peeing your pants. I giggled to myself even though Cupcake hadn’t admitted to such an incident.
He finally corralled us into finishing our side of the game. We all raised our hands. Because we weren’t psychopaths like him.
“Okay that was…interesting,” Kennedy said. “Well, it finally all makes sense. Now I understand that thing you told me. You know…that tidbit of information would be really great for this game.”
Cupcake looked horrified. “Don’t…”
“Never have I ever sharted my pants at school,” Kennedy said before Cupcake could stop her.
I almost spit out the sugarcake I was eating when I saw Cupcake’s eyes bug out of his head.
“I told you that in confidence,” Cupcake hissed at her.
She held back her laugh as only Cupcake raised his hand.
“It was one time,” Cupcake said.
Felix laughed. “Man, maybe you should start using a public restroom.”
“One time,” he grumbled.
Suddenly Cupcake nailing me in the face with a dodgeball or calling me fat didn’t seem so bad.
The poor guy had sharted in school. It was hard to come back from that.
And yet…he was one of the most popular kids at Empire High.
With the name Cupcake. He was basically a genie for pulling that one off.
“Okay.” I rubbed my hands together while I tried to think of something fun and witty too. “Never have I ever had a real boyfriend or girlfriend. You know…one that takes you on dates in public and holds your hand in the hallways of school.” God, that wasn’t fun and witty. It was pathetic.
Kennedy, Cupcake, and Felix all raised their hands.
“So you’ve only had a fake one?” Felix asked with a laugh.
Something like that.
“That’s not part of the game,” Kennedy said, saving me from answering. “It’s your turn,” she said to him.
“Coming from someone who forced Cupcake to clarify about a thousand times,” Felix said.
Kennedy threw a pillow at him.
Felix easily caught it before it hit him in the face. “Never have I ever wanted pizza more than I do right this second.”
I let the sentence roll around in my mind. “Wait, does that mean you do want pizza?”
“I think it means he doesn’t?” Kennedy said. “Because he said I never.” She put her hand up in the air but she looked really confused.
Cupcake shook his head. “No it means he definitely wants it right now?”
“My head hurts. I have no idea whether or not I’m supposed to raise my hand,” I said. “But all I can think about is eating pizza right now.”
“Same!” Kennedy yelled and waved her hand in the air. “Pizza please!”
Felix started laughing. “I was trying to be clever but I have no idea if that made any sense. I’m starving. Who else wants pizza?”
I shoved Felix’s shoulder. “Cheater. You’re supposed to confess something like the rest of us.”
“I’ll make it up to all of you by ordering pizza.”
“Oh, you should use my Amex card. I think it’s for stuff like this.”
“It’s fine, I got it,” he said with a wink and started talking on the phone.
“Amex card?” Kennedy asked.
“One of the perks of being a Pruitt. Mr. Pruitt gave me a credit card and told me to expense whatever I wanted on it. Pretty irresponsible of him if you ask me.”
Kennedy shrugged. “I guess he trusts you.”
That was it! I’d just had an epiphany. “What if he didn’t trust me?”
She just stared at me.
“I should just go crazy and buy a ton of stuff. Then he’ll hate me and disown me.”
“How much stuff do you think you’ll have to buy to make him mad?”
“I don’t know. Like…a thousand dollars’ worth?” I looked down at the couch I was sitting on. “I should buy a couch! That would really show him.”
Kennedy nodded. “Those are expensive. We got ours second-hand and it was still a few hundred bucks.”
This is genius. “Miller, can we go furniture shopping?”
It wasn’t just a small corner of his mouth to lift up this time. He was full on smiling. He even laughed. “It’ll have to be more than a couch. You’re thinking too small.”
“So like…the matching love seat and chair too?”
“He won’t even bat an eye at that. He’ll just think you’re decorating your room.”
“Well what do you suggest I do?”
“I don’t know.” He walked over to us, his air of seriousness completely gone. “But I’m going to have another one of these.” He picked up a sugarcake. “They’re great.”
“Thanks,” Cupcake said.
“What if I bought a thousand sugarcakes?” I asked. “That would be…a lot.” I couldn’t mentally get over the number one thousand. Anything more seemed so extreme.
“Why don’t you just tell him how you feel?” Felix asked. His arm was still stretched out behind me on the couch and I let my head fall on his shoulder.
“I already tried that. It didn’t work.” I left off the fact that Mr. Pruitt swore he didn’t know about me.
It didn’t change anything. It was my mom and me against the world.
As soon as I thought it, I closed my eyes.
My mom and me against the world. For a few minutes there, I had forgotten that my mom was dead.
I’d forgotten everything that hurt. I took a deep breath and breathed in Felix’s familiar cologne. It was him. He’d taken away the pain.
God, I was such an idiot. I thought Matt was the one for me.
Hell, for a few minutes there I even thought Miller could be it.
But it was Felix. Clearly it was Felix. He was literally my shoulder to cry on.
And he’d made me forget. My whole body felt weird and light, like the realization had put me on a cloud.
I’d let myself forget about Matt for an hour and it had given me all the clarity I needed.
“I love you, Felix,” I thought to myself. I did. I loved him. It had always been him.
Everyone around me stopped laughing and talking. A hush fell over the room. I lifted my head off Felix’s shoulder and stared at them staring at me.
“What did you say?” Felix asked.
Holy hell in a handbasket. Had I just said that I loved him out loud? Like…the words came out of my actual mouth? I reached up to touch my lips and was weirdly surprised that they were even there.
“What?” I croaked.
“You said you loved me.” Felix’s voice was soft. Like butter. God, butter was so good. I wanted some right now. I wanted him right now.
“I did say those words out loud, yes.”
The doorbell rang, but Felix didn’t break eye contact with me.
Miller cleared his throat. “The pizza’s here. I’ll get it.”
Felix reached out and ran his fingers down my jaw.
The action made me shiver.
“You love me.” He touched me like he was scared I’d disappear.
And I realized it wasn’t just me that didn’t have any love left in my life.
I lost everyone who put me first. But Felix had said his parents never put him first either.
They were always gone. He was all alone.
Just like me. And when I’d told him I was all alone at school the other day, he told me that I wasn’t.
That I had him. I had him. But that wasn’t why he was looking at me like that.
He was staring at me because he had me. And he needed love just as badly as I did.
I tilted my head up to his. I didn’t care that Kennedy or Cupcake were watching.
Or that Miller and a pizza delivery guy could probably see too.
I was much too curious to find out if two broken souls could make one perfectly whole one.
Because I really needed them to. I didn’t want to feel like I was drowning anymore.
Just before our lips touched, I heard the one person that could break me out of my trance. The person who had thrown my broken, shattered heart into oncoming traffic. Matthew. Freaking. Caldwell.
“Get your fucking hands off my girlfriend.”