Elite - Chapter 14
Saturday
Nunca.
I was imagining Matt standing there, right? Like I’d imagined him kissing me a million times before he’d ever even spoken to me? He was just ingrained in my brain and wouldn’t go away no matter how much I tried to force him out.
But then Felix’s face morphed from a smile to a frown. “Girlfriend? What is he talking about, newb?”
Oh no. No, no, no. Felix wasn’t supposed to find out about this until I figured out a great way to tell him. Definitely not like this. Shit.
“I’m not going to say it again,” Matt said.
And then he appeared before me. His chest rising and falling like he’d just sprinted here.
I was definitely not imagining him. Or imagining the way it felt like there was a knife twisting in my heart.
I wanted to run into his arms. I wanted to scream at him.
I wanted to cry because I didn’t have any idea what I wanted.
“Brooklyn?” Felix asked. His hands were still on my face, trying to get me to look at him. Trying to get me to answer his very simple question. But it wasn’t simple to me. Nothing was simple anymore.
And then Matt’s hands were on Felix, ripping him away from me. I wasn’t sure who landed the first punch, but before I even realized what was happening, they’d toppled onto the coffee table, snapping its legs with a crunch that echoed around the room.
Kennedy and I both screamed.
The snapped wood cracked even more as they rolled on top of it. And the sound of broken wood was quickly replaced with bone slamming against bone as they broke out into a full out brawl.
“Stop it!” I screamed and tried to grab Matt’s arm before he could land another punch. But his fists were too quick. “Stop it! Miller! Miller, do something!”
For some reason Miller was laughing as he got between the two boys. He was bigger and older, but not that much bigger and older. The weird laughing confidence was alarming. He could easily get hurt.
“Miller!” I yelled as Felix’s fist hit him before it hit its final destination of Matt’s face.
Miller immediately stopped laughing.
“Oh my God,” Kennedy said. “Cupcake, help him break it up.”
“There’s no way I’m getting into that,” Cupcake said as he helped himself to another sugarcake.
“What are you doing?” she shrieked and slapped the sugarcake out of his hand.
I tried not to pay attention to them as Matt slammed another punch across Felix’s jaw.
“Don’t you ever fucking touch my girl again,” Matt yelled.
“She doesn’t belong to you,” Felix said and elbowed Matt in the throat.
“Stop! Please stop!” I yelled. But they didn’t listen. Someone needed to stop them. I stepped forward, but Miller blocked my path.
“Just give me a second,” he said. He was able to pretty easily separate the two of them when he finally tried. Miller pushed them apart with a grunt. “That’s enough. Cut it out you two.”
Matt wiped the blood from the side of his mouth. “Why was he touching you?” He sounded so pained.
“Matt.” My voice cracked when I said his name. “You and me…we broke up.”
He shook his head. “Like hell we did. We had a disagreement. That doesn’t mean you go running into someone else’s arms without talking to me.”
I felt so small. And that was the whole problem.
Something about being with Matt always made me feel small.
At least when we were around other people.
I didn’t want to have this conversation in front of everyone.
Not now. Especially when he was kind of right.
We broke up yesterday and I was already telling someone else that I loved them.
There was seriously something wrong with me.
It was like all my thoughts were colliding.
I didn’t have an explanation for him. “Matt…”
“Come on. We’re leaving.”
“What? No.” I wasn’t going anywhere with him. I wasn’t even allowed to. “What are you even doing here?”
“You invited me,” he said.
“No I didn’t. And I think you should leave.” What was he talking about? I looked over at Felix and grimaced at the blood on the side of his jaw and his eye that was already swelling shut.
“You texted me asking me to come here,” Matt said.
I absolutely did not. Sure I had thought about it. But I didn’t actually do it.
He was staring at me like I’d lost my mind.
I grabbed my phone and looked down at the text message thread. I had indeed texted him. It was right there in front of me. But I had no recollection of doing it. “No.” I shook my head. “I didn’t write that.”
Matt looked over at Felix like he was about to attack him again.
“It wasn’t Felix either. I don’t…I don’t remember.” It felt like my head was spinning. And for some reason, I really wanted to laugh. Because Matt’s face was so serious. Everyone’s faces were so serious.
“What do you mean you don’t remember?” Matt said. “It was less than half an hour ago.”
“I…” I didn’t know what else to say. Maybe someone had stolen my phone. But I didn’t think Felix would do something like that. I looked over at Cupcake. If I had to guess one person who would steal my phone and text Matt randomly, I’d guess him. We were barely even friends.
“Matt, she asked you to leave,” Felix said. “So I’m not going to ask you again. Get out of my house.”
“Are you kidding me?” Matt sounded more pissed than ever. But he wasn’t looking at Felix. His eyes were trained on me.
I tried to take a step back as he took a step closer, but the back of my legs collided with the couch. What, was he mad that I was staring at Cupcake? I was trying to figure out what the hell was happening, not checking him out.
“Your pupils are huge,” Matt said. “What have you been taking?”
“Nothing.” What was his problem? First Cupcake implied that I looked huge. And now my pupils were big too? All men were jerks.
Matt drew even closer. “Have you been drinking?”
“No. You sound insane right now. I think you need to go home and chill out.”
Kennedy giggled. “Chill out, bruh.” She laughed again as she lifted up a sugarcake. “Do you want one? They make me happy. They’ll probably make you happy too.” She held it out to him.
Matt looked at the sugarcake in her hand and then down at the almost empty box of desserts. He grabbed it out of her hand. “Did you put something in these?”
“Um no, psycho,” said Kennedy. “What would I have put in them?”
Matt turned toward Felix. “What the hell did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything,” Felix said.
“You expect me to believe that? You’re a drug dealer.” He tried to step around Miller, but Miller blocked his path. “You wanted to get with my girl and the only way you could do it was to get her high off her mind? You laced these with something, you dirtbag.” He threw the sugarcake at Felix.
Felix ducked, but not quite quickly enough. The sugarcake smooshed into the side of his face, smearing the blood along his jawline. Felix lunged at Matt, but Miller stopped him.
“Enough!” Miller said. And then he laughed. And then he stopped. And then he laughed again. “Shit. There is definitely something in those.”
Everyone turned toward Cupcake, who was sitting there happily on the couch munching on a sugarcake.
“What?” he said. “I told Brooklyn not to have any more and everyone made it seem like I was a monster. I was trying to get her to pace herself. She didn’t listen.”
“Pace myself?” I asked. “What the hell is in those sugarcakes?”
“Pot, obviously. I was trying out a new recipe so it would be easier to get away with selling them at school. It was Felix’s idea. He’s a freaking genius. We’re all about to make so much money.”
“Fuck,” Felix said and ran his hand down his face. “We were supposed to work on the recipe together, you dick.”
“I thought you’d be happy that I did it so fast. Surprise.”
“Happy? You freaking drugged us, Cupcake. What the hell is your problem?”
“Wait,” Kennedy said. “You’re selling drugs?” She looked upset. Furious even. But her face looked so calm, like she was about to fall asleep.
“Yeah, Felix gave me a stake in his business when he had to stop selling himself. I thought everyone already knew this? Kennedy, you tried out my first batch last night.”
Her face went ghostly pale. “I can’t believe you,” Kennedy said. Instead of falling asleep like I thought she was about to, she stood up. “I trusted you, Cupcake.”
That sentence was ridiculous. She did realize that, right? Trusting a cupcake? I held back my laughter because I could tell it wasn’t the right time. But I swore the smile on my face probably looked like the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland .
“Why do I always fall in love with drug dealers?” she said and put her face in her hands.
Always? I looked at Felix. He was the only other drug dealer I knew.
Kennedy had told me she didn’t like Felix when I’d confronted her about it.
But then I thought about how weird Kennedy had been when I’d first started hanging out with Felix.
How she’d tried to get me to stay away from him.
How she’d kept saying she thought Felix was probably related to me.
God. Rob had even tried to warn me about this, but I hadn’t listened to him. Kennedy really was in love with Felix?
But Felix didn’t react to what she said at all. No one did. The only person that knew what she meant was me.
I put my hand on her back. I didn’t even care about the fist fight that had just happened right in front of me.
I was solely focused on my friend’s pain.
“Kennedy, I’m so sorry. You told me you didn’t…
I didn’t…” I let my voice trail off. My best friend was in love with the guy I just told I was in love with.
And I couldn’t say any more in front of all these people who were still clueless.
“What?” she said and pulled her face out of her hands.
Her eyes grew round as what she’d just said dawned on her.
“I didn’t mean that. I’m just upset that my boyfriend is selling drugs without telling me and tricking me into being his guinea pig!
” Her throat made a weird squeaking noise when she swallowed.
For a second everyone just stared at her.
“I have to go.” She sprinted so fast I would have sworn she was on the track team.
“Shit.” Cupcake ran after her.
I tried to move around Miller to run after her too, but he stopped me.
“You were only given permission to come here,” Miller said. “You can’t follow them wherever they’re going.”
“So now we’re following the rules again?”
“I only didn’t follow them one time by letting those two in in the first place. And look at what happened.” He gestured toward the broken coffee table.
“No, this happened because you just let Matt waltz in here and he’s not on my approved acquaintance list. Or whatever the hell it’s called.”
“Actually he is,” Miller said. “All the Caldwells are.”
“Of course. The one person I don’t want on it already is.”
“Pizza delivery,” some stranger said as he entered the family room. “Whoa, what happened here?”
Miller cursed under his breath and grabbed the pizza delivery guy by the arm, hauling him back toward the hallway.
Felix, Matt, and I were left standing there in an increasingly awkward silence.
I wanted to make a joke about how good the pizza smelled, but it didn’t seem like it would be well received.
“So he’s the one you kissed?” Felix asked. “When you promised I could be your first?”
I wasn’t sure if his words were just harsh against the silence, or harsh because he was angry.
I swallowed hard. “Matt stole my first kiss. I didn’t give it to him.”
Felix shook his head. “Were you seeing him that whole time? Or just after you told me you wanted to be friends until you were ready for more?”
“Felix…”
“I’m just your backup plan.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I feel like a fucking idiot.”
“Felix, that’s not…”
“Then how else would you put it?”
“That I really like you. And I’m confused.”
“A few minutes ago you looked me right in the eyes and told me that you loved me. So that I’d keep crawling back to you like an idiot. You’re not confused, newb. You played me.”
“Felix, please…” I reached out to him, but he sidestepped my hands and walked away without another word.
I looked at the broken table and the drops of blood on the plush carpet. What the hell had I just done? I didn’t realize there were tears streaming down my face until I tasted the salt on my lips.
“Brooklyn.” Matt’s voice was gentler than it should have been. Wasn’t he going to tell me I was a terrible person and run off too? But he didn’t run. He just stared at me with so much concern on his stupid perfect features.
“Matt.” My Matt. The one that held me while I cried every night after my uncle died.
The one who took me to his favorite spot in NYC so I wouldn’t feel like I didn’t have a family.
The one that got down on one knee to ask me to be his girlfriend, just to make me smile.
I took a deep breath. The one who did nothing when Isabella poured milk on me.
The one who let his best friend believe he was keeping me a secret because I was poor.
The one that made me lie and sneak around and hurt the people that I loved.
“I don’t have anything left to say to you. ”
“Well, tough luck. Because I have a lot to say to you.”
God, he was exasperating. “Matt, I told you that I couldn’t date you because my heart couldn’t take it. I told you that. And you kept pushing it anyway. So I gave it to you and…” I couldn’t keep going. “I trusted you. And I feel…nothing. I’m not even sad anymore. I can’t feel anything. I’m numb.”
“That’s the drugs,” he said.
“No, it’s you.”
“Brooklyn…”
“You just sat there and watched at lunch. All those terrible things Isabella said to me and you did nothing. Your friends actually stood up for me. But you…you were silent. I get that you didn’t want Isabella to know we were dating.
But even strangers can be kind. And I don’t want to be with someone who isn’t. ”
I walked away from him without looking back. But I was very aware of his footsteps following me.