Betrayal - Chapter 37 #2
The second chandelier fell to the ground and as someone went to dodge it, they somehow hit the turkey carving fork.
It sailed through the air and stuck into the family portrait.
Right in the middle of Isabella’s painted forehead.
The forked dragged down, ruining the portrait as everyone continued yelling and running around.
Holy shit.
Rob leaned across the broken table, not caring at all about his dress shoe stepping in the brown goo, since he knew it wasn’t poop. “Good one, Sanders,” he said and lifted up his hand.
I just stared at him. This wasn’t part of the plan! Put your hand down, you crazy person!
I heard another person vomiting.
“I’m going to kill you!” Isabella screamed at me. “I’m going to fucking kill you, you monster!”
I didn’t do this. I backed up, knocking into Matt. He grabbed my arms to steady me.
“You’re going to fucking die, Brooklyn!” Isabella screamed.
“Isabella,” I said. “I didn’t…”
“Shut up, you bitch! I’m going to kill you in your sleep! How could you do this to me?”
Matt’s hands fell from my arms.
I turned around. “Matt, I didn’t…” my words trailed away. How was I going to explain this?
Matt looked over at Rob, who still stupidly had his hand raised in the air for a high five.
“Best prank ever,” Rob said. “A classic Hunter, Sanders mess around.”
No. No, no, no!
“That was definitely worth all the planning,” he said. “Don’t leave me hanging, Sanders.”
What the hell, Rob?!
Matt looked down at me. “I can’t believe you.” He stepped away from me like I was poisoned.
“It’s not what you think,” I said.
He just shook his head and walked out of the dining room.
“Matt!” I yelled and ran after him. “Wait!”
Matt stopped at the Pruitts’ front door.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Brooklyn?” For weeks he’d kept his cool.
Trying not to stress me out. But it was like something snapped inside of him.
He was seething, his chest rising and falling as he tried to hold himself together.
It looked like he was going to explode. “Were you seriously hanging out with the Hunters behind my back to plan…that?”
“Yes. I mean, no. I didn’t know…”
“You didn’t know that you were hanging out with Rob and James behind my back?”
I didn’t even know what to say to that. Tears started falling from my eyes and I tried to wipe them away.
“You promised me you wouldn’t,” he said. “You promised me you were on my side.”
I wasn’t sure whether he was going to punch the wall or cry. “I am on your side, Matt. I did this for you. I wanted you guys to be friends again.”
“You made Isabella shit herself and fall through the ceiling to make me friends with those dickwads again? How does that make any sense?”
“It was pudding.” My voice sounded so small. How could I make him understand this? My mind seemed scrambled as I searched for the right words. I wasn’t even sure what I could say to fix this. The way he was looking at me…it was the same way he looked at Isabella. Like I was a monster.
“We just talked yesterday about no more secrets,” he said. “And you were hanging out with them this whole time. And that?” He gestured toward the dining room. “We talked about revenge. And I told you that you were better than this. You’re not supposed to be like them!”
What did that mean? “I’m not. I’m…”
“Give me a break. You’re just like Isabella. You laughed at someone’s pain. You plotted to hurt someone. I was marrying you to fucking save you from becoming a Pruitt. And you became one anyway.”
His words made my chest hurt. “I didn’t ask you to save me.” I asked you to love me. “And I’m not like them. I didn’t know it was going to go this far. It was just supposed to be laxatives and a little pudding on her chair. That was it. I just wanted her to stop messing with me.”
“She fell through the freaking ceiling half-naked!”
“But I didn’t know that was going to happen! And you can’t stand there and tell me that she didn’t deserve that after everything she’s done to me.” She deserved worse.
He shook his head. “I can’t even look at you right now.”
It was the exact same thing Kennedy had said to me yesterday. I grabbed his arm. “Matt, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. If you’d just give me a second to explain.” None of this was coming out right. “I didn’t mean to.”
“You didn’t mean to talk to James and Rob behind my back?
Or you didn’t mean to lie about it? Or you didn’t mean to keep this crazy revenge plot from me?
Or you didn’t mean to lie about keeping secrets?
Or you didn’t mean to stoop to Isabella’s level and publicly humiliate her when I thought you were the bigger person? Which thing didn’t you mean?”
God, what had I done? “All of it.” I tried to blink away my tears.
“My mom was wrong. You can’t marry out of this crazy family. They’re toxic. All of them.”
Is he calling me toxic? I tried to wipe away my tears.
But I couldn’t stop crying. Because he was staring at me like I was a stranger.
Like I was toxic. Like I was a Pruitt and not a soon-to-be Caldwell.
Isabella’s a disease. Those were some of the first words he’d ever said to me.
I’d known that’s what he thought. That the Pruitts were all toxic.
I just prayed he didn’t lump me in with the rest of them.
“You’re not the person I thought you were.” He grabbed the doorknob.
“Yes I am. Please just stay and hear me out.”
“Like you heard me out when you believed I’d sleep with my best friend’s girl? You didn’t give me the time of day.”
Matt. My chest ached not just because he was angry. But because what he was saying was true. “I’m sorry…”
“I fought for you. For us. I tried to be patient and understanding about what you were up to all that time you weren’t speaking to me.
But we’re together now and you still look me in the eye and lie and keep secrets and sneak around behind my back.
How the hell am I supposed to be understanding about that?
You don’t care about my opinion at all. You don’t care about me. ”
“Of course I care about you.” My tears were falling so fast that he was blurring in front of me.
How could he think I didn’t care? I loved him so much that it hurt.
“Yes, I planned a stupid little prank to get back at Isabella, but I never meant for it to go this far. And I was doing it to fix your relationship with James and Rob.”
He shook his head. And he didn’t say it. But I knew what he was thinking. That I did it because I was a Pruitt. That their blood was in my veins. That I was a monster.
I couldn’t think straight. Nothing was coming out right. But I was crying too hard. And I could feel so many eyes on me from the dining room. I couldn’t breathe. “You have to believe me,” I choked.
“That’s the whole problem, Brooklyn. You haven’t given me any reason to believe a word you say.” He opened the door.
“Matt, you promised you wouldn’t walk away.”
“I guess we’re both liars.” The door slammed shut behind him.