Elite (Empire High, #2)(36)

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.”





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.