Empire High Betrayal(91)

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.





Chapter 38


Friday

I guess we’re both liars. The words kept rolling around in my head as I stared up at the ceiling of my bedroom at the Pruitts’. I hadn’t slept at all. My whole body ached. My heart most of all. The prank was supposed to fix everything. But if anything, the Hunters and Caldwells just hated each other even more. And everyone hated me.

Matt wasn’t speaking to me. Kennedy still wasn’t answering my texts. I’d yelled at Rob and James, even though James swore he didn’t know about that part of the prank. They were probably mad at me now too. As far as I knew, Felix was still in jail because of me. And Mason was pissed at me too. He’d left shortly after Matt and told me not to bother to come back to the house.

Even Isabella had called me a monster. I didn’t care about her opinion. But that one did hurt. A monster had called me a monster.

Miller and Donnelley were both stationed outside my room to make sure Isabella didn’t make good on her promise of killing me in my sleep. But what would it have mattered if she had? No one would miss me. Everyone would be better off if I was gone.

I wiped away my stupid tears as I looked at my phone. I’d left dozens of calls and texts for both Matt and Kennedy. And my screen was still blank. I just stared at it, waiting for something to come through.

But why would it? I was a liar. They’d both said so.

I was a monster.

I was a Pruitt.

I sat up and pressed on Matt’s name on my phone again. I’d tried to explain it a million times already, but one more time wouldn’t hurt. It rang once and went to voicemail.