Empire High Betrayal (Empire High #3) - Ivy Smoak Page 0,108
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