Empire High Elite (Empire High #2) - Ivy Smoak Page 0,43

My whole body felt weird and light, like the realization had put me on a cloud. I’d let myself forget about Matt for an hour and it had given me all the clarity I needed.

“I love you, Felix,” I thought to myself. I did. I loved him. It had always been him.

Everyone around me stopped laughing and talking. A hush fell over the room. I lifted my head off Felix’s shoulder and stared at them staring at me.

“What did you say?” Felix asked.

Holy hell in a handbasket. Had I just said that I loved him out loud? Like…the words came out of my actual mouth? I reached up to touch my lips and was weirdly surprised that they were even there.

“What?” I croaked.

“You said you loved me.” Felix’s voice was soft. Like butter. God, butter was so good. I wanted some right now. I wanted him right now.

“I did say those words out loud, yes.”

The doorbell rang, but Felix didn’t break eye contact with me.

Miller cleared his throat. “The pizza’s here. I’ll get it.”

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