Empire High Elite (Empire High #2) - Ivy Smoak Page 0,74
didn’t feel like I could filter myself. “I think maybe I just miss the feeling of being loved by someone. Unconditionally. And I know that there’s conditions with all of them. But for a few seconds when Miller holds me, I feel like someone’s on my side. Like I’m not alone.”
She kicked my shin lightly. “Girl, you have me. I love you. My mom loves you.”
“But I’m not allowed to live with you guys. Do you have any idea what it’s like for me to go back to the Pruitts’ after school every day? To live down the freaking hall from Isabella? I’m terrified all the time. I’m scared of her and her mom. I’m even scared of Mr. Pruitt. I don’t trust any of them. Some mornings my bedroom door is open. Did you know that? And I lock it, Kennedy. I swear I lock it.”
She pressed her lips together. “I’m not judging you. I’m just worried about you. If you still like Matt, you should tell him. Or if you like Felix more…” her voice trailed off. “You should tell him that then.”
I stared at her. She didn’t get what it was like in my shoes. Yes, she’d lost a parent. But she didn’t lose her only parent. And she didn’t lose Uncle Jim the same way I had. We both loved him, but I needed him. He was all I’d had left. And now I felt starved for love. Just thinking about it made me feel cheap. I owed Felix an apology. I owed Miller an apology. I even owed Matt an apology, but I wouldn’t give it to him because he owed me a lot more. But the worst part was, I was worried I loved a piece of each of them. I was too confused to know better. I just liked the way they made me feel.
“I’ll talk to them,” I said. “As soon as I figure out which one I like the most.”
She laughed. “We both know it’s Matt.”
I didn’t contradict her. We did both know it. And we also both knew he was an asshole. It was one trait I wasn’t sure how to overlook. Everything else I thought I’d known about him had just turned out to be a lie.
“You’re eventually going to need to talk to him,” she said.
“I don’t want to think about it today. It’s homecoming. Shouldn’t we be having fun?”
She laughed. “I am having fun. I’m watching my favorite sport with my bestie. And now everyone knows that Cupcake has a mini-dong. What’s more fun than that?”
I laughed. But in the back of my head, I was thinking that a swift kick in the nuts would be more satisfying than a rumor. Cupcake deserved worse for what he did to her.
“Oh the floats are starting.” Kennedy pointed to the field. Several convertibles led the way, each with two members of the homecoming court sitting in them. I hadn’t been paying attention to homecoming details at all. But I wasn’t surprised to see that James, Mason, Isabella, and a few of Isabella’s minions had all been nominated for homecoming king and queen.
The stands started to fill up again so that everyone could watch who would be crowned. Not that I cared in the slightest. Although I really wished Isabella wouldn’t win. If she did it was probably because she’d threatened the student body. Stupid Pruitt rules that she doesn’t follow.
Behind the convertibles were floats that each grade had been assigned to decorate. Neither Kennedy nor I had been asked to participate. I watched the senior float go by. It was a 007 theme, which was pretty clever for their graduating year. The junior float didn’t look nearly as good. There was an Eagle made of crepe paper that was practically falling off the float. Apparently the juniors were a bunch of slackers.
Then the sophomore float started to go by and I could barely breathe. Matt was standing in the middle of it, still in his football gear but without the helmet. A few of his teammates were on either side of him. He was holding a microphone in his hand and staring right at me.
Music started blaring through the speakers of the stadium. It was a You’re An American Reject song that I knew pretty well called My Dirty Little Secret.
“What is happening?” Kennedy asked right before Matt lifted the mic to his mouth. She gasped. “Oh my God he’s going to sing to you.”