Empire High Elite

by Ivy Smoak

  “But class is about to start.”

  She winked at me. “Looks like you’re not going to your first class today. Later, babes.” She blew me a kiss just like Isabella, pretended to gag again, and disappeared into the crowded hallway.

  The bell was going to ring any minute. I opened up the note.

  I think we have something more important to do than first period. Don’t leave me hanging. I can only steal James’ car one more time before he completely loses it.

  I folded the note and slid it into my blazer pocket. He didn’t have to ask me twice. I thought being back at Empire High would be comforting. But it just made me miss my uncle even more. I kept thinking I’d see him like it was a regular day. Just thinking it made it hard to breathe.

  Matt was the only person who could make me feel better. Missing a class or two was worth it if I could spend the morning in his arms. Or whatever he had planned. It would certainly be better than this.

  Chapter 4

  Friday

  Matt was leaning against the side of James’ Benz, staring down at his phone. Him showing up each night after my uncle died was the only thing that had held me together. And if I was being truly honest with myself, just seeing him in the hallways when I first moved to the city had held me together too. Without him I’d still be in pieces.

  I ran down the front steps. He looked up from his phone just in time to catch me as I launched myself into his arms.

  He held me tight, not letting me put my feet back to the ground. “I’m sorry about last night,” he whispered into my hair. “I went to their apartment and Mr. Pruitt just kept saying you weren’t there. He wouldn’t tell me where you were. He wouldn’t even let me up. And then this morning when he left, he said you’d be at school.”

  “Wait.” I unwrapped my arms from around his neck so I could look at him. “You stayed outside the Pruitt’s apartment all night?” I stared at the dark circles under his eyes.

  “I thought he was lying,” Matt said. “I didn’t want to leave just in case you were up there. I wanted to make sure you knew you weren’t alone. And I called that number you called me from about a million times, but no one answered.”

  Miller probably wasn’t thrilled about all those calls. But I didn’t care about Miller. Or Mr. Pruitt being annoyed. Or any of that. Matt had camped out on a city sidewalk because he was worried about me. He wanted to be there for me even though he couldn’t hold me in his arms. It was the sweetest thing I’d ever heard of. And that was all I cared about.

  He reached out and traced the circles under my eyes with his thumb. “Where were you?”

  “I thought I was at his place. But this morning he mentioned that I’d be moving into his actual apartment with the rest of his family. So maybe it was like…his spare apartment?” I didn’t know what sorts of weird stuff rich people were into.

  Matt frowned. “Why would he have a second apartment?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe a place to hide his illegitimate children?”

  Matt winced.

  “I’m kidding. He probably just rented it for the night or something.” I didn’t want to talk about this anymore. I wanted Matt to distract me like only he could. But I could see the question in his eyes before he even spoke.

  “Did he…” Matt’s voice trailed off. “Did he get the results from the paternity test back yet?”

  Everyone in the whole school was acting like they already knew. But it was probably just rumors circulating from the scene Mr. Pruitt created at the funeral. Matt was the only one that knew about the paternity test. He was the only person left that thought I was still just…me. I didn’t want that to change. Especially because I knew what he thought of the Pruitts. He told me Isabella was a disease. Toxic. And that it wasn’t just her. Her whole family was the same. Did that make me toxic too?

  I took a deep breath and remembered what Kennedy had just told me. “I’m a Sanders. I’ll always be a Sanders. But yeah…he’s my biological father.” I shrugged like it meant nothing. But we both knew that wasn’t true. It changed everything. I swore it even changed the way Matt was looking at me. Or maybe it was just my own disappointment that I felt.

  He reached out and ran his fingers through my hair.

  His touch was so comforting. It helped give me the courage to ask him all the questions that I knew he had answers too. “Is he married? Does he have any other kids?”

  “It’s just his wife and Isabella.”

  “Do you know how long they’ve been married?”

  Matt shook his head.

  Isabella was older than me. So the odds that Mr. Pruitt was married to Isabella’s mom when my mom got pregnant with me were pretty high. Which meant he was a cheater. Did my mom know? I swallowed hard. None of it mattered. I didn’t want anything to do with his family. He didn’t want me. He’d told my mom so. “I don’t want to live with them, Matt.”

  “And you won’t. My mom agreed to meet with your uncle’s lawyer along with Mrs. Alcaraz this afternoon. We have a great family lawyer that she’s bringing. They’ll figure it out. You won’t have to spend one night at their place.”

  I heard it in his voice. What he’d told me about the Pruitts was true. He hated them. And it felt like maybe he hated a tiny piece of me too now. I didn’t want to think about any of that. “Thank you for asking your mom to help. I want to hear all about how that conversation went, but right now I just really want to get the hell away from here. Are you sure James doesn’t mind that you’re borrowing his car again?” Not that I really cared. Hopefully Matt would scratch the paint on his car or leave a ding. As far as I was concerned, James was an asshole. One of my uncle’s last days had been spent hearing insults thrown at him from Isabella. And it was James’ fault.

  “He wouldn’t care. But my note was a joke. We’re not actually taking his car.” He threw his arm around my shoulders and directed me through the small parking lot. “Where we’re going, we can just walk.”

  “So where are we going?” I was actually glad that we weren’t driving. Fresh air always made me feel better. If you could even describe any air in Manhattan as fresh.

  He smiled over at me as he steered me toward Central Park. “One of my favorite places.”

  It was like he could read my mind.

  For a while we just walked in silence. Eventually his arm fell from my shoulders and he grabbed my hand. I was happy to be walking around Central Park with him and not hiding our relationship to the world. But just thinking about it made me sick to my stomach. I didn’t want to go back to school and pretend we weren’t together. Not today when it still felt like my world was falling apart. I gripped his hand a little tighter.

  “Close your eyes,” he said.

  I laughed when I looked up at him. The smile on his face was contagious. Any negative thoughts I had were easy to dismiss when I was staring at him.

  He reached out and covered my eyes with his hand. “Now keep them closed.” His lips lightly brushed against mine. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Wait, what?”

  His hand fell from my face.

  I reached out for him, but my fingers came up empty. “Matt?”

  There was no response. I squeezed my eyes closed, despite the fact that I really wanted to open them. I trusted him. He’d be back. But as the seconds turned into minutes, doubt started to creep in. I remembered that day with him in the auditorium. I’d thought it was some terrible prank. He’d scared me half to death. Today felt exactly the same. My heart was racing and I could feel panic setting in. He’d left me alone in the middle of a path in Central Park. Wasn’t that dangerous?

  I started counting in my head. Trying to focus on something besides the random footsteps I kept hearing. Where are you, Matt?

  I screamed when he swooped me into his arms. My eyes flew open.

  “You’re terrible at keeping your eyes closed,” he said.

  “You left me.”

  “I didn’t leave you. I just needed to grab something
real quick. Now close your eyes.”

  I followed his directions as he started to carry me somewhere. The farther we walked the better it smelled. I’d barely touched my food last night and I’d been in too much of a hurry to eat breakfast. I prayed my stomach wouldn’t make that same embarrassing rumble that it had last night.

  Matt stopped walking and set me down on my feet. He put his hand over my eyes and turned me just so. “Here it is,” he said. “The best view in the city.” He pulled his hand away from my face.

  I opened my eyes and smiled. We were standing on a little bridge with water stretched out in front of us.

  “I used to come here with my family and feed the ducks when I was little. Sometimes we’d stay in the park so late that we’d eat at that restaurant over there.” He pointed across the water at a cute little place. “My favorite part of those days was walking through Central Park after the sun set. Because at night that restaurant turns on tons of fairy lights on their outdoor patio. It lights up the water and looks like the stars. Seeing it makes the city feel more like home.”

  Matt’s house was anything but homey. But he lived in the suburbs right outside the city. So I understood what he meant. No matter where you were, if you could see the stars, there was some sense of familiarity. I’d felt it on the fire escape at my uncle’s apartment. Back then I wished I could go home back to Delaware when I stared at the stars. And now? I didn’t even really know where home was anymore. Just thinking about the word made me want to cry. My uncle’s home had become my home. And now he was gone too.

  “I know you lost your family,” Matt said. “But it doesn’t mean you don’t have one.”

  I could feel my eyes watering.

  “Brooklyn Sanders,” he said and dropped to one knee.

  My heart started racing. “Matt, what are you doing?”

  A smile stretched across his perfect face. “Will you…” He reached behind his back.

  Was he seriously about to propose to me? Had he lost his mind? We were sixteen. We couldn’t be engaged!

  “…be my girlfriend?” he asked.

  “What is wrong with you?” I said with a laugh. “You scared me half to death.” I put my hands on his shoulders when he didn’t get up off one knee.

  “That isn’t an answer.” He stared up at me. “I know we’ve been together for a while now, but I realized we never actually made it official. Will you? Be my girlfriend?”

  He was the sweetest person I had ever met. “Yes.” I was smiling so hard it hurt. But as I stared down at him, I knew I needed more from him. Because I was barely holding on as it was. And he’d hurt me before. I didn’t want him to do it again. “As long as you promise not to break my heart. Because it already feels broken and I can’t…” I took a deep breath. I didn’t want to cry. He was being wonderful and I refused to ruin this moment. “I can’t handle you breaking it too.”

  “I’ll never hurt your heart. You’re my forever, Brooklyn.” He smiled up at me.

  I was pretty sure he looked as happy as me. “Get up,” I said with a laugh. I wanted his arms around me.

  Instead of standing, he pulled out what he’d been hiding behind his back. And I was relieved it wasn’t a jewelry box. “And since you’re now part of my family, I thought maybe you could adopt some of my family’s traditions.” He handed me one of the foil packets he was holding as he stood up. “I know you like to eat healthy. Sometimes you need a little comfort food though. And whatever you don’t eat you can feed to the birds.”

  I pulled back one of the layers of foil and laughed. “I don’t think ducks like hotdogs.”

  “But they do like bread.” He tore a piece of bread off his hotdog bun and tossed it in the water. Sure enough, one of the ducks swam over and grabbed the bread in his beak.

  I smiled as I watched the water ripple where the bread had been. The duck slowly swam away to find more food.

  “You need to eat something,” Matt said. “Please.”

  I looked up at him. And for the first time I could see how worried he was about me. I could feel him staring at the dark circles under my eyes. I wouldn’t be surprised if I had lost some weight. The last few days had been terrible. I smiled to help reassure him, and then took a bite of the hotdog. “Oh my God, this is so freaking good.”

  He laughed. “I thought you might like it.”

  “Where did you even get this?” I looked over my shoulder at the empty path.

  “The best hotdog vendor is just right over there.” He pointed down a path in the opposite direction, but I couldn’t see any farther because of the trees. “There’s so many things about this city that I can’t wait to show you. Stick with me and this will feel like home in no time.”

  I tried to hide my smile as I took another bite. I had no problem sticking with him. The issue was that it was hard to stick to someone who wasn’t allowed to be seen with you in public. “So you told your mom about me, huh?”

  He nodded.

  “How did that go?”

  He smiled. “Good. She saw you at the funeral. She said you were pretty.”

  I wasn’t sure why, but I was expecting a bigger reaction than that. I couldn’t be someone that his parents approved of. But then something hit me. He’d told her after the news broke. He told her after everyone believed I was related to the Pruitts. I suddenly wasn’t hungry anymore.

  “But we mostly talked about how we can get you out of staying with the Pruitts,” he continued.

  “Wait. Aren’t your parents friends with them?”

  “No, not really. They used to be in business together, but then they had a falling out.”

  Interesting. “Is your mom the only person that knows about us?” I was happy he finally told someone. But it made me a little sick to my stomach that he only fessed up after he realized I was related to a monster. A rich monster, but still. And I was happy that Matt wanted to ditch class with me this morning. But I wasn’t an idiot. He’d given Kennedy the note to give to me so we wouldn’t be seen together. And we were in the middle of central park because no one at school was allowed to know I was seeing him. All of it was twisted. And it resulted in my stomach twisting into knots. I was his girlfriend right here right now, but I wouldn’t be at school later today. He’d keep his love for me hidden.

  “I told Rob too. Technically he borrowed James’ car yesterday so we could find you. And that combined with the fact that he overheard our conversation on the phone…I didn’t have much of a choice.”

  He didn’t sound mad. But he also seemed to purposefully avoid the word love again. I was worried I knew why. It felt like my heart was beating too fast. I didn’t want him to take it back just because I was a Pruitt. I didn’t want anything to change. But everything already had. I’d given him a condition for being my boyfriend – to not break my heart. Maybe he had a condition too – we’d be in a relationship only if I could get away from the Pruitts. “Did you tell Rob why you’re keeping our relationship a secret?”

  He lowered his eyebrows as he looked down at me. “You know I can’t.”

  Honestly, I didn’t. That was the whole problem. I knew there was some secret that Isabella was holding over his head. I knew it would hurt James if it came out. But that was all I knew. “Didn’t Rob ask why?”

  “I think he just assumed it was because of…you know. Our economic differences.”

  Economic differences? Something about the way he tried to make it sound fancy pissed me off. It was almost as if he was confirming why he finally told his mother about me. Because maybe we weren’t so economically different now. “You mean because I’m poor and you’re rich?” I took a step back from him. “You let him think that you’re embarrassed to be with me?”

  “That’s not…”

  “That is what you did. And that is what he thinks. Of course that’s what he thinks.”

  “Hey.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me into his chest. “I just need a bit more time. But I promise I’ll figure it out, okay?” He cuppe
d the side of my face with his hand. “I could never be embarrassed of you. I love you.”

  I couldn’t exactly stay mad at him when he said that. I had worried he wasn’t going to say it ever again. But there it was. “I love this hotdog,” I said and took another bite to stall. He’d told his mom so he could get me out of this mess with Mr. Pruitt. And he’d already told me our relationship had to be a secret for now. Nothing had changed really. Except my living arrangements and possibly my last name.

  He laughed. “Anything else you love?”

  “This view.” I gestured to the water. His stupid perfect face and perfect smile were tipping the scales back in his favor.

  “Is that all?”

  I smiled up at him. “No.” I bit my lower lip, pretending to think. But there was nothing to think about. I’d still love him even if we had to hide from the world for a few more days. Or weeks. God, hopefully not months. I stared into his chocolaty brown eyes. “Oh right. I’m pretty sure I love you too.”

  He leaned down and kissed me.

  And I knew I could never stay mad at him when I craved his lips this much. I was pretty sure the taste of cinnamon on his lips somehow soothed my soul. And I needed more. I gripped the back of his neck.

  He groaned into my mouth and pulled away far too soon. “As much as I want to keep doing that right now, I have one more stop on our adventure before we need to go back to school. I have a test third period that I can’t miss.” He grabbed my hand before I could respond and we started running through Central Park.

  ***

  We did need a car to get to our second destination. So he hailed a taxi. He didn’t ask me to close my eyes this time. And as we made one turn after the next, I knew exactly where we were going.

  When the taxi pulled up in front of the cemetery, I was already having a hard time keeping a straight face.

  He knew how important it was for me to say goodbye. He knew how much missing the second half of the funeral weighed on me. He was already fixing everything.