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.”
“No he’s not.”
“This one’s for all the beautiful ladies out there!” Matt yelled into the microphone.
“See,” I said, but my voice was so weak I doubted Kennedy heard it. Had he really moved on that quickly? Hadn’t I? I swallowed hard. I hadn’t. That was the whole problem.
“Just kidding,” Matt said. “This one’s for my girl. Brooklyn Sanders in the house!”
Oh my God. He really is going to sing to me.
Kennedy nudged me with her elbow.
“This isn’t happening,” I said as students had already started looking back and forth between me and the float.
“Oh, it’s happening,” Kennedy said with a laugh as the music got louder.
“I know what I’ve done wrong,” Matt sung. If you could even call it singing, because it was way off key. “I’ve known it all along. I’ve tried to come clean a time or two. But I won’t steal any more time from you.”
I stared at him in horror. He was changing the lyrics to be about…us. I think? “What the hell is he doing?”
Kennedy grabbed my hand. “It’s a grand romantic gesture. He’s winning you back!”
I could feel my face turning bright red.
“What am I doing?” Kennedy said and pulled her hand out of mine. “I need pictures of this.” She lifted up her camera and started snapping away.
“Tell me you haven’t thrown me away,” Matt sung. “Because I’m done playing games with you, babe.”
His football friends leaned into the mic and added an out of tune, “Done playing games, babe.”
I wanted to run away from all the prying eyes. But my ass was firmly glued to the cold metal bench. Had he lost his freaking mind?
“Everyone needs to know about us,” Matt sung. “Brooklyn you’re not a dirty little secret.”
“No dirty little secret,” his football friends sang.
“I’ll tell everyone because you are not a regret.” Matt and his backup football dancers did a weird little spin maneuver. “Not a regret, hope you can believe that. You are not a dirty little secret, everyone needs to know.” He pointed up at me and did a weird hip thrust.
“We all know,” the football chorus sang and did matching hip thrusts.
It felt like everyone left in the stadium was turning my direction. Except for someone in a suit who looked beyond pissed who was running up to the float. Oh my God, it’s the principal. Coach Carter, my gym teacher and the football coach, ran up to the float too. He was waving his hands in the air in clear agitation.
Matt ignored both of them. “Apart we live fragile lives. But together is the best way to survive.”
“Best way to survive,” the other boys sang.
“Get off the float!” Coach Carter yelled. “Right now.”
“I’ve been around a time or two.” Matt winked at me, not seeming to care at all about the fact that he was in serious trouble.
I laughed because I didn’t know what else to do. At least he wasn’t lying anymore. He’d definitely been around a time or two.