But then Rob winked at me.
Oh no. It wasn’t poop. It was pudding. I was pretty sure I was one of the only people that knew it. And now I knew why Rob said he needed blueprints of the apartment. So that he could make sure to set this up just right. And why he kept joking around about an abundance of pudding.
So.
Much.
Pudding.
“Do something, Richard!” Mrs. Pruitt screamed again. “Someone do something!” She put her hands out as some of the water from the burst pipe shot in her direction. She tried to dodge it and slipped in the pudding, landing face first in the mess.
I gasped. Oh God.
My dad stepped forward to try to help Isabella off her porcelain throne, but he slipped on the pudding too. He grabbed the arm of the guy next to him and they both tumbled into the pudding, one of them knocking into the broken china cabinet. And this time the cabinet toppled forward, smashing into the dining room table.
The second chandelier fell to the ground and as someone went to dodge it, they somehow hit the turkey carving fork. It sailed through the air and stuck into the family portrait. Right in the middle of Isabella’s painted forehead. The forked dragged down, ruining the portrait as everyone continued yelling and running around.
Holy shit.
Rob leaned across the broken table, not caring at all about his dress shoe stepping in the brown goo, since he knew it wasn’t poop. “Good one, Sanders,” he said and lifted up his hand.
I just stared at him. This wasn’t part of the plan! Put your hand down, you crazy person!
I heard another person vomiting.
“I’m going to kill you!” Isabella screamed at me. “I’m going to fucking kill you, you monster!”
I didn’t do this. I backed up, knocking into Matt. He grabbed my arms to steady me.
“You’re going to fucking die, Brooklyn!” Isabella screamed.
“Isabella,” I said. “I didn’t…”
“Shut up, you bitch! I’m going to kill you in your sleep! How could you do this to me?”
Matt’s hands fell from my arms.
I turned around. “Matt, I didn’t…” my words trailed away. How was I going to explain this?
Matt looked over at Rob, who still stupidly had his hand raised in the air for a high five.
“Best prank ever,” Rob said. “A classic Hunter, Sanders mess around.”
No. No, no, no!
“That was definitely worth all the planning,” he said. “Don’t leave me hanging, 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.