He Taught Me Love and Then Ruined It Whole

Hazel's POV

I spent seven years being Preston Maddox's personal errand girl.

Did his homework, took his father's belt for him, cut off every friend I had because he said he didn't like me talking to other guys.

I told myself that if I was good enough, patient enough, he'd eventually see me.

Then came the school's centennial gala. In front of everyone, he locked me, a girl with severe aquaphobia, inside a water tank filled to the brim with ice-cold water, so Vanessa Sinclair could have a pretty backdrop for her ballet number.

The audience roared. He watched Vanessa take her bow with this soft, adoring smile on his face. The only time he glanced at me was when he noticed I'd made a mess, and all he did was wrinkle his nose.

The water rose over my head, and something in me finally understood.

To Preston Maddox, I wasn't even worth as much as a dog.

If a dog was drowning, its owner would at least care.

Me? I just disgusted him.

"Oh my God, look at Hazel — is she doing a clown act in there?"

"She literally threw up in the water. That is so gross!"

The laughter cuts right through the glass. Each wave of it drives deeper, harder.

The water closes over my head completely. The kind of suffocating pressure I've been afraid of my whole life closes in from every side. I'm choking, lungs burning like they've been filled with acid, every breath a losing fight.

Out there, Westbrook Academy's centennial gala is in full swing. The stage is lit up and gorgeous. Music drifts through the walls.

Vanessa Sinclair glides across the stage in a crystal-studded white ballet dress, every movement precise and beautiful.

And I'm her backdrop. The ugly little prop in her "Ocean Princess" number, sealed inside a six-foot tank of freezing water, playing the monster.

Preston lied to me.

He told me there'd be a few inches of air at the top. That I could stand on my toes and breathe. There's nothing. The tank is completely full. There was never any gap.

The fear and the physical agony hit at the same time, and my stomach heaves.

I throw up in the water.

And then I lose control of everything else.

The tank clouds over in seconds. I'm twisting, thrashing, this ugly, wretched thing drowning in its own filth.

Whoever's running the big screen decides this is great television. The camera cuts to me.

One beat of silence. Then the entire room erupts.

"Maddox really went all out for Vanessa, huh? Found himself a real freak show."

The laughter becomes a wall of sound.

I force my eyes open and find the center of the front row.

Preston is sitting there.

He's watching Vanessa take her final bow, this warm, proud smile on his face. Then he glances over at me, almost as an afterthought, and his expression shifts to something like disgust. Like he's looked at something rotting and can't believe he has to be near it.

That's the moment something in my chest gives out completely.

I have severe aquaphobia and claustrophobia. Diagnosed. Documented.

Preston has always known.

When I was seven, I jumped into the estate lake to fish out the limited-edition watch he'd dropped. I nearly drowned. After that, I couldn't get within ten feet of a pool without shaking.

He knew all of it. And he still did this.

To Preston Maddox, I was worth less than nothing.

My body stops fighting. The darkness pulls me under.

The last thought I have before I go under completely:

If I survive this.

Preston Maddox, I will never forgive you.

Never.

When they finally open the tank, I'm already gone. The EMTs have to do chest compressions to bring me back.

I'm on the floor backstage, coughing up water, completely wrecked.

Preston walks over.

"Hazel, what is wrong with you?" His voice is all irritation and barely-contained anger. "I asked you to stand there and look pretty. You had to go and ruin it like that? You got water all over Vanessa's dress."