Love me Not: A Dark Highschool Bully Romance

I COULDN’ T BREATHE , AND WHILE THAT WOULD INDUCE PANIC IN MOST PEOPLE, IT DIDN’ T IN ME.

Sure, there was an underlying sense of unease. No oxygen was entering my blood, my lungs were straining rather than bellowing as they should, and the inherent and instinctive act of breathing wasn’t exactly an option right now. But I was under water, and the water was my home. Above the surface, nothing made sense, beneath it, everything did.

I loved swimming, had always loved it. It was the reason I was at this new school. Though I hated change, I’d change anything in my life to be able to swim more, to improve in my sport.

It was also why I was being drowned. Or was it waterboarded? Wait, that only simulated drowning. This shit? It was the real thing.

Hazing sucked.

I didn’t think they wanted to kill me, and while auras were my thing, at the moment, oxygen deprived as I was, I knew my ability to read the colors surrounding those above me was impaired. Their intent was as much a mystery to me as why there was only one habitable planet in the Milky Way.

My lungs began to strain just as I was pulled out of the water by my hair, and as I caught some gulps of air, I fully expected to be slammed down beneath the surface once more.

Only, Maria didn’t.

She let me catch my breath, but didn’t relinquish her hold on my hair.

Because that didn’t exactly bode well, I just focused on getting more air into my lungs.

Sure, I could fight, struggle, and end up restrained and further tormented, but that wasn’t in my nature. I wasn’t going to let someone kick me while I was down if I could help it, but some people, if you fought them, they just hurt you harder. It was easier to let them burn off the initial aggression and then keep out of sight. Half a childhood in the foster care system had taught me that. Better to deal with a bruised eye than a busted nose and a broken arm for back talk—that trade off wasn’t as uncommon as you might think. And Maria? She was wicked. That glint in her eye, the bitter snag to her lips as she’d taken me down—she loved this. She wanted my fear, and me? I was stubborn enough not to give it to her.

So maybe it made me stupid.

Maybe, when she’d taken me down, I should have at least tried…but I hadn’t wanted to give her the satisfaction.

Fuck, I was stupid.

I could hear their laughter and snickers of amusement around me, like what they were doing was the coolest crap ever. Hell, and I thought I led a boring life.

If this was their idea of entertainment, I was doing something right with my days.

Apparently deciding that I’d had enough oxygen, Maria shoved me under, and millions of air bubbles fluttered and popped around my body. There was something calming about the sight, even if I should be finding nothing calm about this situation.

I doubted I was the first kid they’d put through this, and I imagined another person would be sputtering and shaking, desperate in their attempts to breathe, to escape. But I wasn’t desperate, which meant I wasn’t entertaining them, so I knew this would go on longer as a result. Knew I was about to be punished for my ability to hold my breath in my favorite place.

When my lungs did start to burn, I finally closed my eyes and centered myself. They weren’t intending on killing me, so I knew they would let me up soon.

As I’d expected, I felt the fingers gather in my hair and the roots stung, forcing me to prepare myself for freedom. This time, when my head was pulled from the water, tiny droplets of liquid splashing around in a fine spray that was reminiscent of diamonds, I opened my eyes and saw him.

At first, I thought he was a mirage. My lungs were straining, my body’s craving for oxygen starting to trigger what hadn’t been triggered until now—panic. The boy hadn’t been there before, was all I could think. I’d have known. Even oxygen deprived, I’d have recognized him. There was no failing to spot this kind of creature.

He strolled in like he owned the place, and when he didn’t even blink at the sight of me, nor at my face which had to be red, my cheeks ablaze, my eyes streaming with tears, the way they clustered around me, Maria’s hand in my hair the way it was, I knew he was one of them.

But then ‘one of them’ meant the entire swim team.

I’d won my place at Rosemore by becoming a member of the Almanac Water Sports Team—a team that was separate to the Academy’s, and one that put swimmers on track for national competitions. My scholarship here hinged on my abilities in the water, on taking the already elite school team to another level. Funding was life, so was PR, and this—like most of my life—smacked of a public relations opportunity they were going to exploit to the max.

Though I’d earned my place here through hard work, I figured the others had too, but our journeys to this point in our lives couldn’t have been more different. In our own way, the six of us had striven to make it here, to this diving block that could leapfrog us onto the international level, but I knew, without a doubt, that their quest had been a hell of a lot easier than mine.

Here, in Rosemore’s luxurious training pool, we would aim for national competitions, while as an Almanac, we would begin our path forward onto major tournaments.

Until this point in my athletic career, I’d only ever competed at a state and tristate level, but now that I was a student of this Academy, things were going to change.

I just hadn’t anticipated that they’d change this way.

When the boy blinked, breaking the connection between us, I felt the loss like a death inside me. I breathed through the break of our union, absorbing the fracturing that came with the loss, and as extreme as that sounded, that was the intensity of that moment. That bond.

Maybe I was hyperventilating or hallucinating or...whatever happened when your head was repeatedly held under water for minutes at a time.

Maybe he didn’t even exist at all.

I almost hoped he didn’t, because if he was here, then he was more of a nightmare than a dream.

Except his flip-flops padded as he walked, making slapping noises as he strolled down the length and around to the side of the pool where I was being held. And, beneath the chlorine, I could smell him.

Clean.

Expensive.

That was his scent. Crazy, but true.

Because his presence couldn’t mean anything good, I used the moments I was free from being bound to him to breathe wisely. I took deep, cleansing inhalations, not shallow, panicked ones, and prepared myself for what was about to happen—Maria hadn’t let go of my hair or of her wrenching hold on my wrists, which she’d shoved between my shoulders. In the thirty or so seconds she gave me to breathe, she’d tightened her grip as though threatening me with more pain if I dared fight her, and the sting to my hairline was like an electric shock to my sensitized face, and my shoulders felt like they were close to dislocating. In all honesty, though, there was no struggling—I was too exhausted. Something that was reaching fever pitch as she drained the air from my lungs and starved me of life-giving oxygen.

Behind me, I heard him talking to the others. Shoulders were slapped, and laughs either at my expense or at a joke I hadn’t heard echoed around the aquatic complex. What I didn’t expect was the feel of a warm hand around the back of my neck.

It was a new touch, and I intrinsically knew it was him. I felt it down to my bones.

For a second, I thought he was going to save me, thought he was going to use that touch to calm me before sliding his fingers down my shoulder along the length of my arm so he could reach for mine. I could almost imagine the sensation of our palms brushing together, our fingers entwining as he grasped me, before helping me on to my feet. A hero I didn’t need but welcomed nonetheless.

Even though very little surprised me, he did. When my head was pushed under the water once more, my hands bound in a firmer grip, I closed my eyes as disappointment filled me.

It wasn’t often I felt a connection to anyone, it wasn’t often that anyone managed to break through the walls I’d built around myself. But he had. In that intense, ten second glance, he’d managed to undo a lifetime of work.

And he didn’t even care.

Didn’t even realize what he’d done.

I felt the weight of his hand, the heat of him against me. In the cool depths of the shallow end of the pool, he was a study in contrasts. The warmth of him was so intense in comparison to the water, and that, more than anything, panicked me. I seemed to feel each pressure point of his fingers against my skin, and it was foolishness, but I was sure I could even sense the tiny lines of his fingers where the prints were.

A part of me hoped that when I did bruise tomorrow, those prints would be there. A mark, something tangible, to represent this moment. To commemorate his betrayal and to ram it home.

He held me down, but unlike Maria, he lowered my hands, and instead, shoved his foot on my back, buried it right between my shoulder blades. More than anything, in the morning, I would probably hurt there the most—his brute force was ten times worse than Maria’s, and the way he squashed me, suffocating my ribcage, made the pain in my shoulders seem like a walk in the park.

It didn’t take long until I sensed the boredom in the complex.

I wasn’t doing anything to ramp them up, to make this ordeal entertaining as they tried to drown me to prove something stupid that would enable me to become a part of the team.

I’d never been hazed this badly before, but maybe I should have expected it. This was an elite sports school, and with such exclusivity and illusions of grandeur, there were egos and small people with a lot to prove. More than that, as much as we were on the same team, each person on that team was also our competition.

There was an inherent threat in that realization, and I knew that even though these people believed they were friendly with one another, they weren’t.

Everyone here was an enemy. Perhaps they were wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing, but they were foolish if they forgot that.

For that reason, I took no offense.

Strange? Perhaps. But then I was strange. Very little could affect me, very little penetrated those walls I’d built a long time ago. And for that reason, while the team had been enjoying my suffering, or lack thereof I supposed, the only one who had insulted me was the boy.

Adam.

What he was doing was a betrayal.

One I’d never forgive.

Never forget.

Not until the day I died.

I just hoped today wasn’t that day.