Stop Using My Fear as Your Game

My boyfriend, Oliver Wilde, paused for a moment. Then, he smiled and ruffled my hair.

"Are you scared silly? What are you talking about?"

My childhood friend, Vivian Thorne, winked at me playfully and said, "Yeah. I only meant well. I won't do it again."

Seeing that I wasn't speaking, she pouted pitifully. Then, as if a good idea had just struck her, she said, "Tell you what—to be fair, I'll jump into the deep end too. That way you can see there's nothing to be scared of."

Before she could finish, Oliver grabbed her arm.

"You choked on water last time and ended up in the hospital," he said with a frown. "Don't push yourself. Aria won't hold it against you."

I stood there, still dripping wet.

When I sank to the bottom of the two-yard-deep pool earlier, he didn't even bat an eye. But now that Vivian said she wanted to jump in, he was frantic with worry.

"Come on, let's go have a little soak at the spa area. Think of it as my way of making it up to you," Oliver said, gently tousling my hair in a soothing way. "You can't keep depending on me like this all the time, honey."

I followed them in a daze, only realizing where we were when we arrived—a deep-water massage pool. The sign at the entrance read, "Couples only. Bubbles activate only when two people enter the pool together."

Oliver glanced at the pool, then at me. After hesitating for a few seconds, he said, "Aria, you've just had a fright, so maybe you shouldn't get in the pool. I'll join Vivian for a quick soak. Her back has been bothering her, so she needs hydrotherapy."

Vivian smiled and tilted her head onto his shoulder.

"Thanks, Oliver."

I watched them walk into the warm pool side by side, chatting and laughing.

We had been together for seven years.

So, I wasn't supposed to be scared when there was fun involved, but now it was okay to be afraid?

"Oliver," I called out to him.

He was looking down, helping Vivian tuck her hair back. When he heard me call him, he turned around.

"Let's call off next week's engagement party."

His hand froze mid-air. Then, his expression changed, and he instinctively started swimming toward me.

"Aria, calm down. Just wait until I get out and we can talk."

Instead of waiting for him, I simply took a cab back to my apartment complex.

My mom, Helen Langford, was down by the flowerbeds, bragging to the neighbors about the engagement party arrangements for next week.

"I've already booked the hotel for 28 tables, and Oliver's side has prepared betrothal gifts for Aria."

The moment she saw me climbing out of the cab soaking wet, her expression darkened.

Vivian had caught up at some point. She came right up and linked her arm through Mom's.

"Mrs. Hart, Aria said I was bullying her. She even said she wanted to call off the engagement," she said, her voice sweet yet full of grievance.

The next moment, Mom grabbed my arm in front of all the neighbors.

"Who do you think you are to call it off? Don't you know what kind of trash you are? You've been passed around so much you're practically damaged goods."

"Mom," I whimpered. "That's not true. I've always been chaste. Why have you been spreading rumors about me ever since I was a child?"

"I spread rumors about you?" Mom raised her hand to slap me across the face.

Oliver's car pulled up at the curb. He ran over and stepped in front of me.

"Mrs. Hart, please calm down. Aria's just had a fright."

That only made Mom angrier.

"With that pathetic attitude of yours, what are you without Oliver? You're just like your father—utterly useless the moment there's water involved!"

She shoved me back into the apartment, and the door slammed shut behind me.

I crouched down on the floor. Flashes of memory from when I was five years old raced through my mind.

At the neighborhood's landscape lake, my father, Arthur Hart, slowly sank before my eyes. I stood on the shore, crying until my voice was raw and broken.

After that, Mom went crazy, forcing me to learn how to swim. If I couldn't do it, she'd shove my head into a bathtub filled with water.

Even at twenty-five, I could still remember exactly how it felt when water rushed up my nose at the age of five.

Mom said, "Your father drowned because he was afraid of water. If you're afraid too, you'll end up just like him sooner or later."

I wiped the water from my face, unable to tell if it was pool water or something else. Then, I picked up my phone and called my college roommate, Sage Summerfield.

"Hey, you mentioned before that you still needed people for that volunteer teaching program on the island?"

"Huh? Are you sure you want to go? It's a tiny island three hours by ferry from the mainland. The conditions there are really rough."

"Yep, I'm sure." I glanced at the closed door. "I want to leave this place."