Chapter 7 - Shattered Glass
Z
The actual prom was held at the Grandview Manor, a sprawling historic mansion on the outskirts of town overlooking the river. While the parents were barred from the main ballroom after the Grand March, I couldn't bring myself to go home. I parked my car in the rain-slicked parking lot near the manor’s courtyard, sitting in the dark with the heater running, watching the glowing stained-glass windows of the ballroom.
Inside, the music thudded rhythmically, vibrating through the chilly night air.
Around 10:00 PM, the music suddenly stopped, replaced by a strange, chaotic commotion near the outdoor terrace. I saw several students spill out into the rain, shouting and gesturing wildly.
My heart plummeted into my throat. Instinct took over. I pulled the handle, stepped out into the pouring rain, and ran toward the terrace steps.
As I rounded the corner of the stone patio, I heard Chloe Vance’s voice screeching over the sound of the falling rain.
"You think you're special because you wore some freakish dress?!" Chloe screamed, her neon-pink dress stained with dark streaks of mud at the hem. She was standing under the glass awning, clutching a half-empty glass of punch, her face twisted in a mixture of rage and drunkenness. "You're still the same pathetic, fat loser who ruined everything! Your brother died because he couldn't stand being in the same house as you!"
A sharp gasp went through the circle of thirty or forty teenagers who had gathered around them.
Hazel stood in the center of the terrace, completely calm. Eli was at her side, his hands clenched into tight fists, his body tensed to step between them, but Hazel held up a single hand, gently stopping him.
"Say that again, Chloe," Hazel said, her voice dropping into a register that was eerily steady, carrying easily over the storm.
"I said Mason died because of you!" Chloe yelled, taking an unsteady step forward, pointing a manicured finger at Hazel’s face. "He left your house that night because you two were screaming at each other! Everyone knows it! He drove off in a rage and hit that truck! You killed him!"
The crowd went dead silent.
My heart felt like it was being squeezed in a vise. That had been the dark, unspoken terror that had eaten Hazel alive for a year—the fact that she and Mason had argued over something stupid right before he got into his car on that rainy Tuesday night.
Hazel didn't flinch. She took a step toward Chloe. The midnight velvet of her dress swayed, the gold stitches catching the ambient light of the terrace lanterns.
"Mason left that night to buy me a birthday present, Chloe," Hazel said, her voice echoing off the stone walls. "He died in an accident. A tragic, horrible accident. For a year, I let people like you make me feel like I didn't deserve to be alive because he wasn't. I let you turn my grief into your entertainment."
Hazel reached down, took a handful of the gossamer organza underskirt, and lifted it, revealing the dense, shimmering gold script embroidered along the hem.
"Do you know what this is, Chloe?" Hazel asked softly, holding the fabric up for everyone in the crowd to see. "This is your handwriting. These are the texts you sent to Ryan. These are the notes you left on my locker after the funeral. Eli took every single disgusting, cowardly word you ever wrote about me and turned it into this dress."
The crowd murmured loudly. Several girls leaned in, gasped as they recognized their own cruel phrases transformed into thread. Ryan Smith turned beet red, backing away into the shadows of the crowd.
"You thought you were breaking me," Hazel said, stepping directly into Chloe’s personal space, towering over her. "But all you did was give me the material to make something immortal. You are weak, Chloe. You are small, and cruel, and empty. And I am done letting you live in my head."
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Chloe stared at Hazel, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. She looked around at her classmates, searching for support, but no one moved. No one spoke up for her. Her friends looked away, embarrassed, disgusted by the sudden exposure of their own cruelty.
With a choked sob of humiliation, Chloe threw her punch glass onto the stone patio, where it shattered into a hundred jagged pieces, and ran off into the rain toward the parking lot.
