Hysteria

by Megan Miranda

  “How do they know?”

  “We tried that my year.”

  I stopped walking. “Hey, I thought you said being locked on the roof was fun?”

  “It was fun trying to escape together.” He smiled and shook his head to himself, then put a hand on my back for half a second as he started walking again. “Turns out ventilation shafts aren’t big like they seem in movies. Or sturdy. At all. Jason got both his legs stuck. The orientation group had to get oil to get him unstuck. Almost got caught because of it . . .”

  I stopped just inside the Science Center, leaning toward him to hear more. The warning bell chimed. “I have to go,” I said.

  He stepped closer, and people brushed past us, rushing to beat the bell. “So do I,” he said. Then he raised his hand almost to my face, then dropped it to my shoulder instead, like he had patted his friend on the shoulder as they parted a few mornings ago. I winced.

  He pulled back his hand and stared at it, like he didn’t know what it was capable of. “What?” he asked. “I hurt you?”

  “No, it’s my shoulder . . . I don’t know . . .” And I pressed myself farther into the wall.

  He leaned closer, put his fingers on the collar of my shirt, like he was waiting for some sign from me before he pulled it aside. And I felt hot and cold at once, yes and no, trapping me in indecision.

  “Ho-ly shit.”

  Reid dropped his hand and I stepped back.

  Jason stood in the middle of the hall, half a grin on his face. He stood too close to Bree, but Bree didn’t seem to mind. And Krista just looked, unblinking. Jason shook his head and smirked. “Always with the rebounds, Reid.” Then he looked to me. “It’s his thing. Go for the girl when she’s down. Makes you feel special, doesn’t it?”

  I looked to Reid for explanation, but I couldn’t see anything under the anger. But before Reid could even open his mouth, Krista put her hands up, palm out. “Well, boys, this sure has been enlightening. But I believe we’re all late for class.”

  The overhead speakers buzzed and Krista and Bree slipped into the classroom.

  Jason smirked again and took off running for the end of the hall. And I stood there, feeling like I was missing the pieces to some puzzle—like I could only see the upper corner and had no idea what pieces I even needed to complete the rest of the picture.

  “I’m late,” Reid said.

  “Me too.” I stepped toward the doorway of the classroom and heard Reid’s footsteps echo down the hall. My shoulder throbbed every time I moved it.

  “Ms. Murphy.” Dr. Arnold raised her pen into the air and jabbed it in my direction. “Are you planning to join us this morning?”

  I felt the throb in my shoulder again, and the blood draining from my face. “Mallory? Are you okay?”

  “I’m going to be sick,” I said, bracing myself against the door frame.

  “Go,” she said.

  I backed out of the doorway and ran down the hall toward the bathroom. I leaned over the sink and pulled my shirt down over my left shoulder, where Reid had touched me. Underneath, the faint red marks had turned dark. Bruised. I turned around and looked at my back. There was another bruise, like from a thumb.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and thought it’s only real if I let it be.

  I opened my eyes, but the marks were still there. I really was going to be sick. Air. I needed air. I ran down the empty hallway, out into the bright late-morning sun, and took a deep breath. Two teachers were walking up the path from the other direction—they’d see me any second, so I kept moving. I ran through campus, out the side gate, across the street, down the path. To the old student center, where there was nothing but the remains of what used to be.

  I sat on a half-wall, trying to think of nothing, and listened to the wind. I watched the leaves move with the breeze.

  Everything shifted a little to the left with a strong gust. And I saw something past the student center, farther into the woods. A path. This wasn’t the end of campus. I stood, brushed the dirt from my khaki pants, and crept over the bricks to the far corner. The path was narrow, but it was a definite path. It wound through the trunks, and as I followed, it narrowed.

  A pile of rocks stood just off the side of the path with a small wooden cross standing in the middle, nearly overgrown with weeds now. There was something carved into the wood, in boxy letters. I pushed the weeds down. danvers jack. gone but not forgotten. The cross split under the weight of my hands, bringing ruin, like usual. I tried to prop it back up, and I felt an engraving on the other side. I flipped the piece over and read the other side, jagged letters etched into the rotting wood. forgotten but not gone.

  Wind rustled the leaves, and a few scattered down to the ground, a burnt orange, turning early. I wondered if Jack Danvers or Danvers Jack or whatever his name was haunted these woods. If he was tied to them now. If others could feel him, if they believed he wasn’t truly gone.

  I stood up and walked farther down the path, weeds popping up with more frequency, until I wasn’t sure I was on the path anymore.

  I spun around, and all I saw were trees. My breath caught, and I spun around in a full circle. The ground all looked the same, clusters of weeds breaking up the rocks and dirt. Trees everywhere. I put my hand on the nearest trunk, the one I had stopped at, and oriented myself in the direction I had been walking, then took two huge, deliberate steps backward. I looked down and saw the difference. A faint path, a little more worn than where I had just been. I stepped backward again. Then I turned around, kept my eyes down on the ground, and started moving, following the weeds as they became sparser and sparser and I was back on the path again. Until I was next to the broken cross.

  My heart beat fast. I had almost gotten lost. I saw how the woods could’ve swallowed him up so easily. They could’ve swallowed me up like that. I wondered how long it would be before someone would’ve noticed I was missing and come looking. How long it would take for me to go from Gone but not forgotten to Forgotten but not gone.

  CHAPTER 8

  I returned to campus for the rest of classes, stopping by Dr. Arnold’s classroom beforehand to pick up my work. “Did you see the nurse?” she asked.

  “Oh no, I think it was just something I ate.”

  “Usually you can only be excused by a note from the nurse. I’ll let it slide this time, but you need to make up the lab. I’ll be here this afternoon, if you’re feeling up to it.”

  “Sure,” I said. Not like I had any other plans. There was a pep rally tonight, but I wasn’t exactly feeling peppy, or like rallying.

  That afternoon, Dr. Arnold stayed in the room with me while I completed the experiment. I had to build a list of circuits and answer some math questions that went along with it. Dr. Arnold looked over my shoulder at the completed circuits, and I stopped writing. “Nice work, Mallory. You’re a natural.”

  I wondered if I would’ve been a natural at chemistry, too, if I had actually done my homework at night and not with Dylan during study hall. If I had paid more attention to the book and less attention to him. Or if I hadn’t been watching him instead of the beakers during class. If I would’ve given Brian a second glance if Dylan hadn’t been my lab partner. If he would’ve caught me staring on the boardwalk.

  A long line of ifs that didn’t matter anyway because it was done.

  That evening, I could hear the pep rally cheers all the way across campus. But there were no sounds coming from the dorm itself. I lay on my bed catching up on the rest of the summer reading, even though I’d already read the basic plot in Chloe’s study books. Turns out I wasn’t half bad as a student after all. I flipped the page and something caught my eye outside.

  Smoke rose up from below my window. My stomach knotted, and I debated just running out the door, calling for help, something. But I didn’t need any more rumors about me circulating campus. I kept the window closed but placed my forehead against it, looking down. Expecting the worst. I let out my breath and watched as it fogged the window.


  Bree was down there, leaning against the bricks, sucking on a cigarette and blowing smoke toward the trees. I thought about opening the window, telling her to go somewhere else, leave her discarded cigarette butts under her own window, but I didn’t. Her left hand was shaking, just the slightest tremor. Someone called her name—I could hear it through my window pane. A girl’s voice. Krista, I thought. Bree looked in the direction of the voice, and very slowly pressed herself farther against the bricks.

  Apparently, soccer was big here. Like, really big. Saturday after lunch, the whole student body abandoned center campus and swarmed past the athletic center to the biggest of three soccer fields. I heard the buzz at the cafeteria as I grabbed a bagel to go—apparently, this was a big rivalry. Us versus some prep school from Vermont. I pushed back to my dorm as a sea of red T-shirts flew by me.

  The dorm was nearly empty by the time I got back. Except for some guy I didn’t know sneaking into the room of some girl I didn’t know, taking advantage of the fact that no one was around. I fed dollar bills into the coin machine in the basement, went back upstairs to the pay phone, and tried calling Colleen. Her cell went straight to voice mail, and I lost the money. I tried her home phone, even though I knew the chances of her picking up were nearly zero, but I was desperate. It just rang and rang and rang. It didn’t go to the answering machine, which meant someone was on the phone. Her mom, probably. Maybe she saw our New Hampshire number on the Caller ID and chose not to pick up. I was sure she was glad I was gone. Gone, and hopefully forgotten.

  I hung up and my coins came pouring back out, overflowing the coin dispenser and scattering along the floor. The giggling in the room down the hall stopped, like they thought I was a teacher or something.

  And I hated silence.

  So I called that stupid 800 number my dad had set up for me.

  “Mallory!” Mom said as soon as she picked up. “And it’s not even Sunday!”

  Sunday being the day I was supposed to call.

  Then, after processing the information—daughter calling when daughter did not need to call—she added, “Is everything okay?”

  “Sure, Mom. Just calling to say hi.”

  After a beat of silence: “I’m so glad you did! I’ve missed you. I miss you.”

  “Me too,” I said, because that’s what you say when someone says it first. Except as soon as the words escaped my mouth, I realized they were true. I sunk into the plastic chair beside the pay phone.

  “Well, tell me what you’ve been up to, love. Tell me everything.”

  But her voice through the phone had this effect, tightening my airway, so I couldn’t get any words out without everything coming pouring out, like the coins. “I’m good,” I whispered.

  Mom’s voice dropped lower as she said, “Do you want to come home?”

  Yes. “No,” I said. Because it wasn’t just my mom at home. It was a whole life, a whole horrifying mistake, and it was terrible. And she sounded so much better with me gone. She sounded like her old self again. Like the mom I missed. She hadn’t been that person since the night Brian bled out on our kitchen floor. “I was just calling to say hi,” I said again. “But I gotta go.”

  “All right,” she said. “Tomorrow, then?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  The silence was back. I walked to my room and opened the door, and as it squeaked open, I felt that fullness to the room, like my kitchen at home. The room felt charged, like it was waiting for some spark. Like it was waiting for me. And it craved. Oh, how I could feel it, deep in my bones, wanting me.

  I pulled the door closed again, turned my key in the lock, and ran out the lounge door. I ran to that soccer game like I was the biggest fan this school had ever seen.

  The alley had been dark as I walked home from Brian’s house. And Colleen had the pepper spray, back at the party. I heard these footsteps, faintly, over the sound of my breathing, and I started moving faster.

  I kept my eyes on the light at the other end. The moon was low in the sky, and there was this halo around it, from the clouds. The air was thick, about to burst. Humidity and something else crawled along my skin.

  “Mallory,” I heard.

  And I started to run.

  I dug my fingernails into my clenched fists and pumped my arms harder as I sprinted through the grass toward the roar of the crowd. To the sea of red. Where I joined the mob.

  I found a spot on the top row of the bleachers, near the very edge. I stood when they stood. And clapped when they clapped. And watched what they watched. Which was Reid. Because he was good. Like, really, really good. He weaved between people, glancing up and to the side and down the field and moving his feet like he knew where the ball was at all times even though he wasn’t looking. Like he could sense it.

  Like I could sense that thing, even without looking, the way I could feel it in my room, picture it in semisolid form, hovering. I never had to look. Just like Reid.

  Reid kept his eyes on the open field as he dribbled around people. He took a shot on goal, and of course he scored. His mouth turned into this giant smile, and I felt the corners of my mouth turning up with his.

  He scanned the crowd, which was on its feet. They sat as one, a rogue clap or cheer escaping, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his smile. So when he scanned a second time, he saw me, because I was the only one still standing. And then it occurred to me that I was the only one still standing, and I ached to sit, but I worried I was just doing it because everyone else was doing it, and I didn’t want to be like everyone else.

  Reid’s smile, if possible, stretched wider, and then I had this horrifying thought. I shook my head, just a bit, and I thought, Please don’t wave. Then Reid raised his hand and waved. I quickly sat down. But people had noticed. People on the field followed his eyes into the sea of red, and they saw me. I knew they saw me, because I knew what the weight of eyes felt like.

  It felt like knives.

  At the sound of the final whistle, I ran down the steps of the bleachers, the sound of my feet hidden under the sound of everyone else’s feet. Reid was talking to the coach on the sideline, a bunch of players huddled around them. He was smiling. He caught my eye as I passed, and he smiled some more. I kept moving, but a soccer player in a scarlet shirt skipped off the field and ran up to me. Jason.

  “Got yourself a boyfriend, Mallory?” Jason leaned close; warm smile, but his voice was ice.

  “I don’t do boyfriends.” I yanked my arm back.

  Jason reached his hand out and ran his fingers through the hair framing my face. “I’m a pretty good nonboyfriend.”

  I swatted his arm away and jerked my neck back. Now others were noticing. The people surrounding us fell silent. “Don’t touch me,” I said.

  Jason laughed, like we were joking around, even though I wasn’t and he knew it. He chucked me under the chin, like he thought I was cute. “I can’t help it.”

  “Where’s your girlfriend?” I asked, scanning the crowd for Bree.

  Jason laughed. “I don’t do girlfriends.”

  Reid was walking toward us, his smile completely gone. Last thing I needed was a scene with the two of them. Again. Jason reached for my shoulder, the one with the bruises, and I jerked back. “Don’t fucking touch me.” I took off across the fields.

  I saw Bree as I passed the baseball field behind the main building, sitting under the bleachers, not doing a very good job of hiding if that was her purpose. As I got closer, I noticed she wasn’t smoking or anything, she was laying on the ground, staring up through the slats of the bleachers, twirling a blade of grass above her face. Then I realized she was probably waiting for Jason. And I remembered the girl under my window the night before.

  So I slowed down and walked toward her until she noticed me and propped herself onto her elbows. Her head was cocked to the side like she was trying to play it cool, but her hands were clenched, ripping up grass by her sides.

  I stopped at the edge of the bleachers and said, “Jason’s a scumb
ag.”

  She didn’t do anything for a long pause, then she let out an extra-loud laugh. She said “Jealous much?” and leaned back into the grass.

  Someone had been in my room. The door was unlocked. Nothing inside was out of place, but there was a feeling that only a person could leave. Nothing specific, but something. Like when Bree left the sticky tack behind, or the scent of my grandma’s perfume, a reminder of what used to be. We leave footprints. When we leave.

  When we die.

  I sat on my desk chair and swiveled back and forth, the chair creaking under my movement. I was looking for anything out of place. Then I jumped up and stared back at my chair. It was warm. Worn. Someone had sat in it recently.

  I sat back down and opened my desk drawers, and sure enough, everything was a little off. Papers were stacked too precisely. Pens were lined too neatly, where they had been scattered before.

  My heart beat in my ears, like it was filling the room. Like when the feeling came at night. But underneath that, there was another noise. I strained to separate the two.

  Knocking. Someone was knocking on my door.

  I didn’t open it. “Who is it?” I called.

  “Reid. Hurry up or I’m gonna get in trouble.”

  I raced for the door and swung it open. Reid slipped inside and eased it quickly shut behind him. He hadn’t showered since the game. I took a step back.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I know I reek. But I had to check on you.”

  “Check on me?” I breathed through my mouth.

  “Yeah. I saw you with . . . is Jason bothering you?”

  I sucked in a long breath through my nose and looked up at Reid, who had creases in his forehead from worrying. Then I realized that feeling in my room when I first came in, it was gone. I couldn’t sense it, not even a little. All I could feel was Reid, and okay, he was kind of gross at the moment, but the room was just so decidedly him and nothing else, and it felt safe.