Hysteria

by Megan Miranda

  My eyes drifted back to my desk, to the papers stacked too neatly. I stepped closer to Reid, whose forehead creased even further.

  “Someone was here,” I whispered.

  “Who?” He looked around the room quickly, from the closed window to the closed door. “Who was here?”

  “I don’t know. Everything’s just a little . . . off.”

  Reid’s shoulders relaxed. “Happened to me when I first moved here. Every time I’d walk into my room it felt like someplace new. It’ll grow on you.”

  “No. My door was open. Someone was in here. Who has keys?”

  “Bree?” he said, looking at her empty bed.

  But I had just seen her, and she’d clutched at the grass beside her when I passed. She was terrified of me. “Who else?”

  Reid stepped closer and everything that wasn’t right about the room faded away. “The deans, I guess. And the housemaster for emergencies, I think.”

  “I don’t think Ms. Perkins likes me.”

  “She’d be risking her job. And for what? Why would she care? I mean, yeah, I’m nosy like that . . .” He grinned, like he thought he was making me feel better. He didn’t know about the red paint. Or Brian’s mom.

  “And how else would you increase your social standing than with more secrets?”

  He pressed his lips together. “I’m not like that.”

  And then he was even closer and I meant to say something like everyone’s like that, or maybe roll my eyes at him, but I wondered how he had changed since his dad’s death—he had to be different, and not just his hair. So I moved my hand to his arm, which was hot and damp, and I said, “What are you like?” Bold, like he remembered me.

  He looked down at my hand on his arm, and I was frozen again. Indecisive. And so was he because he left his arm exactly where it was. Neither of us pulling back, but neither moving closer.

  “Come to breakfast with me tomorrow morning and you can see.”

  “You can’t just tell me how you like your eggs cooked?”

  “No, I mean off campus.”

  And I realized he meant on a date. I didn’t respond, but he didn’t seem to notice, because that arm I’d been touching made its way to my side, and I didn’t think we were any closer, but we must’ve been because I swear I could feel his heart, beating hard, like he was still recovering from his game.

  “The door,” I said, and I backed away, until all I felt was the empty space where he used to be.

  Reid looked stunned, and he shook his head to get his bearings again. “What door?”

  “The closet door. I left it closed.” And now it wasn’t. Now it was cracked, just enough to see a wedge of blackness. To feel that someone could be in, looking out. To know it could swing open or slam shut, just something, full of possibility. Undecided.

  Reid ran his fingers through his hair, which was a little bit matted to his head from sweat. “All right, I’ll check.” Though I could tell from the way he walked across the room that he didn’t believe me. He pulled the door open and his knuckles turned white on the door frame.

  “What? What is it?” I rushed across the floor and pushed past him and saw.

  No one was there.

  But someone had been.

  Everything hanging in my closet, including all my scarlet shirts, had been slashed, leaving scraps of fabric hanging from each other by threads. Jagged edging. A mess of strips and string covering the dresser and the floor.

  Not like a joke.

  Like hate.

  CHAPTER 9

  What the fuck?” Reid asked. Then he whispered in my ear but I couldn’t hear him because there was a buzzing, white noise, my memories short-circuiting. Everything about him fell away.

  All I saw was Brian’s mouth screaming “What the fuck?” and his mouth moving, shouting at me, not making any sense. And then I heard that buzzing again, where I couldn’t make sense of anything else. I reeled backward and I was completely disoriented, like I wasn’t sure whether it was then or now, or now or then, or whether it mattered at all.

  And the next thing I knew I was in the lounge and Reid was pacing in front of me and the campus police came through the double doors.

  “It was Jason Dorchester,” I heard him say. “He’s been bothering her. He harassed her at the game. Everyone saw it.”

  I shook my head. It wasn’t Jason. He was still at the game. He didn’t have time to beat me back here, slice my clothes up, and leave again.

  “Okay,” said a man with a blue button-down shirt. “Mallory, tell me what happened with Mr. Dorchester.”

  “Nothing. I told him to leave me alone and then I came back here.”

  “So you came straight back?”

  “Yes.”

  I could see him thinking. “Is there anyone else who may be upset with you?”

  Oh, just the mother of the boy I killed. No big deal. That was a thing that was not fixable. Not with a restraining order, and not with an I’m sorry. This was a punishment that was forever.

  I didn’t answer at first, even though the pseudo cop was still holding his pen over a pad of paper. Reid was pacing the lounge, running his hands through his hair, over and over and over again. Something settled in my stomach, some sort of resolution. Because I realized right then that Reid, with his way-too-concerned look, didn’t really understand what I had done.

  I realized something else in that moment too: I didn’t want him to know. “You should go,” I said.

  “Yeah, I don’t think so.”

  I looked away. “Please.”

  “I’m not leaving—”

  The security guard held his hand up. “She asked you to leave. Now please do.”

  I looked at the wood-paneled wall until I heard the lounge door slam shut.

  The guard cleared his throat. “All right, let’s hear it. Cheating on the boyfriend? Or did you steal him from someone?”

  My mouth fell open. “No . . . he’s not . . . I didn’t . . .”

  “Okay, so what is it then?” And then I felt sick—that same hot and cold and then only hot that I felt at the funeral. I couldn’t force the words. Couldn’t even think them.

  “My roommate moved out,” I said, even though I didn’t think she was involved. “She could still have a key.”

  He stood up and closed his pad of paper. “We’ll see about getting your lock changed. But can I give you a piece of advice? Try keeping your enemies here to a minimum.”

  I didn’t take a sleeping pill that night. Someone had a key. Someone was out there. Someone wanted me to fear, to regret, to know that they could get in. That they could hurt me. I took my desk chair and wedged it under the handle of the door, but that was kind of useless because the chair swiveled. At least it was a warning. It would wake me up, which was kind of ridiculous because it’s not like I could sleep.

  So I heard it coming for me, clear as anything.

  Boom, boom, boom.

  And then it was here. My room was throbbing, but I tried to ignore it. I shook my head and kept my eyes on the ground and pushed through the door out into the hallway. I squinted from the sudden change to light, but it didn’t matter. The whole hallway was pulsating. Mallory, it whispered. I sucked in a deep breath and turned back to my door.

  Wait.

  I felt the hand on my shoulder, holding me in place, digging through my skin, directly to the bone.

  I cried out, louder than I meant to, and a door opened down the hall. The hallway stopped throbbing. The hand was gone. Taryn rubbed at her eyes with her closed fists. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  I scanned the hall and the room behind me and swallowed the lump in my throat. “Twisted my ankle,” I said as I backed into my room and shut the door.

  Back in my room, I turned on the light and stretched my shirt down over my shoulder. “Shit,” I whispered. The marks were turning a deep purple, nearly black. And they hurt.

  I paced back and forth across the room, and in my head I repeated it’s only real if you le
t it be, it’s only real if you let it be. I shook the thoughts from my head, deciding to clear my head of even that. I booted up my laptop. I wrote to Colleen. Nothing of consequence, nothing important. Just something real. Hey, you up? *pretend there’s something important here so you’ll write back.*

  When I hit send, I had a message from Reid. Getting you out of here in the morning. 9?

  Reid thought getting me out of here might help, but it wouldn’t. Colleen did that too. Thought distance could fix things. Hoped distance could fix things.

  “Stand up,” she’d said, disentangling herself from me under the boardwalk. “Stand up,” she said again, with less authority, but with more urgency. “Mallory, we have to go.”

  My hands skimmed the sandy bottom, under the water, pieces of shells and trash digging into my palms. I pushed myself onto my knees, and the water seemed to churn all around me. Colleen bent over and gripped my upper arm. “I have some money,” she said, rapid and nonsensically. What did money have to do with Brian bleeding on my kitchen floor? “At my house. But we have to hurry.”

  I sunk back down. Because I realized, right then, that Brian was dead.

  I looked up at Colleen, who was staring across the expanse of ocean, the rain slowing as it fell around us, around everything. The white moon reflected off the ripples. They looked so small in the distance. But we both knew, out there, the undertow could pull you under, claim you for the sea.

  “We can do it,” she said to the sea. Her gaze went across the ocean and back again, like her laughter earlier that night. She crouched down next to me and whispered, “Please. We have to move. Now.”

  My computer pinged again. Message from Colleen:

  Wallowing in self-pity. Cody Parker is a prick.

  I smiled.

  What happened?

  Alicia Maloney happened.

  He’s so not worth it. And, ew, you’re twenty times hotter than her.

  I know, right? Boys blow. Thank God I have you.

  Turned out that distance never really changed anything.

  Reid tapped on my window a few minutes before nine. I pulled up the blinds and blinked at his smile. “Getting ready?” he asked, which sounded all muffled through the window.

  I hadn’t responded to his message last night. Brian never would’ve done something like this. Of all the times I made excuses why I couldn’t hang out with him alone, he never called or showed up or anything. He never acted like he cared either way.

  “Don’t I look ready?” I was in ratty sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt, and I could only imagine what my hair looked like.

  His eyes drifted to my hair, and he tried not to grin. “The diner has a rule about bringing animals inside.”

  “Hey!” I said. He raised his eyebrows. “Five minutes,” I mumbled.

  I looked down at my pajamas and ran my tongue along my top teeth. I threw my hair in a ponytail and slid on jeans to keep out the morning chill. I looked like I hadn’t slept, which wasn’t surprising, but at least I brushed my teeth.

  I was almost smiling when I pushed through the door to the lounge, but I quickly stopped. Because Jason was the closest person to me. And second closest was Krista. They sat in adjacent cushioned chairs, leaning forward, their heads bent toward each other. Whispering secrets. Their worth skyrocketing.

  Jason looked up first. Then Krista. Then they looked to the front door, where Reid stood in the entrance, walking toward me, in jeans and a black T-shirt.

  “Careful, Reid,” said Jason, with his big cocky smile.

  I froze.

  “Come on, Mallory,” Reid said, acting like he didn’t hear Jason at all.

  I didn’t move.

  “You know I didn’t get to her room.” Jason was standing now, and Krista had that hideous grin. “Everyone was at the game. Everyone. You know who had time to do it?” He extended his arm outward and pointed his finger and smiled. “Her.”

  My mouth dropped open. I know it’s ridiculous, and I’d never believed it actually happened in real life, but there it was. My mouth just dropped. And Jason didn’t stop then. He seemed really pleased by my reaction. “For the attention. Even the security guard thinks it.”

  I looked to Reid, but he was looking out the window, and his forehead was creased like he was thinking really hard. Probably doing math calculations or something. Time for me to get back to my room. Time for him to get back. Time enough for me to slash my own shirts.

  Shit.

  Reid held the door for me as we left, but I kept my distance, arms crossed over my stomach. It was colder than I thought. September mornings have a chill in New Jersey on the shore, but it was even worse here. Too many trees. Not enough sunlight getting through.

  We walked to the lot behind the student center, and he led me to a black Honda.

  We drove out of campus in silence. We got closer to civilization a mile or so down the windy road—a pharmacy and a gas station, potentially the ghetto one, but it didn’t look so bad—and then a diner. In a tin box on wheels. For real.

  He pulled onto the grass next to a blue BMW, downtrodden weeds as parking spots, and turned toward me. “I know you didn’t do it.”

  I cocked my head to the side. “How do you know?” I was hoping the security guard would come to the same conclusion.

  “Because I know you. I know you were scared. I know you are scared.” I opened my mouth in protest but he waved me away and continued. “I know you’re not faking it.”

  He was remembering the old version of me again. He couldn’t possibly know what I was capable of. I was betting he didn’t even know the things he was capable of. There was a time when I didn’t know what I was capable of either. But I knew now. I knew I was capable of anything. Anything.

  “You don’t know that,” I said.

  He shrugged. “Fine. Then I am choosing to believe you. See? It’s not so hard.” Except from the way he slammed his car door, it looked like it was exactly that hard.

  Taryn and Bree were huddled in the back booth, leaning over the center. Taryn was nibbling the end of a piece of toast. Bree had scrambled eggs, but she was just moving the pieces around the plate.

  Reid and I slid into a booth at the opposite end, and I read over the menu. Reid took it from my hands and shook his head. “Don’t bother. Only thing worth eating here is the burger. Cheese at your own risk.”

  “Um, it’s breakfast time. And why are we here if it sucks?”

  “I like it because it’s away. And, like I said, good burgers.”

  I pointed behind us, to Taryn and Bree. “She got eggs.”

  “Bet she’s not eating it.”

  I craned my neck. He was right. Taryn was still holding a barely eaten piece of toast, whispering across the table, and then Bree backed up against the booth and hissed, “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  Then Taryn reached out her hand and Bree ignored it. I heard another car pull up, but the engine idled as a car door opened and slammed shut, and then drove away. Krista walked in and slid into the booth beside Bree. She pushed Bree’s untouched plate to the side and started using her pointer finger to trace something out on the table, or make a point, or clean up crumbs. Unclear which.

  The waitress arrived, too skinny for her uniform, her black hair in a tight bun. “What’ll it be?” she said.

  “Two burgers,” I answered. “No cheese.”

  Krista walked past us to the napkin dispenser and pulled out a thick stack. The corners of her mouth were turned down, and she looked painfully bored.

  “What’s up with her?” I asked.

  “Don’t know. Don’t care. She and Jason share the same DNA for sure.”

  “They seem like more than cousins, if you get what I’m saying.”

  “Yeah. They’re close. In a weird way. But I don’t think it’s like that. I don’t know. Maybe it is. I don’t really get her. She’s . . . she’s from someplace else.”

  “Someplace else?”

  “I think the Dorchesters a
dopted her, but it was kinda recent. So wherever she’s from, it probably wasn’t good. And that’s a secret that surprisingly hasn’t made it into circulation, so it must be worth something to Jason.”

  I watched her walk back to her booth and hand Bree the stack of napkins. She dabbed at her eyes, and Krista rubbed her upper back, whispering into her ear.

  I ate all the burger I could, then pushed the rest to Reid. As he finished off my leftovers, I drummed my fingers on the table and said, “What did Jason mean? When he said you go for girls when they’re down?”

  Reid swallowed whatever was left in his mouth and coughed into his closed fist. “What he means is that he’s jealous.”

  I could feel the rest of the answer hovering in the air, waiting for Reid. He rolled his head around and cut his eyes to the table of girls behind us. “And he meant Taryn,” he whispered.

  Not the answer I expected. “You were with Taryn?” I whispered back.

  “Kind of. Not exactly. Almost. Jason and I were roommates last year, and they were together, and then they weren’t, and . . . it’s complicated.”

  I knew there was a bunch of information left out of that sentence, skipped over in the long pause, replaced with the word complicated.

  But I was stuck on one thing. “Taryn?” I asked again.

  Reid set his jaw and leaned forward. “She wasn’t always like that. She never even talked to Krista until . . .”

  I was shaking my head to myself. If he liked girls like her, how could he possibly like girls like me? When I looked back at Reid, he was watching their table.

  “You still like her,” I said.

  Reid looked at me and shook his head. “No. And I don’t think I ever really did. It was just the situation, you know?”

  “Yeah,” I said, but I also decided right then that I definitely did not like Taryn.

  Reid grinned and said, “So don’t be jealous.”

  “I’m not jealous,” I said. Which made him smile. Which made me furious. “I’m not.”

  He smiled, and I couldn’t help smiling back. He said, “Can we get the check?” but he was still looking at me. I knew exactly what was about to happen. We’d leave and walk to the car and I’d stop beside the door and he’d kiss me. An inevitable string of events, set in motion right now.