Hysteria (10 page)

Funny how two years can feel like nothing. How one moment can feel like eternity.

Two years, like they never even existed.

One moment, like there had never been anything else, would never be anything more.

Boom, boom, boom.

Someone was knocking. A dull thud, like someone was using the side of a closed fist
instead of knuckles. I pictured Reid on the other side. Being bold, like I had been.
“I told you no,” I said, but this stupid grin was spreading across my face.

I opened the door to nothing. No, not nothing,
no one.
Because there was definitely something. Red and globbed and smeared across my door.
Drops sliding downward, like tears. A small puddle on the linoleum floor, spreading
like blood.

Everything inside of me froze, until I felt the hallway fill up
—
felt it practically vibrate with his presence. My eyes darted around the empty hallway
until it seemed to constrict. And the entire feeling contracted into the space behind
me. A wave of chills started at my scalp and slid down my arms, my spine, my legs.

My senses went on high alert
—
like I could see more clearly and hear more sharply
—
and I smelled something off, not quite right. Something chemical. I stepped closer
to the door, bent down, and dipped my fingers in the puddle on the floor. Cold. Nothing
like blood. I brought my red fingers to my face and breathed in through my nose. Paint.
This was paint.

There were voices in the distance
—
girls laughing and a guy talking too loud
—
probably on their way back. I ran to the bathroom, and as I pushed the door open,
I got this flash in my mind. Red handprints. Everywhere.

But I squeezed my eyes shut and thought
No.

I brought wet paper towels back to my room and saturated my door. I squeezed and squeezed
until the puddle at my feet was thin and the paint streaked unevenly through the water.
Then I wiped it all up and buried the evidence in the bottom of the trash in the restroom.
I couldn’t see the red anymore, but there was still this dark spot. A water mark.
A reminder. So I got more paper towels and started scrubbing harder.

And the whole time, I felt that presence pressed up against my back, and I could imagine
his mouth, breathing against my neck through his teeth.

Like I could feel him smiling.

I didn’t meet Brian that day on the boardwalk. We’d almost met. He smiled and stepped
toward me, and I was wondering what to say.
Sorry I was staring, I thought you were someone else? Sorry I’m still staring? I’m
not sorry I’m staring because I still can’t look away?

I tried to pull myself together because he was heading straight for me. Then this
guy on a skateboard crashed into him. Came out of nowhere, music so loud I could hear
it from his earbuds through the crowd. Brian stumbled backward and the skateboard
slid out from under the other guy.

And then Brian yanked the earbuds out of the guy’s ears and punched him in the face.

Just like that.

And, just like that, a circle formed around them as the skateboard guy, twice Brian’s
width, took a swing back at him. Brian ducked, smiled, and attacked. And then there
were fists flying and blood spurting and people yelling, and I still couldn’t look
away.

Until two cops came and pulled them apart and started leading them down the boardwalk.
But Brian turned and scanned the crowd for me and he smiled. After all that, he was
still looking for me. He yelled out, “Meet me here tomorrow,” like he was so sure
this whole cop thing was no big deal. Like it happened all the time.

And like I should know what time he meant.

So that next day, even though I told myself I wasn’t looking for him, I showed up
early, before lunch. Just in case. And that’s when I fell for him. Because he was
already there too. He had a cut over his right eye, and there was a dark bruise underneath
it, but he was there. Waiting for me.

Like he was still here now. Waiting. And smiling.

I heard voices in the lobby. The slow, monotone authority of Krista’s voice. And the
rise and fall of Bree’s words coming straight from her brain out her mouth. I slipped
into my room and shut the door behind me.

“Is it weird, though? Since he’s your cousin?”

A pause. “Not at all,” she said. The words were clipped, pronounced perfectly. Almost
rehearsed.

“Because you could tell me, you know. If it gets weird, I mean. Or if it’s weird for
me to talk about him.”

“Jesus,” she said. “He asked you to hang out after class, not have his babies.”

“Ha,” Bree said. “It does bother you.”

“Bree,” Krista said, in this way that suddenly made me understand what it meant to
speak carefully. “I doubt anything you do will bother me.”

Bree laughed and started talking faster, like she was excited, but the way Krista
said it didn’t make it sound like a good thing. It sounded like Bree was inconsequential.
Like she didn’t matter enough to her at all.

And then a third voice, quieter, said, “He doesn’t have the best reputation.” Taryn,
I guessed.

There was this beat of silence before I heard Bree laugh again. “Yeah, well, neither
do I.”

The door shut behind them and I was left with the silence again. With nothing but
Bree’s words lingering in my head. Because Bree didn’t have a reputation yet. So I
guess what she was really saying was
neither will I.
Like that was the whole purpose.

Which was the type of thing someone said who had never truly had a bad reputation
before.

This is what the people with the bad reputation do: they take a sleeping pill and
hope that their ghosts won’t come for them each night.

But all the hoping in the world doesn’t change what happens.

The ghosts always come.

It starts in the distance.

Boom, boom, boom.

Chapter 6

S
omething wasn’t right. I could sense that even though I was nearly asleep. I shouldn’t
have taken the sleeping pill. Someone was out there. Someone had thrown red paint
on my door, playing a joke on me. Or maybe it wasn’t a joke. Maybe it was Brian’s
mom. And here I was, sleeping. Almost sleeping.

The heartbeat filling the room paused, the room still buzzing with energy, and then
there was a harsh whisper. “Mallory,” it said, sounding far, far away.

Something grazed my shoulder. Just barely. Like I might’ve imagined it. And then fingers
tightened around my shoulder and I felt warm breath on my ear. A whisper.
Wait.

My eyes shot open.

Morning. The alarm was blaring beside me. I fumbled until I found the snooze button,
then rubbed at my left ear, where I still felt the warmth. I jolted upright and moved
my arm in a giant circle, stretching my shoulder. But when I stood up, I could still
feel it. The spot where four fingers had pressed down on the front of my shoulder.
The feel of a thumb on my back.

Something lingered in my room. Like the dust hovering in the slant of light beside
my bed. Like the air before a thunderstorm. The threat of something coming.

I ran to the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror, the neck of my shirt jerked
down past my shoulder. I stretched the skin and squinted at the mirror. I thought
I could just barely make out four pink marks.

Taryn barreled through the bathroom door, half awake. She glanced at me, quickly looked
away, and went to a shower stall on autopilot.

The mirror fogged up as I bent close to the sink, straining to see. I pulled at the
skin of my shoulder repeatedly and wiped at the condensation on the mirror, but everything
was muted. Filtered. Like viewing the world through white curtains.

Another girl came into the bathroom, pointed to the other shower stall, and said,
“Are you using that?”

I took a step away from the mirror. And then another.

“Hey, I asked if you were using that shower.”

“Huh? Yeah. Um, I need to get my stuff,” I said, stumbling by her.

“Somebody needs some coffee,” she mumbled as I passed.

Shower. Khaki pants. Brown shoes, not broken in yet. Scarlet shirt. I grabbed breakfast
in the cafeteria on the way to first period and saw Reid in the student center with
a group of guys, including Jason.

Reid patted someone on the shoulder and excused himself, and I walked a little faster.
I felt Jason’s eyes following me.

“Mallory,” Reid called. “Wait.”

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and I backed into an alcove behind
a column. The whole hallway seemed to throb like my room at night, when I wasn’t fully
awake.

Reid jogged over to me. “Hey,” he said.

But before he had a chance to say anything else, I said, “Did you see anyone last
night?”

“Huh?”

“In the dorm. Around the dorm. Last night.” Because there was red paint on my door.
Because something grabbed onto my shoulder.

“Not that I noticed. What happened? You don’t look so good.”

What happened? I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t even sure if I was seeing clearly. I yanked
at the collar of my shirt, pulling it down over my shoulder. “Do you see something?”
I asked.

Reid smiled, then tried not to smile, then smiled again. “Um.” I followed his gaze
to the black-and-silver bra strap. Damn Colleen and her proclamation that the only
thing more boring than a white bra was a sports bra. I released the neck of the shirt
and shrugged it back up over my shoulder.

“I meant like marks or something. On my shoulder,” I said, looking at the people rushing
past, but not really focusing on them.

His forehead creased and he leaned closer. “Did someone hurt you?”

I shook my head.
Maybe. No. I don’t know.
“Never mind.” I looked at his hands, which were kind of hovering between us, like
they were undecided.

There was a chime from the speakers. “Warning bell.” Reid started backing away in
the opposite direction. “I have soccer later,” he said, like I had wondered. “But
I’ll see you.” Like I had asked. Then he turned and fell into stride with a sea of
red shirts and khaki pants.