Hysteria (5 page)

I knew she’d find me.

She could always find me.

She found me that night, when Brian died. When the cops couldn’t find me, when my
parents couldn’t find me. After I’d run. After.

I heard her steps splashing toward me, over the sound of the rain falling into the
ocean, where I sat in a few inches of dark water, seaweed, plastic bottles, and remnants
of blood.

“Mallory,” she called before she was really close enough to know it was me.

But of course it was me. The first time we hid here was in eighth grade, when Colleen’s
mom wouldn’t let her date a boy in high school. We’d camped out under the boardwalk,
which was not at all romantic but kind of foul, so we moved back home and Colleen
learned to sneak out her bedroom window instead.

“Mallory.” She crouched in front of me. “Oh God, Mallory, I’m sorry,” she said, but
I still wasn’t looking at her.

I felt her arm reach under my knees and she grunted as she tried to lift me, but instead
she sunk down, tangled up in me. She wrapped her arms around me and said, “You need
to stand up.” But the only thing I needed to do was sink farther into the wet sand
under the murky water.

There was a shrill ringing down the hall. A second later, I heard it again.
Colleen.
I ran out of my room and down the hall and skidded to a stop at the pay phone. “Hello?”

“Mallory.” Not Colleen. My father. I plopped in the plastic chair beside the phone.

“Yes.”

“You shouldn’t have left. How could you just leave like that?”

“Mom let me. She drove me to the train station.”

“Your mother is in no position to be making those kinds of decisions.” Whatever that
was supposed to mean.

“Well,” I said, “I’m here. And everything’s fine.”

Dad let his disappointment linger in the silence before he spoke. “I’m going to set
up an 800 number for you to call home for free.”

“Great,” I said, extra emphasis on the
T
.

“And I’ll set up an account there in case you need money.”

“Perfect.”

“And don’t you ever do something like that again.”

“Yes, sir.” Then I hung up and felt the hate flashing again. Light off. Light on.

Now they could get on with their lives. Move on. Problem solved. I narrowed my eyes
at the phone and watched my distorted reflection scowl back. Then I felt a presence
behind me and my muscles tensed. I stayed perfectly still. A streak of blue passed
behind my reflection. I jumped up, back to the phone, as the chair scraped against
the floor with a high-pitched shriek.

There was a guy in the hall, blue shirt and khaki shorts, watching me.

I cleared my throat. “I’m done with the phone.”

“I’m not waiting for the phone,” he said. He was built tall and thick, with a cocky
stance and a lazy grin.

“I thought nobody was here yet.”

“I live here. I’m Jason. Mallory, right?”

I searched my memory for his face, for his name. But I couldn’t remember seeing him
at any of Dad’s alumni events. I didn’t remember any Jason. It’d been two years since
I stopped going, though. He could’ve been anyone. “Sorry, I don’t remember you.”

I looked around the empty hallway, wondering if this Jason character was supposed
to be wandering the girls’ dorm at night. He saw my expression and his grin stretched
wider. It was the type of smile on the type of face that said he usually got exactly
what he wanted. And in that moment, it looked like what he wanted was me.

I tugged down the ends of my shorts, which were now decidedly too short.

He laughed. “No, I mean I know who you
are.
” He stayed against the wall, but he smiled in a way that made him seem closer. “My
dad is the dean of students.”

Which was his way of telling me he knew everything. Everything.

All the air drained from the hallway, my fresh start rapidly disappearing.

I walked toward my room, and he backed down the hall in front of me. “There’s nothing
to do around here tonight. We should hang out.”

“Jason,” I said as I strode by him into my room. He knew who I was. He knew everything
about me. I gathered my voice and said, “You should know better.”

He grinned again as I shut my door in his face. He tapped his fingers against it twice
and said, “See ya, Mallory.”

I turned the lock. Ridiculous, really. I wasn’t naive enough to think a lock would
prevent someone from getting in if he wanted to. But I ran across the room to the
window and checked that lock too. The outside was blackness now. No moon. No lights.
I couldn’t even see the trees. Just darkness, stretching forever.

I pulled the off-white shade down to the sill, rummaged in the smaller suitcase for
my vial of sleeping pills, and swallowed one dry. The lock kept Jason out. But not
that other thing. I heard it coming as I lay on the starchy sheets.

Boom, boom, boom.

Inescapable. I felt it like a jolt of cold air as it seeped through the crack at the
base of the window and spread out along the floor.

The room throbbed with the
boom, boom, boom
just like at home. Same as always. But this time my eyelids fluttered open and I
saw it hovering in the corner, starting to take shape. Like a shadow in the darkness,
darker than all the rest.

I squeezed my eyelids closed again and I thought,
Sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry . . .
because it was the only thing I could think.

But it didn’t matter because I already knew those words meant nothing.

And as I drifted away, I felt the shadow coming closer . . . closer . . .

I woke to whispers in the hall. Fast-moving words, sharp laughter, an indecipherable
string of syllables. Gossip. Girls moving in.

The clock told me what I already knew by the amount of noise in the hall
—
I’d missed breakfast. And I hadn’t eaten dinner. My stomach clenched. I slipped my
key bracelet onto my wrist and padded down the narrow set of stairs near my room.
I got a bag of pretzels and a soda from the vending machine in the basement and tore
into the bag as soon as I pulled it from the dispenser. Then I heard doors slamming
around in the laundry room.

I walked over to the entranceway and saw Curls slamming the dryer shut, leaning into
it with her hip.

Blond Girl was sitting on top of a washer across the room, filing her nails. They
were both in pajamas still. Blond Girl spoke, still looking at her nails. “I don’t
know why you don’t just do it at your uncle’s place.”

Curls put her hands on her hips and said, “I’m not lugging this across campus.”

“Well then, at the very least you could send it out like I do.”

Curls opened the door again and slammed it shut, and this time it latched. “There,”
she said. Then she turned to Blond Girl and said, “Stuff always goes missing when
I do that.” Then she motioned for Blond Girl to follow her. “Time to get ready,” she
said.

I backed away before they could notice me standing there.

Someone had slid a schedule for the day under my door, along with the Monroe Student
Handbook. I spent the morning reading the handbook while everyone else moved in. Learning
about the consequences as dictated by Monroe for various offenses. I wondered what
would happen if I refused to wear those ridiculous red shirts, but I couldn’t find
the answer.

There were two long folding tables set up at the end of the path in front of a large
academic building, and two identical girls stood behind them. As I got closer, I noticed
the girls were not at all identical, despite the red shirts and khaki pants and hair
pulled up into taut ponytails. And, in fact, I knew them. They were the girls from
the laundry room, from last night. Except now they were all smiles and perkiness,
and they greeted me like they’d never seen me before.

“Welcome to Monroe!” said the girl with the reddish curls. She was looking at me,
but I got the feeling she was looking right through me. It was unsettling. Her name
tag said
krista
. “Last name, please.”

“Murphy,” I said as she rifled through the stack of red folders. Her eyes briefly
flitted up to mine. The blond girl, who had been smiling at someone in the distance,
stopped smiling. Her hand froze midwave.

“Taryn,” Krista said, looking directly at me. “I think you have this one.”

Taryn cleared her throat and rifled through the folders. I walked to her side of the
table, but she passed the folder to Krista instead. And then we all stood in this
awkward triangle: me with my folder, Taryn looking purposefully away, Krista looking
purposefully toward me.

And then a voice from somewhere behind the table said, “Computer room next.”

Krista looked at a guy sprawled out under the nearest tree and said, “I was getting
to it, Reid.” Then she turned back to me and said, “Computer room. Laptops.” Fake
smile.

She gestured over her shoulder to the building behind her.

But I was looking at the boy under the tree. Reid. I knew him
—
I used to know him. I hadn’t seen him since freshman year, when I was an awkward fourteen
and he was a cute fifteen, as long as you didn’t look too closely at his uncontrollable
hair.

Reid wore sneakers and khaki shorts and that ridiculous red polo, and I started to
worry I wouldn’t be able to tell anyone apart. When I passed close by him, he raised
himself up on his elbows and smiled, and not only did he have that ridiculous shirt,
he also now had this ridiculous brown hair that curled at the bottom. Not even close
to the uncontrollable mess I remembered.