Hysteria by Megan Miranda

school, with nothing better to do, I worked. Well, first I changed. Then
     I worked. I made a serious dent in the summer reading list even before study hall
     began. After Ms. Perkins made the rounds and checked that we were all in our rooms
     for the mandatory two-hour study-hall block, I sent a quick message off to Colleen: Day 1: success. And by “success” I mean “survived.” 78 days left. I ran through make-believe responses in my head: telling me how much her day sucked
     maybe, or sharing some piece of mindless gossip — real or imagined — about someone we both knew.
    I picked up Lord of the Flies , waiting to hear a chime from my computer, but nothing came. So about halfway through
     study hall, I started writing another email, this time about Reid. Except I realized
     I’d never once mentioned him to her. And I wasn’t sure why.
    There was a knock at my door, and I froze. Could the faculty sense when we weren’t
     studying during study hall? Someone jiggled the door handle, and I slammed my laptop
     shut. “Hey, it’s me,” a voice called. Like I should just know who it was. Which, okay,
     I did.
    I opened the door and Reid wedged a triangle block underneath it, propping it open.
     Part (b) of visitation rules as stated in the Monroe Student Handbook.
    “You carry those around?”
    “Ms. Perkins hands them out at check-in,” Reid said. Right. Part (a).
    “Oh.” Then I stood in the doorway, wondering what I was supposed to do. Reid brushed
     by me and sprawled out on this particularly unattractive orange shag carpet I’d found
     that afternoon in the closet of spare furniture beside the laundry room.
    “God, this is hideous,” he said. He flipped a textbook open, stuck a pen behind his
     ear, and said, “By the way, I’m helping you with math.”
    “I don’t need help with — ”
    And then Ms. Perkins was standing in the entrance to my room. “I wasn’t aware you
     were taking senior courses, Mallory.”
    “Oh, I’m not.” Reid was giving me a Look. I opened the top drawer to my desk and pulled
     out my calculator. “Reid’s helping me with math.”
    He smiled at Ms. Perkins, dimple and all. “That’s very generous of you, Reid.”
    He shrugged, like it was no big deal. “Yeah, well, we used to be friends.”
    Ms. Perkins left and I stared at the blank screen of my calculator. Used to be friends. Is that what we were? Were we ever anything, really? “Mallory, I didn’t mean — ”
    “Why are you here, exactly?”
    He glanced toward the hall again, where Ms. Perkins was making the rounds from room
     to room, and scribbled absently in his notebook. Or maybe all those letters and numbers
     meant something to him.
    “How was your first day?” he asked, without looking up.
    “I already failed my first quiz.”
    Reid smiled and put his pencil down. “Durham, right?”
    I nodded. “And I eat lunch at eleven.”
    “The horror.” He looked down the hall again. Empty. “So, here’s the thing.” Reid lowered
     his voice so I had to lean forward off my chair, and I still could barely hear him.
     “Tomorrow night — ”
    “Knock, knock.” Chloe stood in my doorway, something clutched to her chest. Her eyes
     moved from me to Reid to me again, and she grinned. “Am I interrupting something?”
    “No,” Reid said, before I could even open my mouth. He went back to scribbling intensely
     in his notebook.
    “Oh good,” Chloe said. She stepped inside the room and pressed her back against the
     wall, out of view of the hallway. “I come bearing gifts.” Apparently whatever she
     was clutching to her chest were the gifts. Looked like a stack of yellow books. Then
     she turned them around so they were facing out. CliffsNotes for all the summer reading.
    “Oh my God,” I said.
    Reid glanced up. “Prep-school porn.” He laughed to himself and started packing up
     his stuff. “I can’t indulge this behavior. It’s appalling. What would your parents
     think?”
    Chloe was