Hysteria by Megan Miranda Page A

shaking with laughter. “Leave already so we can close the door.”
    “I’d rather be caught with a girl in my room than that,” he said, hands held up.
    “You mean Mallory?”
    I looked at the floor, so unlike the version of me he remembered. As far as I could
     tell, Reid ignored the question. “Hey, I need to talk to you tomorrow.”
    “I have e-mail, you know.”
    “Oh no,” Chloe said, “that doesn’t really belong to you. Don’t send anything you don’t
     want them knowing.” She pointed to the ceiling, like they were all-powerful, all-seeing.
    “Will you be here tomorrow? Same time?” Reid asked.
    “Not like I can be anywhere else.” I pointed to the Monroe handbook on my desk. “I
     think every hour is regimented.”
    Reid smiled as he backed out the door. “Nah, Mallory. Those are only suggestions.”
     It sounded exactly like something Colleen would say. And before I could stop myself,
     I was grinning ear to ear.
    Chloe closed the door behind him and threw the books on my desk. “I suggest we get to work.” She pointed to the CliffsNotes for The Grapes of Wrath. “This. This is a particular brand of torture I can’t let anyone endure. Start here.”
     I searched for a pen. “And Mallory? Write fast.”
    When Chloe left with her books at the end of study hall, the emptiness of the room
     was overwhelming. I started to see things, like I used to at home. Brian’s shadow
     on the dark window. A handprint on the wall.
    Ms. Perkins came around to give the lights-out notice, and I held the vial of sleeping
     pills in my hand, thinking about the hand on my shoulder when I was half conscious.
     I started to worry that maybe someone had been in my room — someone real. I tilted the vial back and forth, listening to the pills fall against
     one another. Then I threw them in the bottom drawer of my desk and slammed it shut.
    My mind raced with possibility. That green car. The red door. The restraining order.
     Was it only good in New Jersey?
    The alarms on the outside doors were armed at night, at least.
    But the window. Crap, the window. I checked it and double-checked it, like Mom would
     do at home.
    I sat on my bed and stared at the door, the window, the door again. The dorm settled
     into silence.
    And then it started, in the distance. Even though I wasn’t sleeping. Even though I
     wasn’t in the in-between. I was wide awake. Sitting upright. Staring at the door.
     And it started.
    Boom, boom, boom.
    I stared at the light framing the door, which seemed to pulsate brighter with each
     beat of his heart, coming closer.
    I used to have nightmares when I was a kid. The kind where you wake up, but you still
     see the dream. Back then, I used to close my eyes from it. Remembering what Mom always
     told me — it’s only real if you let it be. So I’d close my eyes until it passed.
    The air changed in my dorm room. It started throbbing with the slow and steady beat.
     And because I was a coward, I ran for the desk. I threw open the bottom drawer, snatched
     the vial of sleeping pills, and took one.
    I buried myself face down on my bed and covered my head with my pillow, but sleep
     didn’t come quickly enough. I felt something taking shape behind me. And this time,
     I swear I could hear it laughing.
    I felt the hand on my shoulder, fingers digging in, as it held me down.

    There were marks the next morning. I saw them in the shower. Red and thin, like fingers.
     I thought of Mom sitting by my bed, stroking the hair away from my sweat-drenched
     forehead, saying, It’s only real if you let it be. I looked away from my shoulder. If I didn’t see it, it wasn’t real.
    Mr. Durham perched on the edge of his desk and took out his tattered copy of Lord of the Flies. I’d read most of that one on my own yesterday. And not the CliffsNotes version. Everyone
     took out their crisp copies and placed them on the tables in front of them.
    “So,” he began, licking his finger and thumbing through the