Hysteria (32 page)

Dylan had backed away from me. “Shit,” he said. “Shit, shit, shit.” He cowered, like
maybe Brian could see through the walls or something. “He’s drunk,” he added.

“So are you,” I said, which had nothing to do with the situation at all.

“Yeah, but I’m not . . . like that . . . when I’m drunk.”

“Dylan, you little shit, I know you can hear me! You fucking lay a hand on her and
you’re dead. You hear me? You’re
dead
.”

Dylan scanned the room quickly, walked back through the kitchen, and silently turned
the lock on the back door. He gently pulled the door open, put a finger to his lips,
and said, “Don’t tell.”

He eased the door shut behind him.

And I was alone.

“You left me,” I said. “Why did you leave me?”

The whole room was pulsating, like my kitchen used to do. “Everything was
fine
,” he said. “When I left, everything was fine.”

“No, it wasn’t
fine
. Brian climbed in the goddamn window. He was looking for you, and he was yelling
at me, and he was
completely
out of control.”

“He was drunk!” he yelled. “Couldn’t you just leave or something? Why did you have
to kill him, Mallory?”

And with that, he raced across the room and got in my face like Brian had done that
night. “Why did you do it? Why?”

I remembered racing into the kitchen, racing away from Brian, and looking at the back
door. Looking for Dylan. Hoping he would see me and come back, hoping he would help
me. And Brian was right behind me, practically breathing down my neck. But all I saw,
out in the darkness, was the high gate, swinging open and closed with the wind.

Dylan was gone. And Brian said he wanted to kill him. And I was
—

“Scared,” I said. “I was scared.” Dylan didn’t back up, so I added, “I’m still scared.”

He walked backward, out of the room, out the door, into the rain. And when I looked
up to meet his face, I knew he’d left me alone that night for the very same reason:
he was scared.

I ran after him and caught him when he was halfway to his car. “Dylan,” I yelled.
The rain was so loud, I could barely hear myself even when I was yelling. He spun
around, and I gripped the front of his shirt.

I had to say something, had to do something. But all I could do was hold onto his
shirt, trying to bridge the gap. Remind him of something.

He peeled my hands from his shirt and held my arms down to my sides. He leaned forward
over my shoulder and whispered three words into my ear, which I think I must have
been waiting for.

“I hate you,” he said.

I felt it in my heart, all the way to my bones. Because he meant it all the way to
my soul.

“You didn’t always,” I said. “I remember. Don’t you?”

I had my hands on the sides of his shirt again, like I could will him to remember
somehow, and he had his hands gripped around my arms. I couldn’t tell whether he was
pushing or pulling me, and we stayed like that, like he didn’t know what to do with
me other than hate me. And I didn’t know how to make him remember. He must’ve felt
something at some point that was something other than hate. But not now, because he
was shaking.

Then I remembered he left me. He
left
me. And if he’d felt anything back then, really, he wouldn’t have done that.

He was just a boy I had liked because he smelled good in chemistry, and he smiled
at me when I walked in the room, and I could feel him looking me up and down when
I was leaning over the lab bench. And I couldn’t have him.

I was just a girl he didn’t want until he couldn’t have me. And it was the most tragic
thing I could even imagine that someone was dead because of something so cliché. Because
of us. Because of me.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I was doing something halfway between crying and yelling, so
it came out all cracked and angry and sad. “I’m sorry,” I said again.

“Don’t,” he said, prying my fingers off his clothing.

That night was a lot of people’s fault. It was Brian’s fault, it was Dylan’s fault,
and it was my fault. I grabbed onto his shirt again. “I’m sorry,” I said again. “Please,”
I added, “please.”

Dylan was still shaking, and he took these deliberate steps backward, like it was
the hardest thing in the world. He got in the car, and I heard him yelling in rage,
I heard him through the metal and the rain. No words, just noise. And then the engine
turned over, and all I saw were his taillights.

I stood in the rain, watching him go, feeling this unbearable weight in the pit of
my stomach.

“I’m sorry,” I said again. “Please, I’m sorry.” But I wasn’t talking to Dylan anymore.

The only answer was the rain, washing away nothing.

“Mallory?” I turned and saw a figure standing in the rain against a car. Reid, frozen,
like he didn’t know whether to stay or go, like he was trying to make sure it was
really me.

I shook my head at him and stepped back toward the hotel room.

“Are you okay?”

I backed up again. Shook my head again. Imagined what Reid thought he was witnessing.
Stepped away.

“What was that about? Who was that?” He was coming closer, now that he was sure it
was me.

“Nothing. No one.” I watched the empty road, silently begging for something. Then
I looked at Reid, who looked like he wanted so badly to understand.

Brian. Dylan. Jason.

“Mallory?” he asked again, like he wanted to give me the benefit of the doubt, like
always. Like he wanted to believe.

“It has nothing to do with you,” I said, which wasn’t true at all.

“It has
everything
to do with me,” he said. And he was right. Because over his shoulder, down the road,
was his uncomplicated life, and his uncomplicated future, and I was its opposite.
I wouldn’t be responsible for ruining this life too.

“Reid,” I whispered, and I put my hands up, face out. “I can’t do this.”

Reid stopped walking toward me. “What, exactly, can’t you do?”

But I didn’t need to say anything at all, because he already knew the answer. I fumbled
for the door handle behind me, my hand still shaking.

“Don’t,” he said. “Wait.” I couldn’t breathe. And I couldn’t look at him as I slipped
inside and shut the door behind me. Too much. It was all too much.

I put my head between my knees until I found my breath again. The selfish part of
me still wanted him here, unwavering, standing with me against everyone. I stood and
faced the door. There were things I knew about Reid. Things I was sure of. If I opened
that door, he’d come inside. He’d listen. He’d believe me. If I opened that door,
he’d stay.

I wondered whether he heard, through the rain, the metal clicking into place as I
turned the lock.

I watched through the curtains as his car drove away, down the same road as Dylan,
and then there was nothing. No one. Not Mom, not Dylan, not even that presence anymore.
And definitely not Reid.

I guess that, at least, I deserved.

Chapter 19

I
used half the towels in the bathroom to soak up the water that Dylan had brought
inside. I showered. I pushed the couch aside and found Mom’s pepper spray. And when
she returned, I was sitting in the exact same place I was when she’d left. She let
her bag drop on the floor and sat next to me on the couch. “Not much they can do about
an off-campus incident,” she said, leaning back against the cushions.

I pressed my lips together to keep the tremble from my mouth. I sat on my hands so
she wouldn’t see they were shaking. And I held my breath so she couldn’t hear it catch.
She placed her hand tentatively on my shoulder and said, “It’s okay. Dad’s talking
to the lawyer again. We’ll figure something out. And then we’ll get out of this place.”

And that did it. My mother telling me we could go
—
together. My breath caught and she wrapped her arms around me, hugging me from the
side. It was like she was seeing me for the first time since the night she came home
and found Brian’s blood all over her spotless kitchen floor. It was like she was making
up for that. Because she didn’t hug me that night.

She couldn’t. She was shaking too hard.

Colleen had been begging me to stand up. She told me we had to go. Leave. Get out
of there. And she was pulling on my arms, trying to get me to my feet.

“Mallory,” she said. And I realized she was choking on the word. I looked at my hands,
my shirt, and realized what I must’ve looked like to her with the tide rising up.

I reached both arms up to her and she locked her hands around my elbows and I locked
mine around hers and she dug her feet into the sand and I dug mine in too, and then
we were standing.

“Come on,” Colleen whispered, like we were supposed to go but stay hidden.

But as she started walking I said, “Colleen.” She looked over her shoulder, and I
said, “I want to go home.”

She didn’t argue, though I could tell she wanted to. She stopped and faced me, and
we stood that way for a minute at least, with the rain falling between us, and then
she closed the gap between us, wrapped her arms around me, held on so tight I stopped
shaking. Held on like this was the end of something, like this was good-bye. But all
I could think was that I was getting blood on her shirt. “Please,” she whispered,
and all I could do was shake my head against hers. Though now I realized that when
she said
please
, she hadn’t been saying it to me.

We were saying good-bye. To the life we thought we’d have. To the future we thought
we’d see. Even if it was just the two of us, and the future was just tomorrow. We
wouldn’t have it. We walked down the back alley, and there were people outside, some
with umbrellas. Some without. They parted as we walked, and Colleen held onto my hand.
And as everyone parted for us, I saw a figure at the end. My mother, shaking her head,
with a hand over her stomach, and a cop with a hand on her shoulder, and my dad with
an arm on her back.

She looked up, I guess to see what the sudden silence was about. And she looked at
me, covered in rain and salt water and blood, walking toward her, like I was a ghost.
Her knees gave out beneath her.

Dad caught her under the arms before she hit the ground.