“Hey.” Reid stretched his arms over his head and violently rubbed at his hair, which then miraculously fell into place. Stupid hair. “Been up long?”
I spun so my back was to the mirror, making sure my shirt was covering the marks. “Not too long. You snore,” I said.
He paused at the edge of the bed and hopped down. “What time is it?”
“Six.” I didn’t look at him when I answered. Because now there was light, and I was too nervous to look at his face. To see if he regretted knowing about me. If he thought I was crazy.
“I need to get back before Durham’s morning run.”
“That’s how it works? You have a whole routine about sneaking into people’s rooms?”
“Hey. It’s just common knowledge. Go after Perkins’ light goes off, which, by the way, is not an exact science. Be back before Durham’s run. It’s just things you know after a while. This isn’t something I do a lot.” Which meant it was something he had at least done a few times before. I hated that I felt jealous. Hated it. It’s not like I’d been on my own waiting for him, just like he hadn’t been waiting alone for me. We had lived, for two years. Made choices and mistakes, had good days and bad days.
And then he was taking these long strides to my window. One, two, three. Changed his mind, walked back to me. Didn’t even slow down when he reached me—he walked me back until I was against the wall, and he kissed me. Like he’d been waiting all night to do it. Then he rested his forehead against mine for a second before walking away. He straddled the sill. “Mallory,” he said, like he meant something more, but then he was gone. The absence of him felt like a tangible thing.
That morning I realized I didn’t have any red polos to wear. Just the one shirt from Friday that was still in the hamper, and I hadn’t done laundry. I’d have to make a trip to the school store after class. In the meantime, I found a reddish T-shirt that I thought might blend in a little.
I was wrong.
“Ms. Murphy,” Mr. Durham said as I slid into my seat for English. “You cannot be in class like this.”
“Oh,” I said. I kind of figured people would know about the slashed shirts. “I don’t have any clean uniform shirts.”
“Monroe takes student responsibility quite seriously.” Apparently, Mr. Durham did know. And, apparently, Jason’s rumor had also reached him. “You are welcome to return when you manage to find some appropriate attire. Perhaps a friend will lend you a shirt?”
I scanned the room, and everyone who had been looking at me was suddenly looking down. Even the ones who used to smile at me. Like the social stigma of girl who slashed own shirts for attention was contagious. The only one not looking down was Bree. She was staring out the window. Thankfully Krista wasn’t in class yet. Eventually Chloe held her room keys in her outstretched hand. But I didn’t want to take her down with me.
“Thanks,” I said, “but I’ll manage.” I snatched up my books and hurried out of the room just as the bell rang.
My neck felt hot, even though the hall was cool. Heat crept upward, and I thought I might be sick. I slid into the nearest restroom, splashed water on my face and across the back of my neck. Then I stared at the mirror and took several deep breaths.
I heard voices in the hall.
“I can’t stop her,” someone hissed.
“Sure you can.” The voice, not even hushed, belonged to Jason.
“I can’t.” The whisper was pleading this time.
There was a beat of silence, then a squeak, a sharp sound emitted from a throat, and the lowered voice. “Fix it, Krista. Lovely, lovely Krista.”
I froze. Soundless. Noiseless. And waited.
I heard a throat being cleared once, twice. And then footsteps racing down the hall. Then there was silence. I tiptoed out of the restroom, and Jason was standing across the hall, staring at me.
He looked irate. Furious.
Hysterical.
Like Brian had.
Chapter 11
Brian stood under the living-room window, the screen lying beside him on the tiled floor. His mouth was moving and he was screaming, but he wasn’t making any sense. I stared at the floor, at the pieces of the white vase with the blue flowers. A petal lay at my feet.
Then I looked back at Brian, and this chill ran up the base of my spine, like I could feel the wrongness of the situation.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I shouted back. Finally.
Brian shook his head, like he was clearing his own words. He looked at the floor, and looked at me with this odd expression, like he wasn’t really sure why he was there either. He seemed to register the wrongness of the situation too.
Then Brian was just breathing hard, thinking. And I was thinking too. Thinking Brian wouldn’t hurt me, wouldn’t try to hurt me, because people are generally good. But then I had believed that Brian wouldn’t break into my house either, because good people don’t do that. Yet here he was. And I was thinking about that guy on the skateboard, the one he beat the crap out of for no real reason at all. So while he stood there thinking, I sprinted for the phone on the side table.
And that seemed to make Brian’s mind up for him, because he sprinted too.
My hands shook as I pressed power, and Brian was right in front of me, but he wasn’t doing anything. “Mallory, wait,” he said. His amber eyes were pleading, but there was something off about them.
He was so close, and he was so much stronger than me, so all I could punch was the 9 before he slapped the phone out of my hand. It shattered on the floor, the battery pack shooting out across the tile. “Shit,” he said, gripping my wrist. “Just . . . wait.”
“Let go,” I said, only it came out all high-pitched and tiny, like the fear was gripping me around the neck. Or like my body was trying to hold on to all the oxygen, just in case.
But he didn’t let go. His grip tightened around my arm and he shook me and said, “Listen.”
Up close I could tell that his pupils were dilated unnaturally, and when he spoke, his breath smelled like cigarettes and liquor. So I wrenched my arm as hard as I could and backpedaled into the dining room. Then my foot caught—slipped on the phone’s battery pack. I fell, back, back, into Mom’s china cabinet. It gave out with barely any resistance, shards of glass cascading around me as I slid to the floor. Tiny specks of red bloomed on my arms as Brian’s footsteps crunched the glass, coming closer.
There was a part of me that wanted to run from the way Jason was looking at me. Like I had witnessed something I shouldn’t have. Like he wanted to take his anger out on something, and I was the closest thing. But there was another part of me that didn’t want to run at all, something I tried to ignore, fighting its way to the surface.
I shoved it back down. “You’re disgusting,” I said.
He blinked in surprise and said, “You’re one to talk.”
“You make a habit of bullying girls?” And I felt that thing rising up in me, but I shook it away again.
Jason laughed. “Her? You think she’s a girl? She’s nothing. What’s it called when something can’t live without a host? A parasite, right? That’s Krista. She’s a parasite. And she’s nothing without me.”
I didn’t like Krista, I didn’t like anything about Krista. But this feeling kept rising until I could feel it in my arms, making me jittery. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to smack the smile off his face, push his skull into the concrete wall, feel his weight give out as he sank to the floor.
I was breathing heavily, filled with terror over what I wanted to do to him, so I turned and ran down the hall.
“Run along, Mallory,” Jason called after me. “Run along.”