“Okay,” I said, and I watched her walk down the hall like in a trance, absently fumbling with her doorknob, her fist still closed around that single pill. Like it was worth something.
Then I took one myself. And right after, I heard something outside my window. Someone was there. I was sure of it. Almost sure of it. I heard the resistance of the lock as it was pushed upward. I turned on the lights and threw open the shades, but I could only see my reflection. I darted across the room and turned off the lights—and I swear I saw a dark figure heading for the trees.
Long, lanky strides. Hair lit in the moonlight. Brian.
Hysteria, I thought. In my mind. Hallucinations. So I jerked the blinds closed and lay on the bed and took comfort in the familiarity of what would happen next.
The beating of his heart. My name, whispered. Begging me to wait. And his hand.
I let it come, and I felt some relief, finally. Like this was the consequence. And all I had to do was endure it.
The next day was full of a different kind of talk. Reid and Krista. Fighting.
“He called her a manipulative bitch,” some girl whispered in math. Lisa? Lissa?
“No, he said she was a pathetic, manipulative bitch,” the girl next to her said.
“Was that before or after she kissed him?”
My head slipped off my hand and nearly banged into the table. The girls looked at me, and they didn’t look away, or stare too long, or anything. The one closest to me leaned over and grinned. She whispered, “Before she tried to kiss him.”
I smiled quickly at her, and ran the image through my mind. Krista cornering him. Trying to kiss him. Reid pushing her back, calling her a manipulative bitch. No, a pathetic, manipulative bitch. Perfect. And then I thought of these two girls, and I thought that maybe there were a lot of people like that—normal, non-bitchy, non-crazy people, like Chloe—and I just hadn’t looked hard enough yet. I also thought I should probably start looking.
Reid found me after class—before his game. He was out of breath, and probably running late for warm-ups. “So,” he said, “I should probably tell you that I got in a fight with Krista.”
“So I heard,” I said.
“Not, like, a physical one or anything.”
“I know.”
“She tried to kiss me,” he said.
“I heard that too. Funny. I thought she didn’t like you.”
“She doesn’t,” he said.
“I don’t get it.”
“She was trying to mess with me. And you.”
“Why does she hate us?”
“It’s not us, don’t you see? It’s not even her. But I’m so freaking sick of it.” He closed his eyes and shook his head, then refocused on me. “Oh, but in the interest of full disclosure, I should also tell you that Saturday is in two days.”
“Good math, Reid.”
“Thanks. Yeah. No school. No practice. I’m free. Available. You know, if you’re going to be around . . .”
“Good to know,” I said, and I couldn’t stop the stupid smile from spreading across my face.
“But now I gotta go kick some soccer ass. See you soon?”
“See you soon,” I promised.
And suddenly the next two days couldn’t be over fast enough. I watched him race off to get ready for his game, and I sat under the giant oak, just staring off into the distance. Watching while the sky turned different shades of blue as the clouds moved across the sun. Like Colleen and I used to do on the summer evenings from the boardwalk.
I went back to my dorm to send her an e-mail. But as I walked through the lounge, I saw Krista sitting with Taryn and Bree, and I caught the end of Krista’s sentence. “He won’t get away with it,” she said, bringing her fist down on the coffee table like a gavel.
I grinned, thinking how inconsequential they were. How Reid didn’t give a crap what they said about him. How Reid was bigger than all this. And then they all followed me with their eyes as I walked across the room. Except for Bree. Bree didn’t look up. Like we were arguing about something.
The afternoon of the party, after I argued with Colleen, after I left her in the water for Brian, and then after he had left me, I got a text from her. A peace offering, I guess: I’m still grounded. But you should go.
I wrote back: Lame without you anyway.
And she wrote: My life would be complete if you had a Y chromosome.
So when she showed up that night, catching fireflies on my back patio, I knew she was doing it for me. Not for her. Not for Cody Parker. Me.
I left the girls in the lounge, and I sent Colleen an e-mail. There might be stuff to tell you, I wrote, which I knew she’d interpret as boy stuff. But I felt like I was lying to her, by all the things I wasn’t saying. Reid’s name. The blood on my shoulder, the fingerprints on my skin, the knife I stole and lost, or possibly just misplaced in my psychosis. The things I saw that were not there. She sent an e-mail right back saying she’d be ungrounded Saturday.
For the first time in a long time, I was looking forward instead of backward. To what comes next.
Two more days.
Chapter 14
That night, like always, it started with the heartbeat. Boom, boom, boom.
And then my name. Mallory. Wait.
And then the hand. The fingers, digging in, grinding down through muscle and nerve. Shocks of pain radiating down my arm.
But then, there was a different dream.
First I saw Brian’s mouth, saying, “Mallory, wait.” Like always. And then Brian’s mother appeared, reaching a hand out to me, garbage hanging from her clothes, asking me to wait. Then I was leaning in to kiss Reid, but his hands were on my shoulders, pushing me back, and he was saying, “Wait.” And then Colleen was curled up behind me on the sand, whispering, “Wait,” into my ear. And then I was walking into the fog, wandering away from campus, down that path past the cross, and a boy was running in front of me, getting farther and farther away, and I was the one chasing after him. I was the one screaming, “Wait!”
Click.
My door. Was it in my dream? Or was it from that place where things that did not exist whispered in my ear? It felt real as anything.
I jumped out of bed and my head swam like my blood was running in the wrong direction. I dove for the door, but it was locked.
Maybe it was the closet.
I took my scissors out and held them in front of me as I flung open the closet door, but nothing moved except the clothes, the hangers squeaking with the faintest motion.
I checked the window. This time I kept the light off. I pulled the shade up and placed my hands against the glass, peering out. The moon was bright, and the trees looked like tall shadows. Nothing moved.
Then I stepped back and saw a mark against the glass. A handprint. I flipped the lights on and saw that it was red, like blood. I went closer to inspect the handprint, hoping it was something other than blood. But it wasn’t.
And it was on the inside.
It was mine.
The moon had been bright that night, even though it was raining. And I was running, sprinting, wheezing with each step. The alley moving by me in a blur. Feet on the wooden boardwalk. The moon was too bright. I was too bright. Over the dunes. Down on the sand at high tide. The white light reflected off the water, reflected off me. There was so much blood.
Too much blood. I didn’t understand how there could possibly be that much blood on my hands, on my arms, on my chest. How did it get there? How did it get everywhere?
I raced toward the pier, where the boardwalk juts out. To the darkness. And I fell onto my knees in the water and dug my hands deep under the sand, trying to scrub it all off. I fell face-first, and I picked up fistfuls of sand and ground it into the front of my shirt. Over my arms. Everywhere.
The salt water stung my eyes. And it stung my arms, where the blood was my own. And then I sat back, while the water and Brian’s blood lapped around me, and I waited. I waited. I waited.