Dad whipped out his cell, even though there was a sign in the room that said no cell phones, and I could tell it was the lawyer on the other end. And then Mom started talking to me about absolutely nothing, trying to distract me from the other conversation.
We stayed at the hospital that night, because we had nowhere else to go. And the next day people asked me the same questions over and over, and I said the same thing, over and over, which all amounted to absolutely nothing except me trying to reason out how Jason ended up dead on my floor. By the end of the day, it was clear I was not going to be arrested. But I might be in the future. Something about circumstantial evidence. Something about the knife. Something about my blood. Something about Jason’s blood.
Officer James came back and said, “You’re free to go, but you’ll need to stay in this jurisdiction.” And it felt like this weight lodging in my gut. Like I had been waiting for something to happen. Just something. But nothing happened. I was stuck in the in-between, which somehow felt worse than being accused or arrested or something.
So we drove back to campus for a meeting. Well, my parents had a meeting. I had a date with the backseat of their car.
We were parked behind the main building, wedged between the back of the bleachers and the Dumpsters behind classes.
There was a shape under the bleachers. Hunched down in a ball. Motionless. I got this sick feeling in my stomach, like I was a magnet for dead bodies.
I pushed my door open, shattering the silence. The shape didn’t move. I walked across the pavement and crunched a leaf under my shoe. Fall coming early. Things dying. And then I stepped into the soft grass, and still the shape did not move. Light hair fell across her arms and knees. I cleared my throat and said, “Hello?”
Bree’s head shot up. And then she started rocking back and forth a little. “Bree? Are you okay?”
She glanced around at the emptiness. Then she stared at me and tightened her arms over her knees and said, “This is where Jason kissed me.”
“I’m—I didn’t know you were together.”
“We weren’t together,” she whispered, like she was saying something important, a secret, which was as important as it got here at Monroe. And then she laughed, loud and sharp, like maybe she was making fun of me. Like maybe she thought I was a prude or something.
And then I didn’t feel bad for her anymore. “Did you take the knife, Bree?”
She stopped laughing and recoiled.
“Bree,” a voice came from the other side of the bleachers, and I saw Krista and Taryn through the metal slats. Just pieces of them, here and there, as they moved. Like fragments of my imagination when I used to wake up in a half dreamlike state.
She scrambled to her feet and brushed the dirt from her pants. “No, I didn’t take the damn knife, you fucking psycho.”
She ran to the other side of the bleachers and joined the girls. And as I saw them move together, broken fragments, pieces of each tied up in the other, it seemed like there was an answer there. It was there, just on the other side of the bleachers.
How Bree wasn’t acting scared of me because she knew I hadn’t done it. And I knew it, right then, standing next to a discarded chip bag under the empty bleachers: one of them did.
My hands were shaking as I pulled at the handle to the car door. And they were shaking still when I pushed down the lock.
“You can’t stay here,” Dad said as he started the engine. “Not until everything gets cleared up.”
“But you can continue your coursework remotely,” Mom said.
“We’re going home?” I saw Reid in the distance, across the field, just standing there. Alone. I placed my palm against the window, but he didn’t see me.
“You can’t,” Dad said, and I remembered Officer James telling us to stay in town. “I’ll set you and Mom up in a hotel nearby.”
I thought that this must be what purgatory was like. Can’t go forward. Can’t go back. Awaiting some official judgment.
Dad said my dorm room was sealed off by the cops, so I didn’t have anything. No toothbrush, no clothes, no computer. The only thing the cops returned was my phone, and only because it hadn’t been used to make any calls. It was useless. But I gripped onto it like it was worth something while Mom made a visit to the campus store so I’d have stuff to wear.
Great. Looked like I’d be living in Monroe Tshirts and gym pants until I was allowed to leave. Or return. Whichever.
Dad said we were going to a hotel, but there weren’t any, not really. Not what he would consider a hotel, anyway. More like an upscale motel, two miles away from school, on the same road past the diner. It was clean, and kind of set up like a suite, but there was no lobby or anything, just doors opening directly to the outside, like the motels that bordered the beach on the party side of the shore.
I checked my cell: no service. This whole place was like one big dead zone. So I powered it down but left it out on the bedroom dresser, like it was a picture frame.
The set-up wasn’t too bad: two separate rooms with queen beds sharing one common living room. Dad scribbled the number listed on our phone, told us not to make any calls, and left. Then it got dark, and the walls felt so thin. Not like in the dorm, where I couldn’t hear the crickets. Here, the outside sounded so close. And occasionally a car pulled in and the headlights cut through the shades, and I had this fear they could see me, a shadow against the wall.
I didn’t know where my sleeping pills were. I guess they were confiscated. And it’s not like I trusted myself to ever sleep again, anyway. When the boom, boom, boom started that night, part of me wanted to crawl into Mom’s bed and watch TV with her—I could hear it through the two walls. But the other part of me wondered whether she had locked the door, and I didn’t really want to find out.
Mallory, the room whispered. I rifled through the bedside table and pulled out a penlight. Wait, it said. But I didn’t. I pulled on a sweatshirt, slid my feet into my sneakers, and snuck out my door. I listened for the television, and when I heard laughter (the television, not Mom), I let myself quietly out the front door.
I didn’t turn the flashlight on until I was on the main road, and then I realized how useless it was, with a narrow beam of light. But I figured it would keep me from getting hit by a car, if there were any. I kept on the pavement, the lights from the motel fading into the distance, and when I could only see blackness behind me and blackness in front of me, I started to jog.
I ran away.
And only when I was a good ways past the diner and the gas station did I realize I was running toward something.
No, not something. Someone.
Chapter 16
I wanted Reid to know the truth. I wanted him to know I didn’t do it. I wanted him to believe me. It mattered. I jogged along the edge of the road, the flashlight beam catching nothing but fragments of trees. Road. Sky. And then that M came into focus, darker than the night sky, black on black. And I entered.
I stopped running and skirted around the edge of campus, trying to catch my breath and keep away from the outside lights. When I reached Reid’s dorm, I froze. The doors were alarmed at night. He was on the second floor. I shook my head at myself as I picked up a pebble. I used to think it was so ridiculous when people did this in movies. Turned out, it was the best option out there.
I counted windows and knew I had his because there was a faint glow behind the blinds. Seemed right that he wouldn’t be sleeping right now.
Unfortunately, my aim was horrific. It hit the brick next to the glass and the pebble bounced off, landing silently in the grass somewhere. I tried again, and this time connected.
A hand gripped my elbow from behind, and I shrieked.
I spun around and Reid put a finger to his lips. Then he took my hand and pulled me behind the dorm.
In the shadows, gasping in air, I said, “What are you doing out here?”
“Same thing you’re doing.”
I shook my head. “I was looking for you.”
“Yeah, and I was on my way back from looking for you.”
“I’m not supposed to be here.”