Free Hysteria by Megan Miranda Page B

don’t look so good.”
    What happened? I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t even sure if I was seeing clearly. I yanked
     at the collar of my shirt, pulling it down over my shoulder. “Do you see something?”
     I asked.
    Reid smiled, then tried not to smile, then smiled again. “Um.” I followed his gaze
     to the black-and-silver bra strap. Damn Colleen and her proclamation that the only
     thing more boring than a white bra was a sports bra. I released the neck of the shirt
     and shrugged it back up over my shoulder.
    “I meant like marks or something. On my shoulder,” I said, looking at the people rushing
     past, but not really focusing on them.
    His forehead creased and he leaned closer. “Did someone hurt you?”
    I shook my head. Maybe. No. I don’t know. “Never mind.” I looked at his hands, which were kind of hovering between us, like
     they were undecided.
    There was a chime from the speakers. “Warning bell.” Reid started backing away in
     the opposite direction. “I have soccer later,” he said, like I had wondered. “But
     I’ll see you.” Like I had asked. Then he turned and fell into stride with a sea of
     red shirts and khaki pants.
    He disappeared.

    Colleen said I disappeared when I was with Brian. Which at first I didn’t get — because I was louder and more sarcastic and I laughed more whenever I was near him.
    I was always on my toes, deflecting his friends’ half flirts, half jabs. Reminding
     Joe that Sammy was the hot twin, without the busted nose. Making sure Brian saw me
     doing cartwheels at the waterline. I was me, and then some. I was me times ten. So
     I rolled my eyes the first time she said it. But then I realized she meant that, even
     then, I still paled in comparison to Brian’s forceful personality. The way he demanded
     attention, demanded respect, demanded me.
    “Mallory, come on,” he’d said, while we sat with Colleen, Cody, and Sammy on the beach.
     “Show me your place.”
    I waited for Colleen to come up with an excuse for me, like she always did, because
     she could usually sense, without asking, that I wanted one. But she stayed silent,
     staring off at the horizon.
    “Colleen,” I’d said. “Don’t we have plans this afternoon?”
    “Yeah,” she said, keeping her eyes on the distance. “We do.” Then she turned to me
     and kept her face hard. “Sorry, I didn’t notice you were here.”

    Bree was hard not to notice in English class. She was demanding attention too, laughing
     a little too loudly. Making sure everyone overheard her telling some story to Krista
     about some guy over the summer. I rolled my eyes, but I kind of understood why she
     was doing it. Krista sat directly across the room from me, on the other side of the U of tables, wedged between Bree, who wouldn’t shut up, and Taryn, who was drawing
     in her notebook. There was this berth around them, almost like they were exclusive,
     except I got the feeling that nobody else wanted to touch them.
    Chloe sat beside me. “Word to the wise,” she whispered. “Mr. Durham can make your
     life easy, or he can make your life hell. Choose wisely.”
    “Thanks.”
    “Also, we’re about to have a pop quiz on the summer reading. Happens every year.”
    “I didn’t get the summer reading list.”
    “Not good.” Chloe tore a paper from her notebook and started scribbling titles and
     names and half sentences. Quick plot summaries. Then Mr. Durham walked in the room
     and she quickly balled up the paper and stuffed it in her bag.
    I was definitely going to fail.

    I only saw Reid once during classes, and he didn’t see me. He walked into a science
     classroom down the hall from mine, laughing at something the girl next to him was
     saying, raising his hand in greeting as he passed his teacher. And that was all I
     saw of him. He was a senior, with senior classes and senior friends, and presumably
     a better lunch slot than me. Seriously. Who eats lunch at eleven in the morning?
    And after