Hysteria by Megan Miranda Read Free Book Online Page A

was still shaking like she was.
    Brian’s mom wasn’t paying attention. She looked like she was, but if you were staring,
     like I was, you’d see she had her head tilted to the side like she was listening to
     something. Listening for something. Dylan stood next to her, his fists balled up. Staring at the ground like
     he was furious with it. Like it had taken something from him. Which, I guess, it had.
    Then they all walked up to the hole in the ground. His mother dropped a handful of
     dirt into it, and someone, I’m not sure who, but someone released this noise. This horrible, unnatural sound — a wail. It traveled across the field and through the pickets of the fence. And it buried itself
     deep within my stomach, like grief was a concrete thing. It settled inside me, and
     there wasn’t room for anything else, not even air. I was suffocating. I turned around
     with my back pressed up hard against the fence, and I felt hot and cold all at once,
     but then only hot. And I vomited into the bushes behind me.
    Then they were coming. They all crossed back over the street, finding their way to
     their cars parked along the curb. I held my breath between the fence posts. Brian’s
     mom was right there. I could reach out and touch her between the slats. I couldn’t
     see her face, but she paused right in front of me and tilted her head to the side.
     Like maybe that whole time she had been listening for me. Then Dylan was beside her,
     pulling her along. I saw her jaw tense, and that vein, seething.
    Later that night, when Colleen snuck over to see me, I said, “The funeral was today,”
     because I wanted her to tell me why she went.
    And she said, “Really? I thought it was next week.” I still didn’t know why she went,
     but at least I knew why she wouldn’t admit to it then: there was nothing quite like
     watching Brian’s body being lowered into the ground to fully understand the horror
     of what I had done.

    Someone was running up the path. Heavy steps, stomping the dirt. I crouched lower.
     And then a muffled voice said, “Shit.” A decidedly male voice. I scrambled to my knees
     and peeked over the top, breathing in the dust from the bricks under my nose. Reid
     was scanning the woods beyond, my second pair of flip-flops in his hands.
    I stood up, brushing the dust and debris from my shorts.
    “God, are you trying to kill me?” He stepped over the piles of bricks, but froze a
     few feet away. He shook his head to himself and stared at the bricks. “I mean, you
     could’ve gotten me in a lot of trouble.” He held my shoes toward me again, like a
     peace offering.
    I took the shoes and slid them onto my feet. “I guess it’s no secret, huh?” At least
     I knew why he’d been staring at me when I crossed center campus.
    He had the decency not to act like he didn’t know what I was talking about. “It is
     and it isn’t,” he finally said. “Jason’s dad is Dean Dorchester, so no luck there.
     And Krista’s part of the family, though she was away for the summer, so I don’t know
     if she knows yet.” She did. She definitely did.
    “Siblings?” Made perfect sense to me. They had the same hair color and, from what
     I could tell, the same cold attitude.
    Reid shook his head. “Cousins.”
    “What about you, Reid?” It’s not like our dads could confide in each other anymore.
    He looked away. “I heard from Jason.”
    “You’re friends?” I didn’t know why I assumed they wouldn’t be — it’s not like I knew him all that well. And even when I did, I never saw him with
     his school friends. He could’ve been an entirely different person with them. Like
     how being with Colleen made me bolder, more sure of myself, more confident.
    Reid paused, like he was thinking really hard about the question. “We’re teammates.
     And secrets are like currency here. You tell one, you’re owed one. There’s a hierarchy
     to it.”
    “You’re high up?”
    He shrugged. “I’m high