Page 119 of Mad Girl

LETTER FIFTEEN

68 WEEKS LEFT

In the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, we kept finding ourselves crossing paths late at night. You, warming up milk at the stove or reading in the Garland Room. Me, refilling my water bottle or letting you make me a cup of camomile tea, not wanting to be alone.

But I didn’t talk much—if at all—and you definitely noticed.

“Are you okay?” you asked me one evening.

I roughly flipped a page of my book, which I’d been reading for the past thirty minutes without registering a single word.

“We can talk about it,” you said softly.

“What’s the point?” I asked with a huff. “They did what they wanted to me. You did what you wanted to them. My dad did whatever the hell he did. And now it’s over.”

“It isn’t over,” you said. “You’re barely eating. You aren’t texting your friends back. I’ve been giving you extra biscuits with your tea, and you don’t even touch them. You’ve left my cardigan sitting on that chair”—you gestured at one of the wingbacks—“for several days now. Which makes me think you’re probably mad at me.”

I lifted my gaze to yours.

“Okay,” you said, wincing at the hard look on my face, “you’re definitely mad at me.”

“I’m mad at the whole situation, Casey. And, yes, that includes you.”

I just wanted to go to a party with my friend. To dance and have fun. To see a boy. To act like a normal eighteen-year-old.

Instead, it had turned into a nightmare that reminded me I had no power whatsoever—not over any aspect of my life.

“I got carried away,” you said, your wretched gaze searching mine. “I’m sorry that led to your dad finding out when you didn’t want him to.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, slamming my book shut and pushing up from the sofa. “I’m fine.”

I hurried from the room before the tears fell. Before you could clearly see that I wasn’t.

At school, I stopped giving a shit.

I skipped class and assembly. I walked out on a quiz. I even snapped back at my physics teacher when she caught me texting in class, which earned me a meeting with the head of school.

At dinner that night, Nic brought it up. “Elliot, I know what happened at school today.”

“Big surprise there,” I said, stabbing the chicken breast on my plate.

“You can’t talk to your teachers like that.”

I laughed. “Actually, I can—and I did. So.”

“That’s not acceptable.”

“What will you do about it? Ground me?” What I didn’t say was: I’m already grounded. I’ve been grounded for the last ten years. “Send me back to therapy? For calling someone a bitch?”

I caught you watching me from across the table, that concerned crease forming between your eyebrows.

“I could take your phone away,” Nic said, “since you were using it in class.”

“You want my phone? Here. Take it.” I slammed the phone on the table between us, and you had no way of realizing it, Casey, but the wary look on my dad’s face was all too familiar to me. From experience, he knew I was at a snapping point. He knew to tread carefully. He knew better than to reach for the phone, to even look at it. Instead, he kept his eyes on me. “Take my phone, Dad. Take it away permanently. I don’t give a fuck. What do I need it for, anyway?”

When he didn’t take the phone, I stood and chucked it as hard as I could at the mirror above the sideboard. And I bet you remember that moment vividly, Casey, because the mirror in question hung right behind the dining table—right behind you. You ducked, and the mirror shattered. Shards of glass fell to the sideboard as my phone bounced to the floor.

It was such a juvenile thing to do. But that rage I felt? It had nowhere to go, no way out. Breaking that mirror had quelled the rage a little, but the only way to truly quell it was to physically hurt myself.