Page 125 of Mad Girl

John pushed out his chair and yanked it next to mine. “Hey,” he said in a soft, soothing voice. “You don’t have to call him if you don’t want to, okay? No one’s making you do anything.” He picked up my right hand, firmly grasping my wrist. “Now, please, drop the knife.”

That’s when it registered: the dinner knife in my hand, blade squeezed tight against my palm. The rush of pain. The hot flash of relief.

It was just what I needed. Just what I craved. What Willoughby and Michael had refused to give me.

The pain rippled through me, quelling my rage.

And, for a few glorious seconds, it set me free.

John urged me to drop the knife again, and I let it clang to the table. Libby gasped at the blood. Bree, too.

Michael muttered, “Jesus.” His plate slid across the table, his fork clattering against the porcelain.

Libby dashed to the kitchen for a damp dish towel and the first aid kit, both of which she handed to John. Over the next several minutes, he cleaned the blood from my palm and inspected the cut.

While John dressed the wound, Libby stood over us to watch. And I don’t know what pushed me to ask—maybe it was having access to the Harrises without my dad present. Or maybe it was just that the questions were always there, on the tip of my tongue, and I badly wanted them answered. Even if the answers hurt.

“What made her so bad?”

John paused to meet my gaze. “Made who bad?”

“My mom. What made her a bad person?”

John and Libby exchanged another look, this one more loaded than the last.

“She abandoned you, Elliot,” John said.

“I know she left. I know we’re supposed to be better off without her. But what made her so bad? What did she do?”

Libby cleared her throat. “She lied. She manipulated people to get what she wanted, especially your dad.”

“Manipulated him how?”

Libby said, “Honey, I don’t think⁠—”

“Please tell me. He won’t tell me anything.”

John dropped his gaze to the bandage as he finished wrapping it around my hand. “She toyed with his emotions. Ran off and wouldn’t tell him where she was. Did things—horrible things—just to hurt him.”

I didn’t like these answers, because I’d done stuff like that, too. At least, on some level. Tears sprang to my eyes.

“Does he still talk to her?”

Libby clutched her necklace. “No, Elliot. Of course not.”

But she couldn’t look at me when she said it. Plus, I knew—from you, Casey—that Nic had spoken to my mom as recently as a few months ago.

“Am I bad, too? Like she was?” I whispered, tears slipping down my cheek. “Is that the reason he never leaves me alone?”

Libby smoothed my braid between her fingers. “No, sweetie.”

John brushed a tear away with his thumb. “You’re not bad.”

They were nice to say so, but they had to be lying. I’d stabbed their son. I couldn’t walk the streets alone or play tennis without an escort. I lied and hurt people.

So maybe John and Libby weren’t lying. Maybe I wasn’t bad like her. Maybe I was something far worse.

After all, I’d just cut myself with a dinner knife, and it barely fazed them. They handled the incident as though I’d cut myself by accident.