Page 145 of Mad Girl

I read Michael’s letter first. When I asked for his forgiveness, he gave me a small smile and said, “Yes, Elliot. Yes. I forgive you.”

Sienna rolled her eyes—well, the eye I could see, anyway. She wore a patch over the other one.

Clutching a small stack of pages in my lap, I willed my hands to stop shaking as I read Sienna’s letter next. I told her how jealous I was of her life, how it felt like she kept intruding on my time with Michael, how it hurt my feelings when she made fun of me for going to therapy. Then I apologized for sending her to the emergency room and asked for her forgiveness.

But that bitch looked at me with her haughty bitch face, and she said, “I don’t know if I can, Elliot. What you did to me was pretty vicious.”

Michael squeezed her leg, but she didn’t seem to care.

When I apologized again, she said, “You’re only saying you’re sorry because you were told to say it. I mean, you sent me to the ER for hitting on someone.”

“You did more than just hit on him,” I said through clenched teeth. “You fu⁠—”

“Elliot,” Nic said.

Again—but with greater effort this time—I forced those two little words past my lips.

“You don’t sound sorry,” she said. “In fact, you don’t look like a person who feels any remorse at all.”

I looked at my dad, and my dad looked at me—in the quiet, challenging way he often did when this happened, almost as if to say, Prove it—and that’s when I groveled. Not because I needed her to forgive me. Because I couldn’t allow her to be right. I couldn’t ever allow them to have the final say about me. I could feel remorse. Felt it deeper and sharper than they could possibly imagine. Often carved that remorse into my skin. Bleeding to silence it.

Which is why, over and over, I continued to apologize to her. But Sienna would not accept my apology. And when people won’t forgive me, Casey, I get desperate. I cry. I say things that don’t always make sense to the person listening, but make perfect sense to Michael: I’m not a bad person. I want to go back. I wan’t to stop myself from ever doing it. Please forgive me. Please.

That day—while I continued to beg, and Sienna continued to withhold her forgiveness—Michael leaned forward with his head in his hands, miserable, muttering things under his breath. He hates the way I cry and carry on. He knew it would come to this with her—we both did. That’s why he’d asked Nic to punish him instead.

“Jesus, Sienna,” he said. “Forgive her already. Just say you forgive her. Please.”

When Nic could see she wasn’t going to, he placed a hand on my knee. “That’s enough. Calm down, Elliot. It’s okay.”

“No,” I said, shoving his hand off me. “She has to believe I’m sorry. She has to.”

Nic shook his head. “No, honey. She doesn’t—and that’s okay.”

But it wasn’t okay, not when they refused to believe me. Just another tally in the wrong column. Another “psychopath” muttered under their breath. Another person who looked at me and thought, Bad. Fucked-up. Crazy. Monster.

Michael grabbed Sienna’s hand, practically dragging her up and out the front door, slamming it behind them. Nic walked me upstairs, where I crawled under my covers. He sat on the edge of my bed, brushing the tears from my face.

“Do you really believe I’m sorry?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, the same way he always did.

But it felt like a lie.

Why else would he make me do that?

The next day, we found Michael in the kitchen when we returned home from school.

“Hey,” he said, pushing off the kitchen counter next to the fridge. He watched me as I dropped my bag to the floor and shrugged out of my coat, then draped it over the back of a stool. “Are you okay?”

I didn’t answer him, catching the look he exchanged with you as I took a seat at the island.

“Would you like me to make you a sandwich or something?” you asked.

“No.”

You tossed me a serious look. “You have to eat, Elliot. It’s been twenty-four hours since you’ve eaten.”

“How do you know I didn’t eat at school?”