Page 147 of Mad Girl

“Elliot?” you said, voice a sleepy rasp. You lifted up on your elbows and wiped a hand over your eyes. “What are you doing up?”

“I thought I heard something downstairs,” I lied. “It was loud. I got scared.”

You sat upright and glanced down, grabbing the duvet just in time to keep it from slipping any lower. Your hard swallow pierced the silence, your gaze locked with mine. “Go back up. I’ll check it out.”

My gaze fell to your hand, cinched tightly at your waist.

“Elliot. Go back up. I’ll check downstairs.”

Reluctantly, I backed out of your room. Ten minutes later, you came into mine, dressed in pajama pants and a t-shirt. “All clear down there. You okay?”

When I nodded from my bed, you turned to leave. “I can’t sleep,” I rushed to say. “Will you stay and talk to me?”

“Sure,” you said, grabbing my desk chair. You brought it over to the side of the bed, turned it backward, and straddled it.

With a contented sigh, I turned onto my side, tucking a hand underneath my head. “When I was little, my dad used to sit with me until I fell back asleep.”

You smiled. “That’s nice.”

“Yeah. He used to make me feel safe.”

“Are you saying he doesn’t anymore?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes, he just makes me feel…stifled.”

You stared at me. Chewed on your bottom lip. Hesitated. “How many times have you done that?”

“Done what?”

“The apology thing.” Your gaze turned serious. “The begging.”

I lifted up on one elbow. “You heard that?”

“You made such a big deal of it, and Michael couldn’t explain it without getting upset. So I wanted to hear it for myself.”

“You eavesdropped?” I demanded. “I thought we weren’t supposed to lurk about in the shadows?”

“Please don’t be angry,” you said, thrusting one hand out. “It’s just—you were so desperate to get out of it, and I—look, if it’s any consolation, I’ve been deeply bothered by what I heard ever since.”

I glared.

“Listen,” you said. “I got angry with Nic. I asked him what the fucking point of it was. Not the letter or the apology itself—I mean, you owed her an apology, for Christ’s sake, you sent her to hospital—but the begging, Elliot. The begging was too much. He shouldn’t have let it go on as long as he did. He shouldn’t have allowed it to happen at all.”

“What did he say?”

“He got quiet. He seemed—he was definitely ashamed of himself. He said it wasn’t always like that, only when the person receiving the apology wouldn’t forgive you. I asked if he thought maybe you begged like that because you were actually begging for his forgiveness—if he let you go on saying you were sorry and begging because, for some fucked-up reason, he needed the begging, needed to hear how sorry you were. He became quite angry when I asked him that, then disappeared to his office.”

I lay back down, impressed at how accurately you’d voiced some of my own fears about the apology routine.

“Wow,” I said. “I can’t believe you worked your truth-pulling magic on my dad.”

“My what?”

“You do this thing where you pull the truth out of people, even when they don’t want to give it to you. It’s really annoying.”

We smiled at each other.

“I couldn’t let it go,” I admitted. “You said how happy you were at Christmas, and I couldn’t let her get away with threatening you.”