Page 15 of Mad Girl

You still aren’t talking to me.

Before, it seemed like defeat kept you silent.

But today, I saw something different in the set of your jaw, in the casual way you folded your hands on top of the steel table: defiance.

The look you gave me said, You’re not talking? I’m not talking, either.

Your eyes blazed with it as they held fast to mine: a challenge.

I bit the insides of my cheeks, struggling to control my breathing.

And you noticed. You know me well enough to know when I’m angry, and the signs were all there. Your gaze swept over me as you tallied each one. By the time I left, a little smirk had your lips quirking up on one side.

You think you’re winning.

Back in my cell, I picked up the first thing I saw and threw it as hard as I could against the cinderblock wall. But it was only a paperback book, so it did very little to quell my rage. Not like breaking something. Or slapping that smug look off your face, for example.

Without missing a beat, I swiped the book off the floor and went crazy, ripping out pages as fast as I could, ignoring the sting of a paper cut, and that’s when my cellmate walked in. She’s hardcore, Casey. She’s got tattoos and body piercings and nasty scars—pink jagged things, garish against her pale skin. She’s a real bad bitch. There’s no mistaking that about her. She saw those pages littered across the floor and yanked the book from my hands. I realized too late—the book I’d ripped up was one of hers.

She yelled, “What the fuck?” and called me names and asked me what the hell my problem was. And when I didn’t answer, she snatched me off the bed by my braid, jerking me down to my knees. She demanded to know why I’d ripped up her book, and when I still didn’t answer, she drew her lips together and kneed me in the face. The world turned red as white-hot pain ricocheted across my skull, blooming out from my cheekbone.

As you know, I’m no stranger to being struck in the face.

What I never told you the first time someone hit me, but I’m willing to tell you in writing, is this: I didn’t like why I was hit, but I liked being hit. The after part especially—when the pain reaches its peak, and my whole body clenches around it, desperately holding on, and I can’t focus on anything else.

There’s just pain.

Pain and nothing else.

Pain, blotting out everything.

Pain, moving through me like a wave and, slowly but surely, bringing me back to a state of relief.

The pain feels good, Casey. I like it.

It quells the rage.

Another time I felt rage? The day I walked downstairs and spotted you on the third floor of my house, standing in the bedroom right below mine, unpacking clothes from an enormous suitcase and stacking them on top of the four-poster bed in there. I paused on the landing, confused, before wandering into the room.

Gaping at your clothes, I asked, “What are you doing?”

Your eyes narrowed. “I’m…unpacking my things.”

“I don’t understand. Why are you doing that here?”

“Has your dad not told you yet?”

“Told me what?”

You raked a hand through your hair, wincing at my panicked tone. “You should probably speak with him.”

I fled downstairs, finding my dad right off the entry hall, leaning forward on the settee in the sitting room. He dropped his phone on a side table, clearly expecting me.

“Elliot,” he said. “Sit down.”

“What’s Casey doing here? Why’s he unpacking his stuff on the third floor?”

Calmly, Nic said, “Because Casey will be living with us for a while.”