Page 162 of Mad Girl

“I’m so proud of you,” Nic said.

“Me, too,” John said—as if he’d totally forgotten. As if his statement—“This one’s a hard no”—wasn’t still, nearly forty-eight hours later, ringing through my head, drowning out everything else. “So proud. This is great news.” He tossed his napkin on the table and pushed back from the table. “I’ll grab a bottle of champagne.”

“You can’t be serious,” I said, stopping John in his tracks.

“Elliot,” Nic said. “This is huge. We’re celebrating.”

“Then you’ll have to do it without me,” I said, rising from the table. My dad called after me as I left the room, but I ignored him. Just like Michael was ignoring me. Specifically, the barrage of texts I’d sent him.

He planned on listening to our dads—he planned on ghosting me, again—and I felt betrayed by that.

How could he make me feel loved one minute, then completely turn his back on me the next? How could he tell me I was good enough, then allow our dads to convince him I wasn’t?

He owed me an explanation.

My first day back at school, I left thirty minutes early without telling anyone and headed straight to Michael’s. I’d beat on his door until he answered. I’d force him to speak to me—to look me in the eye. If he wasn’t man enough to stand up to our dads and make his own decisions, he’d have to tell me so to my face.

As I walked down the carpeted corridor to Michael’s apartment, however, I slowed at the sight of a figure leaning against the wall outside his door.

My dad.

Arms crossed over a black topcoat and the camel alpaca scarf I’d given you both for Christmas, the look on his face mocked me: Think again.

“Come on,” he said, pushing off the wall, hand held out as he walked toward me. “Let’s go home.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, taking a step back.

“This isn’t what you really want. You’re just doing it to spite me.”

“You have no idea what I want.”

Nic considered me, his gaze narrowed. “Someday you’ll see that I prevented you from making a huge mistake here.”

“I’m not going with you,” I said between clenched teeth.

He ducked to meet my gaze. “Want to bet?”

“You can’t make me.”

“Of course I can. You come with me willingly, or I drag you out of here and put you in the car. Those are your choices.”

“Fucking drag me, then,” I said, glaring up at him. “I dare you.”

And he did, Casey.

Nic took my arm and hauled me all the way out to the car, idling by the slush-piled curb, Hal sitting at the wheel. He practically tossed me in the back seat, then climbed in beside me. Even through my coat and sweater, my arm stung from his grip.

Rage. Black rage, filling me up. I shook with it. I wanted to punish him. I wanted to hurt my dad for taking yet another thing away from me. My freedom. The pictures of my mom. College. And now this: the only person who knew my darkest secrets and loved me, anyway.

Hands clenched into fists, I whispered, “I hate you.”

Nic drew back. “What did you say?”

“I hate you!” I screamed. “I fucking hate you!”

I screamed it over and over. I shoved him. I slammed my fists against his chest. This is what years of feeling powerless had done to me. Made me manic. It was that scream, building and building and building in my chest, finally let free. That dark rage, taking hold, in control, driving me to a point of madness I’d never before reached. Never in my life had I hit my dad or said I hated him, but in the back seat of that car, while Hal stared straight ahead and pretended not to hear, I attacked Nic. I released all that pent-up rage.

I fucking let.