Page 168 of Mad Girl

“Sure I do,” I said, making my voice venomous. “You’re Mr. Perfect, Mr. Yes Sir, Mr. How High?”

His eyes drifted closed. “Okay⁠—”

“Can’t ever defy mom and dad. Can’t ever do what you really want. Can’t ever think for yourself.” I cocked my head to the side. “Even the girls you date, have you ever noticed how they all sort of look like your mom?”

Naturally, Michael decided not to comment on this. But his jaw twitched, which let me know he’d definitely taken offense to it—and I was glad. “Elliot, he’s threatening to take away my apartment and make me move back home.”

“Don’t worry about it. Your dad was right about me, anyway—and so were you. Guilt made me go back to your room that night at the beach. Pity made me kiss you back a couple of weeks ago. None of what we shared meant anything to me.”

Michael flinched, blue eyes shimmering. “I know you don’t mean that, okay? Someday, when you finally get out of this house—when your dad doesn’t have so much control⁠—”

“I won’t be calling you.”

“Elliot, come on. I don’t want this⁠—”

But he didn’t get to finish, because your footsteps sounded on the basement stairs. You reentered the kitchen, dark hair slicked back, handing me a towel and dry clothes. I grabbed my stuff and disappeared upstairs, leaving a trail of wet footprints in my wake.

The week leading up to your birthday, you seemed fine. The night before, you’d engaged in some boring conversation about stocks with my dad, then chilled with me and Garland before bed. The morning of the nineteenth, you scrambled eggs for my breakfast like you normally did and quietly prepared coffee.

But when I rounded the island for a hug, you stood there, completely stiff, waiting for it to be over.

Determined, I held on tight, listening to the steady beat of your heart beneath my ear, trying to say I’m here without saying the words out loud.

You pried my arms from your body, pushing me back by the shoulders. “Better get a move on,” you said, eyes vacant of their usual sparkle. “Or you’ll be late.”

“Casey,” I whispered, reaching for your face.

But you caught my wrist midair. “Don’t.”

Jaw clenched tight, you turned and briskly walked off to collect my things. You thrust my water bottle and backpack at me, then practically shoved me out the back door.

I was hurt by that, Casey. I understood not liking your birthday, but I’d let you hug me on mine, and there you were, pushing me away on yours.

That whole day, I struggled to pay attention in class, choosing to focus instead on what we could do to take your mind off the birthday stuff. Playing a card game, maybe. Trying a new recipe. Maybe even having Hal take us across town to try that new coffee place you’d mentioned. But when I got out, you weren’t waiting outside to pick me up. So I made my way home without calling Hal, expecting to find you in the kitchen, likely brooding as you prepared our tea. When I walked through the front door and had to disable the alarm, however, I knew instantly: you weren’t home.

In the entry hall, I stood still, met with complete silence, save for the ticking of the grandfather clock upstairs. And honestly? It freaked me out. My heart raced as a strange, sobering, sick reality hit me: I’d never, not one time—in my eighteen years and nine months on this earth—ever stood in my house all alone.

Stupidly, I called out to you, anyway.

I climbed the stairs, thinking I’d run up and change, then text to ask where you were. But as I reached the second-floor landing, the grandfather clock chimed three, the eerie echo of that sound causing me to pause. I peered into the room across the hall from my dad’s room. The creepy room that used to be my room. My old nursery.

Once painted a pale pink, it had held an iron gold crib, a fancy upholstered rocker, stuffed animals galore, and frilly cream curtains with dark mauve trim—details I only knew from little snapshots taken of me as a baby: playing on the rug next to the crib, sitting upright in the rocker, or being held by my dad between the windows, his gaze fixed lovingly on my face as I clutched a small stuffed turtle in my dimpled hand. Nic had framed each of these photos in silver. They sat, the silver long tarnished, on the bookcase in the Garland Room.

My body prickled with a memory—or was it a memory? Maybe it was more of a feeling, inching slowly up my spine. Raising the hair on the back of my neck. Drawing me farther into that room.

Sunlight spilling through the windows. The way the light slanted across the diamond pattern of the rug, so bright it hurt my eyes, washing out the design. The rhythmic ticktock of the clock, echoing throughout the stillness of the house, overly loud and grating. Incessant. Harsh. Cruel.

I was alone.

Completely and utterly alone.

No one there. The clock too loud. The house too still.

I was alone, and that aloneness was a trap.

Where were you? Why weren’t you coming? Why was all the air suddenly leaving my lungs? I backed the hell out of that room and flew downstairs.

I tried texting my dad, shocked at how severely my hands trembled, making it impossible to type. Giving up, I dropped the phone and fell to the floor, ripping off my backpack and blazer as I went.