Page 170 of Mad Girl

“No, Michael. Not for this. He couldn’t have known this would happen.” With his free hand, my dad gripped Michael’s arm. “You let me handle him.”

Nic instructed Michael to grab some things from the kitchen.

“I don’t understand,” I said when Michael walked off. “Why wasn’t he here? Where is he?”

I couldn’t touch the panic attack. The panic attack scared me. I didn’t understand where it had come from, or why I’d reacted so strongly to being alone, or how my dad managed to remain so calm about it.

“Don’t worry,” Nic assured me. “Hal’s bringing him home, and he won’t ever do it again.”

Michael came back with a wet cloth and a tube of antibiotic ointment. Nic ordered him to find my Harvard sweatshirt upstairs, and he disappeared again.

Carefully, Nic dabbed at the scratch wounds, then dashed to the powder room to wash his hands before applying the ointment. As he helped me pull the dress back up and put my arms through the straps, I spotted my blood on his white dress shirt, lightly smudged next to his pale green tie. Next, he led me to the kitchen sink, where I scrubbed the dried blood from my fingernails. But long after the blood had washed away, I kept scrubbing.

Nic switched off the faucet, placing his hand over mine.

By then, Michael was back with my sweatshirt. I slipped it on over my dress.

Soon after that, Casey, you arrived. Via Hal. Who slung the back door open and shoved you inside the kitchen, his sausage fingers gripping the back of your neck.

Like the year before, you were a wreck. Your blue button-down from that morning: wrinkled, haphazardly buttoned, untucked. A navy tweed bomber jacket: dangling from one hand. Hair: all mussed. Eyes: glassy and bloodshot.

Hal left you with us, then retreated from the house.

Michael charged at you. “What the hell, man?”

Nic placed a hand on Michael’s chest to hold him back. In a quiet voice, he said, “Casey, what did I tell you when I moved you in here?”

You did that thing where you lean your head back. It’s how I always know when you’re drunk. You gazed back at him, throat moving against your shirt collar, silent.

“What did I tell you when I moved you in here?” Nic repeated. “What did I say the number-one rule was?”

“Never leave her alone,” you said hoarsely.

“Never leave her alone,” Nic said with a nod. “Yet, today, you not only skipped your classes—which I’m paying for, by the way—you thought it wise to leave my daughter all alone while you picked up some stranger in a bar. I hope that stranger was worth it, because you’re not to leave this house outside of school and Elliot’s activities for the remainder of this term.”

A stranger? In a bar? In addition to feeling confused and traumatized, I felt sick.

“I’m an adult,” you told him.

“I don’t care what you are. As long as you’re living under my roof, you’ll do whatever the hell I say. And if you ever leave her alone again, I’ll send you back to England, and you’re finished here. Is that understood?”

You swallowed. “Yes.”

“I expect you to join us for dinner. You’ll stay down here for the rest of the evening.”

“I’d rather be alone,” you whispered.

“Not happening,” Nic said. “You’re spending the rest of your birthday down here with us, and I don’t want to hear another goddamn word about it.”

Your voice cracked as you said, “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not the one who deserves an apology. You owe an apology to her.” Nic pointed at me. “Michael and I found her having a panic attack.”

Your gaze swept over to me, that deep groove forming between your eyebrows. Hand to your forehead, you glanced between Michael and Nic. “A panic attack? Why?”

“Because I’ve never left her alone, Casey,” Nic said. “No one was here—you weren’t here—and she panicked.”

You walked toward me, expression full of regret. “Elliot⁠—”