Page 171 of Mad Girl

But I turned and fled to the Garland Room, where I slumped down to the sofa, still shaking from the attack. I couldn’t go to my room. The thought of being alone sent a new wave of panic crashing through me.

“You’ve been crying,” you said, taking a seat on the coffee table directly across from me. You reached for my hand, but I slapped it away. “It was shit of me to disappear on you today. There’s no excuse.”

It wasn’t rage I felt—but betrayal. “I tried to be there for you this morning, and you wouldn’t let me.”

“I know,” you said. “I get like that. I push people away. I don’t mean to. I⁠—”

“You weren’t there to pick me up.”

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, nodding.

“You only thought about yourself. I came home, hoping to make you feel better, hoping to make your day less shitty, and you were hooking up with some stranger?” I said it like your actions disgusted me, because they did. “You have people here, who actually know and care about you, and that’s who you’d rather spend your birthday with? Some stranger in a bar?”

You gazed back, head shaking, eyes full of tears.

“I know you’re hurting, but your behavior today hurt me. What just happened to me—that was—it never would’ve happened if you’d been here.”

You nodded rapidly. “I fucked up,” you whispered. “I’m sorry.”

You reached for my face.

But I slapped you away again.

“I do this. I run away. I hide. I drink until it hurts less. And then I—it’s so stupid. It’s messed up. It’s—” You stopped abruptly, blinking back tears, trying not to cry, hands wringing between your knees. “The way you punish yourself every year on your birthday? Well, I do that, too. It’s just—it’s different.”

I glared at you.

“I never meant to hurt you,” you whispered, gaze wildly searching my face. “Don’t hate me. Don’t shut me out again. Please. I just got you back.”

And maybe because I could understand what it felt like to choose a different kind of pain when the other kind threatened to swallow you whole, I allowed you to timidly reach out again. To touch my wrist. To drive your fingers up my arm, pushing back the sleeve of my sweatshirt.

It helped that you’d said, “I just got you back.” As if you couldn’t bear to lose me again.

Still, I wasn’t quite ready to let the incident go. “Why couldn’t you have—? You chose a stranger. A stranger over me.”

“That’s just the point.” You dropped your gaze to my arm, firmly massaging my skin with your thumb. “They don’t know me. They don’t know it’s my birthday. They don’t ask me to talk about it.”

“I wouldn’t have asked you to talk about it, either,” I said, allowing some vitriol to enter my voice. “I know better than to ask about your past. You want to talk about shutting people out? That’s what you do. That’s a problem you have. Especially with me.”

“Yeah,” you said thickly, gaze still dropped, thumb still kneading my arm. “That’s—you’re right.”

A couple of tears slipped down your cheek, pricking my heart. This small—okay, big—part of me wanted to kiss them away. Not just the tears, but the grief. The wrinkle between your eyebrows. The pain of having a shitty birthday. All of it.

In the end, that part of me won out—probably because I’d wanted to wipe away your tears so badly the year before—so I compromised by swiping a tear off your cheek with my thumb. Roughly, though, because I was still pissed. Your tortured gaze met mine as you slipped off the coffee table, dropped to your knees, and—to my astonishment—buried your head in my lap. My heart stuttered as your hands drifted up my legs and settled at my hips, gripping me hard, fingers digging into bone.

Over and over again, you whispered “I’m sorry” into my lap, your voice vibrating through me, sending a warm, tingly, thrilling sensation through my body.

Sensing we weren’t alone, I glanced up to find Nic and Michael watching us from the doorway. Michael’s gaze pierced mine for one terrible, gut-clenching moment before he stalked off. My dad remained a bit longer, then followed Michael to the kitchen.

I’m not sure how long you clung to me that day, but my heart throbbed as I dragged my fingers through the dark silky waves of your hair. Your grip on me didn’t loosen, and your whispered apologies didn’t cease, until I leaned down and whispered, “I forgive you.”

Later on, after we’d eaten dinner and it was time for bed, I paused in the entry hall, gripping the newel post.

On the stairs, you turned to see why I wasn’t following. The panic must’ve been evident on my face, because you hurried back down. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t,” I said, backing away from the stairs. “I can’t go up there. I don’t want to be alone.”

A flash of regret crossed your face. “You’ve really been affected by this, haven’t you? Being left alone?”