Page 172 of Mad Girl

I nodded.

“Look,” you said, eyebrows pinched together, “what if we sleep on the sofas tonight? Will that help?”

“You’ll sleep down here with me?”

“Of course I will,” you said softly.

“Okay,” I agreed.

“Let’s grab some blankets and pillows.”

So we gathered extra blankets from the basement and pillows from our bedrooms, then moved to the Garland Room. I made my bed on one sofa, while you made yours on the sofa across from mine. We lay on our sides, facing each other, the coffee table between us.

Quietly, you said, “I didn’t mean to leave you for very long. I knew Michael was coming by. I knew he’d be here within minutes of you getting home. But that’s no excuse—I should’ve been here.” You propped yourself up on one elbow. “I just—I knew you’d try being helpful in some way, and I couldn’t face you. The way I get…I didn’t want you to see. But you did, anyway.” You glanced down, toying with the edge of your blanket. “I hate for people to see me like that. I hate that I’m still not over what happened with my mum…all these years later.”

“Maybe you should go back to therapy,” I suggested, because by then our therapy sessions had paused.

You sighed, meeting my gaze again. We stared at each other, quiet for a long time. “What happened with the panic attack?”

“I don’t know,” I said, propping myself up on one elbow, too. “I don’t know what that was.”

“I didn’t realize you’d never been left alone.” You paused, seeming to hesitate. “Nic’s never left you for, say, ten minutes? Even to pop in down the street, for example, at the Harrises’?”

I shook my head. “Never. He always took me with him.”

“But that doesn’t make sense.”

“Does anything about my life make sense?”

“That’s—I mean, it’s a bit…”

“Messed up?” I finished. “I’ll be nineteen in a few months, and I’ve never been left alone inside my own house—not even for ten minutes. It’s definitely messed up.”

“And when you realized I wasn’t here, you…panicked?”

“Something like that.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It felt like…something was trapping me. Like I was drowning in my own body. Like I couldn’t get free.”

I didn’t tell you about the clawing. Because the only thing more messed up than never being left on my own was the fact that I’d clawed deep gouges into my chest after being left alone for less than ten minutes.

“I’m sorry you had to experience that because of me,” you said. “All because I was too scared to let you be there for me.”

I shrugged.

“I won’t do it again,” you said. “I won’t leave you next year on my birthday.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Promise?”

“Promise. I’ll stay put and allow you to help me through it, even if I’m still a mess. I don’t want you ever feeling like that again.”

You wouldn’t leave me the next year, would you, Casey?

I’d leave you.

The rest of that week, Garland watched over us as we slept, because the panic attack still haunted me. I had this fear it might happen again in the middle of the night, and who would help me come out of it if no one was there? If you or my dad couldn’t hear me? If I couldn’t get downstairs for help?