Page 180 of Mad Girl

“No,” Nic said, panic creeping into his voice. “You’ll put on the white dress we bought in New York specifically for this occasion, we’ll all walk down to the church together, and you’ll take a picture with your diploma. You worked really hard, and that should be recognized. That should be documented. So you’re going.”

“You’re absolutely right, Dad. I worked so hard. But I’ve also had a rough year, and now I need a break—like you said. So I’m staying home.”

“Elliot,” John said, clearly fighting to keep his voice even. “This is important. You only graduate high school once.”

“I understand that, John. It’s just that—for me, personally—this is a hard no today.” I cocked my head at him. “You know what I mean?”

John knew exactly what I meant. He turned to my dad and they exchanged a long, hard look. One where the weight of my words sunk in, and they finally understood the ramifications of their actions.

“Come on, sweetie,” Libby said, taking my arm. “Let’s go upstairs. I’ll help you with your dress.”

I yanked my arm free. “I’m not going.”

“Listen,” Nic said, stepping closer, hands pressed together as if he were praying, “you can make your point later. Skip dinner. Let the cake I ordered go to waste. Do whatever the hell you want as long as you get dressed and go to your graduation. I’ve waited your whole life for this.”

“I’ve waited my whole life for”—I pretended to think a moment—“a lot of things I still don’t have. Experiences. Firsts. Answers. The freedom to make my own choices.”

Did you see it, Casey? Nic’s eyes drifting closed? The disappointment moving through his body? The little nod, there at the end, where he accepted his fate?

It was the ultimate take. That’s what made the taking so violent.

It’s like I said before: Nic knew the price, he’d paid it many times, but he still continued to take from me.

The rest of you stood there, in shocked silence, as I made my way to the kitchen for breakfast.

Later that night, long after my classmates had graduated without me—after I’d fielded texts from both Tinsley and Willoughby, both asking why the hell I’d never shown—you called out to me in the semi-darkness.

I turned over, meeting your gaze over the coffee table.

“Why wouldn’t you go to your graduation ceremony?” you asked.

As hurt as I was about our kiss, it didn’t seem very prudent to shut you out again, not when we were about to be separated. For months. “I didn’t want to go.”

“But your dad, Elliot—he’s quite upset.”

I shrugged like I didn’t care. But the truth was, when Nic had come home from the Harrises’—to use your word—properly drunk, which he never got, at least not to that extent, I knew I’d gone too far. And that’s before I spotted him in the Garland Room, lightly swaying in front of the bookcase, holding a framed photo of me at my kindergarten graduation.

Seeing him like that gutted me. So much so that I kept picturing the serrated edge of a knife. How those sharp, jagged edges might gleam against my palm. How those edges might feel when I closed my hand around them. Like tiny teeth, breaking the skin.

“It seemed like you meant to take today from him,” you said, “but you also took it from yourself. That’s something you can’t ever get back.”

“It’s a piece of paper, Casey. They’ll ship it to me in the mail. I still graduated. I just got to do it without the added humiliation of my name being called and very few people clapping for me.”

“What do you mean? I’d have yelled and clapped louder than anyone. Michael, too.”

I smiled. Because I could totally see you guys doing that.

“Aren’t you sad you missed it?”

Sad that I hadn’t gotten a picture with Tinsley. But all I said out loud was, “Right now, missing my graduation doesn’t rank very high on the list of things I’m sad about.”

“I hate that we won’t be spending the summer together,” you said.

“I heard Michael’s going with you to England.”

“Yes. Claire’s excited to meet him—despite the circumstances.”

“Will your dad know who Michael really is?”