Page 184 of Mad Girl

You replied, Oh, no. What’s happened? Have you suffered a concussion already?

I rolled my eyes. Can a girl not tell a guy how much he matters to her without him thinking she has a head injury?

You said, Not this girl. This girl only strokes my ego after one of us has done something bad.

I smiled at that. I really miss you.

Your reply brought tears to my eyes: I miss you more.

I texted Michael next: I miss you.

He replied: I miss you, too.

What’s his family like? I asked.

The sister’s pretty cool, Michael replied. But the dad’s a piece of shit. I hate the guy.

Why? I asked.

The way he talks to Casey, Michael said. The way he looks at him. Casey’s constantly doing nice stuff for him and he’s a total dick about it.

I felt my blood boil. Is he being nice to you?

Michael replied: Not really. He asked if I was Casey’s boyfriend. Like the idea repulsed him.

I pressed my lips together, eyebrows lifting at that. What about Rhys?

Michael typed back: He’s pretty cute. Smart and funny for someone so tiny. He loves Casey. You’d die if you saw them together. He added a rolling eyes emoji to the end, which made me smile.

It wasn’t until much later—as I lay awake in bed that night, thinking about John’s summer fling with the dark-haired girl who looked like my mom—that it finally hit me. You know what’s short for Cassandra?

Your name.

Casey.

Plus: I found a pregnancy conception calculator online, typed in your birthday, and guess what else? You were conceived in the summer. In my birth month, actually. In July.

And that’s when I knew: the dark-haired girl in the picture with my mom was definitely your mother.

A few days later, I’d come in from the beach when Bree stopped me in the hallway between our rooms.

“Hey,” she said. “You want to go shopping with me, Amber, and my mom?”

“No, thanks.” I tried slipping past her, but she stepped in my path.

“Why are you being like this?”

“Like what?”

“You’ve been avoiding us since we got here. You never want to hang out. Amber thinks you don’t like her.”

“So? She’s going to Stanford in the fall, and you’ll never see her again.”

“It’s not like I’ll never see her. Her parents live in Boston.”

“But this relationship ends when she leaves, right?”

“So?”