Page 199 of Mad Girl

“Because I asked you to hurt me and it freaked you out.”

Willoughby studied me carefully. “How important is that stuff to you?”

“It’s not important,” I lied. “I was going through a rough time. I wanted to hurt myself after what happened with Greer and Rory.”

“Why?” he asked. “None of it was your fault.”

I shrugged. “I felt like it was.”

Willoughby took my hands, hoisted me up, and pulled me into a hug.

Later, as Willoughby and I walked down to the beach together, I tried not to think of you. Or our kiss. Or how quickly you’d believed I’d cut myself on purpose.

The morning of my birthday, I came downstairs, ravenous, instantly grabbing a handful of strawberries from the fridge. With one hip propped against the island, I watched the sun rise through the kitchen window, the water glittering light blue and pink-orange beneath the little orb of the sun. I dreaded the day ahead. It had only begun, and it already felt like a disappointment.

My first birthday without Michael. Without Tinsley.

Another year gone, without a mom. Another year, where I wasn’t any closer to knowing who she was. Or why she’d left. Or why my dad was so cagey about the day of my birth.

How could this day have been the greatest day of my dad’s life, but not hers? How did that work? When I grew inside her for all those months? When she’s the one who ultimately gave me life?

Like I did every year, I wondered if she’d think about me at all, or if she’d go about her day like it was any other day of the week. Nothing special. Nothing to remember here.

I rolled one of those strawberries between my fingers and sighed. Nineteen, and still the same. Nineteen, and still stuck. A grown woman, like my dad said, but forever trapped at eight.

Nic would want to celebrate and I wouldn’t, but this year, maybe I’d be nice to him about it, since he’d been trying so hard to make up for not believing me about the cut on my hand.

I bit into a strawberry, and then⁠—

“Well, that’s hardly an acceptable breakfast.”

My heart leapt into my throat. Because you, Casey. You.

The sound of your voice.

Right behind me.

In that very room.

I froze, wide-eyed, and slowly turned around.

And there you were—arms crossed over a gray t-shirt, dark hair tousled, face covered in dark stubble—leaning against the kitchen archway.

There you were, in the flesh—after eight long weeks—real and solid, the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen.

There you were, giving me butterflies, my eyes rapidly welling with tears. I dropped those strawberries and put my hands to my mouth.

Head cocked to the side, you gazed back at me with such tender warmth and affection on your face that it made my heart do funny little flips inside my chest.

“Come here,” you whispered, and my heart flipped again.

I rounded the kitchen island and rushed into your arms, where you buried your face in my hair and squeezed my body to yours. Where I melted against the warmth of your chest and breathed you in, pushing my fingers through the hair at the nape of your neck. Where I cried happy tears, but you shushed me, anyway, your warm breath tickling my ear.

Several pounding heartbeats later, when we finally drew apart, you pressed your forehead to mine. “I’m shit for not believing you.”

The shock of seeing you had temporarily made me forget. Remembering, I shoved you in the chest. “You are shit. Do you have any idea how that felt? When no one believed me? Do you? He almost sent me away.”

“I know,” you said. “I know.”