Page 205 of Mad Girl

“I don’t want to go,” you said. “I’ll sit in the waiting room until Elliot’s finished.”

“You’re going, Casey.”

“You can’t force me to talk to someone, Nic. I’m an adult.”

“Oh, really? Prove it.”

You scoffed at this. “Prove I’m an adult?”

“Yes. I’ll call John and Michael over to the house. The four of us will sit down together, and you’ll finally tell them who you are.”

On either side of your plate, you’d clenched your hands into tight fists. Nic had you there. You stared at him with your jaw twitching. “I’m not ready to tell them.”

“It’s been a year,” Nic said. “You’ve known a whole year now.”

“I realize that.”

“You can’t keep this a secret forever. It’s not fair to them. It’s not fair to John. He’s your father.”

“I get that,” you said. “But I’m not ready yet.”

“And that’s one of the reasons you need to go back to therapy. You need to talk about why you keep putting this off.”

“You already know why,” you snapped. “You know all the reasons why. It’s not as fucking simple as you make it out to be.”

“Casey,” he said gently, leaning forward to grip your wrist. “Not one of those reasons is insurmountable.”

You shook your head. “You don’t know that.”

“I do know,” he said. “You can trust me on this. Therapy might help you overcome your fears, so you can tell them. What you keep pulling on your birthday? Being forced to spend time with your adoptive dad over the summer? You need to talk about those things, too. This is important.”

“Come on, Casey,” I said gently. “If I go, you go. Remember?”

You snatched up your fork, gaze dropped to the table. “Fine.”

Four days later, we resumed therapy. I went back to the same lady, and you went back to the same man.

Everything had finally gone back to normal—except us. Something had definitely shifted between you and me.

For one thing, you stopped telling me about your therapy sessions on our walks back to the house. You stopped talking to me in general, becoming more and more distant with each passing day.

It probably didn’t help that we sometimes found Willoughby waiting for me on the front stoop. Whenever this happened, you’d march right past him and unlock the door, then retreat to the kitchen or upstairs to your room. And I wouldn’t see you again until Willoughby left.

After a particularly hot make-out session with Willoughby one day, I wandered down to the kitchen for drinks. You stood at the stove, stirring what smelled like onion and garlic in a stainless steel pan.

“Hey,” I said, propping one hip against the counter.

You responded with a grunt.

“Casey.” I ducked, trying to catch your gaze, but you continued stirring without answering me. “Why are you ignoring me?”

“Not ignoring you.”

“You clearly are. You won’t even look at me right now. What’s wrong with you?”

You dropped the wooden spoon, letting it clang sharply against the pan. Your eyes, when you finally looked at me, were a piercing shade of dark blue. “What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you? What are you even doing?”

I shifted against the counter. “What do you mean?”