Page 224 of Mad Girl

Michael pulled out his phone. “Hard to be mad at someone I don’t give a shit about.”

“I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just…” I traced the plaid pattern on the skirt of my dress. “I guess I did want that woman to be my mom. I wanted to believe she cared enough to come back.”

Michael lifted his gaze to mine.

“If it makes you feel any better, I lashed out at my dad, too, and I definitely ended up hurting myself over it when he told me it wasn’t her. Maybe I was trying to distract myself from what happened last year. I don’t know.”

Michael grabbed my hand. “Of course I don’t feel better. I’m sorry your mom abandoned you and never came back. Fuck her.”

I gave his fingers a grateful squeeze. “Well, what’s going on with you? You don’t seem all that thrilled about the election stuff.”

Michael sighed. “I hope she loses.”

It shocked me to hear him say that. “What?”

“I hope my mom loses the election,” he repeated. “I know that’s a shitty thing to say, because I’m supposed to support her. She’ll make history if she wins. But I hate the attention at school. I hate all the media coverage. I hate that I have to be so careful all the time, because everything I do reflects back on her. I’m terrified something will come up about those assholes I helped put in the hospital last year. I want her to lose, but I don’t want to bring shame on my whole family—or go to jail.”

“You know my dad did whatever it took to make sure that never comes up again, right?”

“I know,” Michael said, staring at the ivy-covered brick wall across the courtyard. “Look, I didn’t want to get back with Sienna, but my parents sat me and Bree down a while back and told us to be on our best behavior. Bree’s perfect. She never does anything wrong”—I cast Michael a hard look—“other than letting everyone blame you at the beach this past summer. So they were mainly talking to me. I have to be careful about who I date right now. I can’t have some girl giving me permission to bite her, then blasting it all over social media.”

“Here’s an idea. You could just…stop biting people.”

Michael tossed me a look that said, Yeah, right. “Anyway, Sienna would never do something like that, because—well, you said it—she loves the status dating me gives her. I don’t really want to be with her. We’re just using each other.”

I watched his jaw work. Watched him wring his hands. Watched him squint off into the distance. He was trapped like I was, but his cage looked different. One made of glass, not gilded bars or locks. Doomed to maintain a flawless image in the eyes of a city that never stopped watching.

But you know me. Despite understanding his reasons, I couldn’t not state the obvious. So I said, “I’m sure all the sex helps.”

Michael opened his mouth to reply, but the back door opened, cutting him off. It was Nic, ordering us back inside the house.

Upstairs, Bree slipped inside my bedroom, shutting the door behind her. “That was weird,” she said, narrowing her eyes.

I paused scanning my bookshelves for a new book to read. “What was?”

“Our dads. They got weird when they realized you and Michael had disappeared together.”

Pulse jumping, I plucked a book off the center shelf and pretended to skim the blurb on the back cover. “Yeah, that is weird.”

Bree watched me closely as I put the book back. “Is there something going on between you and my brother?”

I huffed out a laugh, hoping she couldn’t detect how nervous I was. “Are you kidding? I’m with Willoughby.”

“Yeah, but you guys aren’t exclusive. You can hook up with other people if you want.”

“And you think I want to hook up with Michael?”

“You stole my key to his apartment,” she said, gaze digging into mine, “and never gave it back.”

“So? I used it to mess with Sienna’s stuff.”

“Because you’re jealous of her?”

“Because she’s a bitch, Bree. You heard the way she used to talk to me.”

“Yeah, because you kept doing that lip thing to Michael right in front of her.”

“There’s nothing going on with me and Michael. I promise.” And there wasn’t anymore. So, technically, it wasn’t a lie.