Page 233 of Mad Girl

On the sofa, I leaned forward, eyeing Michael hard. “When were you going to tell me our parents are sleeping together?”

Michael brushed a hand through his hair, wincing as he sat down next to me. “Shit. She told you?”

I shoved him in the shoulder.

“Elliot, you can’t make this a big deal, okay? You can’t overreact. Try to let it go.”

I gaped at him. “You can’t be serious. Our parents have been lying to us our whole lives.”

“We don’t know that. Maybe this is a new thing. Maybe my parents are trying to”—he pulled a face—“spice up their marriage or something.”

“But they’ve always been super affectionate with each other, Michael—always. I want to know what’s going on. Don’t you?”

Michael made another face. “Not really. I don’t care to know anything about my parents’ sex life. I try to pretend they don’t have one. I mean, how would I even broach this subject with my dad? Because no way in hell would I ever ask my mom. ‘Hey, Dad. Do you let Mom sleep with Nic, too? Do you and Nic also—do all three of you’—God, I can’t even say it. I can’t.” He shivered. Big grimace. Hand to his forehead. “They’re adults, right? If they want to have some throuple thing going on—or whatever the hell this is—it’s none of our business.”

I leaned back, appalled. “How can you even say that? They raised us to believe they were friends.”

“I know, but we have to let this go. It bothers me, too, but if this makes them happy? All three of them? Who are we to tell them it’s wrong?”

“No. I refuse to let my dad get away with this.”

“Why?”

You know why Michael didn’t get it, Casey? Why he could just…let it go? He didn’t grow up asking his parents questions they refused to answer. He could forgive his parents for lying this one time, because he could be confident there weren’t more lies buried beneath the surface of his picture-perfect life. “Because it’s messed up! Because it’s one more thing about my life that makes me a freak! Because he lies—all the time—about everything! Because if he could hide something like this my whole life, what else is he capable of hiding?”

“You are not a freak. And we might have it wrong. Maybe they really are friends—unusually close friends—and Bree’s just…reading into it.”

“Michael, our houses are right down the street from each other. According to Bree, they hang out together while we’re at school. We spend entire summers together, and their wing of the estate is kept completely separate from ours—so there’s no chance of us hearing what they’re up to over there. We celebrate every holiday together, and up until the last year, they didn’t keep secrets from each other. Your parents treat me like I’m theirs, and my dad treats you and Bree like you’re his. The way they’ve raised us together? It’s really odd when you stop to think about it.”

“Yeah,” Michael agreed. “It is.”

“What if they were doing this stuff in college? What if that’s when it started? What if my mom ran off because she found out about it? Or what if she was part of it, too—and they all just swapped with each other and shit—but she wanted no part of it after I was born, and they kicked her out of the group?”

Michael sighed. “Elliot, they didn’t kick her out. She left on her own. Don’t do this.”

“Do what?”

“Make it about your mom. They might’ve lied to us about what they are to each other, but that doesn’t mean they lied about her, too. Think about this: how cruel it would be for them to tell you your mother doesn’t care about you if she does, how cruel it would be for them to talk about what a horrible person she is if she actually isn’t. Do you think our parents are capable of lying like that?”

“I don’t know what to think anymore. My dad lies about everything else. Why not that, too?”

“Nic has kept a couple of things about me from my parents recently. It doesn’t mean he lies about everything.”

Michael had no clue, did he, Casey? I wondered what he’d say if he knew the secret Nic had been keeping about you for over a year.

“He keeps telling me I’m not crazy,” I said, “but he keeps threatening to send me to a psychiatric hospital in Arizona. And Libby wanted him to.”

“I know—and if that’s true about my mom, it’s messed up. But Nic doesn’t think you’re crazy. You mean everything to him. Remember how happy he was when you finally let us celebrate your birthday at the beach? He shed actual tears.”

I knew Michael was right about how much I meant to my dad, but I still felt like I couldn’t trust Nic anymore. He made it his business to know everything about my life, but kept vital parts of himself hidden. My own father was an enigma to me, and I felt betrayed by that.

Michael pulled out his phone, glancing down at the screen. “Nic’s texting me. He wants me to bring you back.”

I leaned back against the sofa. “Nope. I’ll go back when I want to. Tell him to fuck off.”

“I’m not telling him that,” said Michael.

I grabbed Michael’s phone, texted Fuck off myself, and hit send. “There.”