Page 24 of Mad Girl

“Why? What are you hiding?” I demanded. “I find it interesting how I finally ask you something personal, and you clam up. Just tell me your birthday, Casey, and I’ll give your clothes back.”

You stared back at me, a smile slowly creeping onto your handsome face. The only hint you were bothered at all was your hand, curling into a tight fist on the arm of the wingback.

“You know what?” you said calmly, rising from the chair with your drink, blue eyes digging into mine. “If it makes you feel better to keep my clothes, then go ahead, Elliot. Keep them.”

But it didn’t make me feel better. In fact, as I watched you stride from the room, I only felt foolish. Like you’d just bested me instead of the other way around.

After school the next day, when you weren’t waiting for me on the stairs like you usually were, shame twisted through me. Not because you’d given up, though that part stung more than I’d ever admit—the deeper shame came from knowing I’d pushed you to that point, like I pushed anyone who threatened the control I craved over my life.

I searched the entire downstairs before finally locating you in your bedroom, kicked back in bed with a book, a steaming cup of tea sitting on your nightstand.

I paused in your doorway with my arms crossed, trying to act casual. “I’m home.”

But you merely flipped a page without glancing up. In a clipped tone that pricked my heart, you said, “Great. Let me know if you need anything.”

LETTER SIX

92 WEEKS LEFT

After the birthday discussion, you stopped greeting me when I got home from school. I made an effort to spend time with my dad again and even ate dinner with you guys, but you and I didn’t speak unless it was absolutely necessary. (Me: “Will you pass the salt?” You: “Sure.”) Occasionally, you sat with me and Garland, but you didn’t talk then, either. Just scrolled on your phone or read a book or stared blankly at the TV, looking bored—or maybe just resigned to being there, stuck with me.

I hated your silence more than I wanted to, which pissed me off.

One day after school, on my way upstairs, I noticed your bedroom door ajar, the room empty, your silver laptop sitting open on the desk. And you know me—never one to pass up a good opportunity to snoop—so I slipped inside and peered at the screen. I glanced over my shoulder to make sure you weren’t near, then scrolled to the top of what appeared to be a form. The heading read, “First-Year Application.”

Below that, you’d filled out your personal information. Legal Name: Casey Rhys Anderson. Home Address: same as mine. Off to the side, something that made my heart skip.

Birthday: 19 April, followed by your birth year.

You were nineteen. Just five months older than Michael.

“What are you doing?”

I twisted around, meeting the furious expression on your face. “Is this a form for school? Are you applying somewhere close?”

“That’s none of your business,” you said, brushing past me to slam the laptop shut. “How often do you sneak in here to go through my things?”

“I—I don’t.”

“Right,” you said, arms crossed over a white t-shirt and heather brown cardigan. Clearly you’d been shopping, because Michael had never owned a cardigan in his life. “So I suppose my clothes walked out of the closet all by themselves and met you in the hallway, then?”

I moved closer to the doorway, dropping my gaze to the floor.

Voice scary low, you said, “I don’t want to catch you in here snooping around again.”

I swiveled around. “Or what? You’ll be mean to me some more?”

“Oh, I’m being mean? I am?”

“You barely talk to me now.”

“Well, Elliot. You don’t get to treat people like shit without there being consequences. I tried with you, I really did, and you made it clear you want nothing to do with me. So here we are. This is your doing. If you want to start over, you’ll have to apologize. You’ll have to be nice. You’ll have to stop playing these childish games and giving me such a hard time.”

“I don’t have to do anything,” I said, incensed by the word childish. “Screw you.”

Dark rage bubbled to the surface as I marched upstairs to my room. It made me want to break things. I snatched a pencil off my desk and snapped it in half.

A few days later, I sat at the kitchen island with a bowl of cereal while you rinsed out your teakettle across from me.