Page 240 of Mad Girl

“How are you doing with the Halloween stuff?” you asked.

I brushed a tendril of hair from my face. “Fine.”

You bumped my arm with yours. “You don’t have to pretend with me.”

“Not well, actually,” I confessed.

What I didn’t tell you was: while Willoughby and I were hanging out in my room earlier that week, he’d put on one of his playlists. And that horrible rap song had played. The same one that had throbbed against my back at his Halloween party while Greer attacked me.

My body recognized the beat seconds before my ears did, causing panic to clamp down hard on my chest.

Later, while we made out, I asked him to put his hand around my throat. I didn’t want him to hurt me like Greer had. I only wanted the pressure. Wanted to feel someone else’s hand there, a hand I could trust. Wanted to see if it made me feel differently about what Greer had done to me—or exactly the same.

But Willoughby recoiled at the mere mention of it, his body going rigid on top of mine. We stopped and scrolled on our phones for the rest of the afternoon, ignoring the big fat elephant in the room—my needs, too much for him to handle. He tried kissing me before he left, but I pulled away, angry and embarrassed.

Ten minutes after he left, I repeatedly rammed my hip into the corner of my desk. I’d been pressing my fingers to the bruise ever since, a rush each time. Little hits of pain.

On the walking path that day, you slipped your fingers through mine. To passersby, we probably looked like a couple. “I’m so sorry you went through that,” you said.

“I thought I’d be over the assault by now, but I’m not.”

“That’s perfectly understandable,” you said, giving my hand a squeeze.

“Willoughby’s throwing another Halloween party this year, and I planned to go—mainly to spite my dad. But I don’t know if I can.”

“That’s understandable, too.”

“He’ll probably end it soon.” The trees in front of us blurred, too bright and disorienting against the blue sky. “At the Halloween party, he’ll probably sleep with some girl from UMass or one of the other colleges around here.”

“Hey.” You stopped and pulled me over to a nearby bench. “Why would you say that? What happened?”

“Me. I happened.”

“What does that mean?”

My voice caught when I said, “He just—he doesn’t understand.”

“Understand what?”

I watched fallen leaves swirl through the air, a squirrel scurry up the side of a nearby tree, a little boy—sullen and pouting—plop down to the leaf-covered ground mid-stroll, still hanging onto his mom’s hand. “Me. He’s not the problem. I am. It’s not that he’s not doing it for me. It’s the other way around.”

“He’s not…asking you to do things you’re not comfortable doing, is he?” you asked. “Because I’ll fucking end him.”

“No,” I rushed to say. “It’s nothing like that. He wants me to be real, but when I show him—when I’m real—he doesn’t like it.”

Carefully, you asked, “Doesn’t like…what? What do you show him?”

“That I’m not like the other girls.” Not normal. I swatted at a tear. “I tried to be what he wants. But then I—I slipped. I got too real. And now he’s barely talking to me. He hasn’t texted me in days.”

Beside me, you were quiet, your thumb brushing over my knuckles. You probably didn’t know what to say. How could you?

So I changed the subject. “I miss my dad. I hate when he’s distant.”

“Then why don’t you apologize?”

“I want to, but then I’ll have to tell him why I said those things. And I don’t know how to say it—how to ask. If I ask for the truth, and he’s not honest, I’ll get angry again.”

What I didn’t tell you was: I might be tempted to hurt myself in front of Nic, giving him the perfect reason to send me to Arizona. Giving Libby exactly what she wanted: me out of her way, just in time for the election.