Page 277 of Mad Girl

The knowledge of this Jake guy made me jealous. Had you been with him during every trip back to England? And how was it possible to have zero feelings for someone you’d been hooking up with for years? Someone who knew you as well as I knew Michael? I couldn’t wrap my head around it. While I tried, Michael kept talking.

“And then Claire brought out all these photo albums, and I got to see the happy part of Casey’s childhood. Normal father-son moments. Normal holidays and birthdays. Casey with his violin. Casey with his mom. Casey smiling and laughing. Which was great. I liked seeing that version of him. I enjoyed seeing pictures of him with his mom—of him with the whole family—but he didn’t look anything like them, Elliot. Not at all. I’d already noticed that about him and Claire—about him and their dad—and it had been bugging me for a while. So finally, while we were in bed one night, I worked up the courage to say, ‘Hey, you didn’t forget to tell me you’re adopted, did you?’ And when Casey admitted he was—when he confessed that both you and Jake had this basic knowledge about him that I didn’t—I wanted to leave. Not only had he kept this from me, it was just added confirmation that I don’t really know him at all. That, for some reason, he doesn’t want me to know him.

“So I got out of bed and started packing my stuff, tried buying a plane ticket back home. But Casey grabbed my phone and wouldn’t give it back. He blocked the door so I couldn’t leave. And I’m standing there, like, so angry I’m shaking. And I want to tell him how hurt I am, but I don’t think I can without crying, which would be so fucking humiliating and pathetic. So I just stand there and let him apologize and try like hell not to hit him for taking my phone. When he finally stopped apologizing, he still wouldn’t let me past him, so I went back to bed. It was either that or fight him and wake up everyone in the house, including his dad, and I didn’t want to hear that asshole go off again or bother Claire or scare Rhys. So I just—I let it go. Except I stayed out the whole next day and didn’t speak to him for forty-eight hours.”

I grabbed Michael’s hand off the counter. “I’m sorry you had to find out like that—but at what point did you get weird?”

“That was me being weird,” Michael said, like it should’ve been obvious. “I don’t know why I get like this around him—why it hurts like hell when he pushes me away, or why it made me so jealous to see him with Jake. I didn’t care that he was sleeping with the guy. I cared how well Jake knew him, how close they were, how Casey has the kind of friendship with someone else that I’ve been trying to have with Casey myself for the last two years.” Michael tossed me a serious look. “I mean, obviously—just so we’re clear, Elliot—minus the sexual stuff.”

“No, I know. I get what you mean.”

“Sometimes, I just”—Michael clenched his hand into a fist—“I want to be able to reach him, you know? Make him understand that he doesn’t have to be so fucking…guarded with me. That he doesn’t need to be embarrassed by anything. Despite how different our backgrounds are.”

I wished I could tell Michael the truth—that you didn’t want to keep pushing him away. That it wasn’t so simple. That someday he would reach you. And it would all make sense. Finally.

“It isn’t just you,” I told Michael. “He and I have the same problem. He doesn’t tell me everything, either. I didn’t know this Jake guy existed until you mentioned him after brunch that day.” I closed my eyes, stomach clenching at the question I was about to ask. “Tell me, what does Jake look like?”

Michael thought for a second. “Muscular. Red hair. Tattoos.” He searched my face. “Why?”

So Jake was the hookup buddy. With the erotic body piercing and eyes the color of warm honey.

“Just curious,” I whispered, trying to hide the tremor in my voice.

“On Halloween,” Michael said, “I texted you to say I was available if you needed me, but you ended up on the couch with Casey.”

I squeezed his hand. “That wasn’t intentional. It just happened.”

“But it used to be me. I was the one you called when you were upset or needed to talk to someone, and now it’s him—because it’s easier. Because he’s always here. Casey’s taken my place.”

“No,” I said, because the last thing I wanted him to feel—after hearing how you had made him feel—was like he’d been replaced. “That’s not true.”

“If you were eavesdropping on our conversation that day, then you obviously heard how jealous he was. He didn’t want me touching you.”

“There’s nothing going on between us,” I said, and it was true at that moment. After all, hadn’t you just left to be with someone else?

“Yeah, right,” Michael said. “You have feelings for him. You’re just too afraid to admit it.”

“No,” I lied—and hated myself for it.

Shimmery blue eyes, so similar to yours, searched mine. “You think I can’t see it. You think I don’t know.”

It killed me to see Michael so insecure and scared—scared of losing me to you. Killed me to admit he had lost me, maybe a long time ago. Killed me to hurt him again when I’d already hurt him so much.

“I’ll never have with anyone what I have with you,” I said, stroking my thumb down his lip. “You’re my best friend. I love you.”

It was so much easier for me to say that to him. It didn’t feel like my throat might close around the words. Or like my heart might burst from saying them out loud.

“Best friend,” he repeated, his fingers circling my wrist, preventing me from dropping my hand. I worried he might try to kiss me.

Despite where you were or who you might’ve been with, I couldn’t do that to you—not with him. Not again. So I broke the moment by saying, “Let’s watch something together. Like old times.”

We abandoned the pumpkin pie for you to clean up later (sorry about that) and moved to the Garland Room, where we browsed for a good thirty minutes before settling on old Thanksgiving episodes of Friends, playing back-to-back on TV.

A few minutes in,I turned my body to face Michael’s and said, “Can I tell you something?”

“Sure,” he said.

“I think my dad’s right. I think I am broken. I think…something’s wrong with me.”