Page 318 of Mad Girl

He gave a little laugh. “Honey, no. Of course not. You’ll start school in the fall, and I want you to live on campus, have the full college experience—Casey, too. But we’ll talk about that later. We have plenty of time to plan it all out. In the meantime, let’s talk about what else you want.”

“Hold on,” I said, head shaking. “I’m still trying to process the fact that you waited until it’s time for me to leave home…to finally let me have a dog.”

Nic sighed. “Look, you’ll be home for another nine months, right? And you’re not going far. You can come home for dinner a few nights a week, for brunch on Sundays, for all the breaks. You can come home as often as you want, and I hope you do. Selfishly, I hope having a dog here makes you want to come home more often, because I’ll miss you like crazy. I’ll want to see you as often as possible.” He glanced at Casey. “Both of you.”

“And you,” I said, “will take care of the dog.”

“Of course. It’ll give me something to do. With you two gone, it’ll”—he glanced around the house, looked lost there for a moment, didn’t he, Casey?—“keep me company. I’ll hire a dog walker to come by during the week while I’m at work. It’ll be fine. It’ll be great.”

I stared at him, utterly dumbfounded. A dog. Finally. The one thing, other than freedom, I’d always wanted.

“And, listen,” Nic said, “I still want us to celebrate you graduating and going off to college. We could do something special during everyone’s spring break, or we can wait until the beginning of the summer. That’s up to you. But I’d like to do something big. I’d like to throw you a party⁠—”

“I don’t want a party,” I said, the words like glass as they scraped up my throat.

“Now, wait,” he said, holding up a finger. “Last summer, you promised me a party. You promised we could celebrate.”

“But then you tried convincing me to get back with Willoughby.”

“Forget Willoughby, okay? I didn’t realize he’d hurt you.”

“Oh, I see. So the dog is a consolation prize. You’ll let me have a dog, but only if I agree to give up something else. Like Casey, for example.”

“There’s no ulterior motive behind the dog,” Nic said, like, Why aren’t you getting this? “I’m not saying you two can’t be together. I think it’s a bad idea right now, all things considered. But you know what? You’re here all alone together, and I’m not stupid. This”—he waved a hand between us—“has been going on for quite some time. I know better than to believe I can stop it, so that’s up to you, too. All I ask is that you keep it to yourselves for the time being. Don’t flaunt it.”

“So you’re saying I can have whatever I want,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Well, I don’t want a dog,” I said, not because I didn’t want one. Because it was something I didn’t deserve—not now. It was something I could take from myself because I’d slipped your secret. “And I definitely don’t want a party.”

“Elliot,” Nic said, gaze pleading, “you promised me.”

“There’s nothing to celebrate. I mean, sure, I got into college, but it’s not like I earned it.”

He pulled a face. “Of course you fucking earned it. What are you talking about?”

“I got in because I’m a Bancroft. Because you went there first. Because my grandfather’s given millions in donations over the years, and our family owns a large portion of this city.”

Nic tossed his napkin on the table. “What are you doing? This is how you react when I try to give you things? I’m giving you everything you want.”

“Besides,” I said, like he’d never even spoken, “what are the odds that two people from the same household would both get accepted to the Ivy with the lowest acceptance rate of all the Ivies and end up being students at the same time?”

“Stop it,” Nic ordered. “Why are you doing this?”

“How convenient,” I said, stabbing at my salmon, “that Casey and I should be there at the same time. All by design, I’m sure, so he can keep an eye on me there, too.”

“Elliot,” Nic snapped.

“I bet there’s some devastated kid out there who worked really hard to get into their dream school, but someone like me took their spot. All because⁠—”

Nic snatched the fork from my hand, forcing me to look at him, visibly shaking as he said, “You can’t let me do anything nice, can you? You have to put a negative spin on it, turn it into something it isn’t, hurt me with it. Why can’t you let me be happy for you? Celebrate you? Be proud of your accomplishments?”

I didn’t answer him.

His tearful gaze pierced mine. “I have this amazing, capable, brilliant daughter who I would love to celebrate, just once, without being made to feel like I don’t deserve it.”

“Amazing, capable, and brilliant,” I repeated, fighting back tears of my own. “Or fucked up and broken?”