Page 59 of Mad Girl

I hate mine, too.

I still couldn’t see perfectly, but your eyes might’ve been shining as you took your thumbs and—so lightly I could barely feel them—brushed them across the bridge of my nose to check for a break. I clenched my hand against your chest.

Not because it hurt.

Because I wanted you to make it hurt.

“Come on,” you whispered, lowering your hands to help me stand. “Let’s get you inside.”

With my head tilted back, I couldn’t get there unassisted, so you and Michael helped lead me up the multiple sets of stairs to the house. As soon as we walked into the kitchen, Libby and Nic rushed in from the living room.

“Oh, honey,” Libby said. “Not again.”

You led me to the breakfast table and lowered me into a chair.

“Is it broken?” my dad asked, pulling up a chair in front of mine. He took my face in his hands, exactly like you had.

“I can’t tell,” you told him.

Nic pulled the towel from my face, his jaw clenching at the blood. It had run down my chin, down the front of my bathing suit, down between my breasts. I even spotted a red smudge on your chest, Casey—right above your heart.

Nic aimed a furious gaze at Michael. “I thought I told you not to let her play anymore. I told you last year, Michael. I fucking told you, and you agreed.”

“I didn’t think it would be a problem this time,” Michael said. “It’s not even—I didn’t think—I’m sorry, Nic.”

“It’s not his fault, Dad.”

“No, it’s yours,” Nic said. “Can we go one year without you getting hurt, Elliot? Is that too much to ask?”

“Daddy,” I said, because the harsh tone of his voice—the fury and disappointment behind his gaze—gutted me. “It was an accident this time.”

“I don’t believe that,” Nic said. He cast a hard look at you, standing by Michael’s side. “No more volleyball for Elliot. Now you both know.”

John strolled in, breathless and sweaty from a run, removing his earbuds. He stopped when he saw me. “Jesus, Elliot,” he said, putting a hand to his forehead. “Not again.”

Libby helped me clean most of the blood off my chest, then Nic took me to a local emergency room. Turned out my nose wasn’t broken after all—just badly bruised and swollen—but I still wound up with ugly welts under my eyes. Tinsley tried helping me cover them with concealer, but no one could look at me without wincing for days. You kept offering to give me something for the pain, and I kept telling you I didn’t need anything, but you didn’t buy it.

More than once, you sat real close to me at the house. Showed up in my room to “hang out.” Asked me to walk with you on the beach.

Pretty sure you wanted to ask about the volleyball accidents. About my birthday. About whether I’d gotten too close to you on purpose.

But maybe you sensed I wouldn’t want to talk about my birthday, since you’d never talked to me about yours.

While we’re on the subject of birthdays, we celebrate my dad’s the first week of summer, even though he doesn’t like to make a big fuss of it. Every year, my grandfather sends a gift in lieu of a phone call or his presence, and that year was no different. The carrier arrived around breakfast, bearing a small wooden crate, and Nic placed it on the kitchen island, where it stayed until we all drifted in from the back patio much later, full from dinner and cake.

You leaned close, gesturing to the crate. “Why doesn’t he open it?”

“Because he already knows what’s inside,” I said.

“What’s inside?”

“A bottle of scotch that costs more than the average car and a note that says, Happy Birthday, Nicky. Enjoy your break from those prying eyes in the city.”

“It says that every year?”

“Yep. Exactly that. Every year.”

You pulled a face. “Bit strange.”