Page 67 of Mad Girl

As I breathed in your freshly showered scent, you cradled my head to your chest. I blinked back tears, trying not to cry.

After a minute, Michael said, “We should probably get going.”

You kissed my forehead, then dipped your mouth close to my ear. “Happy Birthday.”

I smiled, heart stuttering, beating way too fast. “Thanks. Will you send me an updated picture of you with Rhys?”

“Of course. Promise me you’ll be okay?”

“I’ll be fine.”

Michael clapped you on the shoulder. “Yep. No need to worry, man.”

But I don’t have to tell you: promises are fickle, fickle things.

Little did we know, both of our lives would be forever changed by the time you got back.

LETTER ELEVEN

85 WEEKS LEFT

Spending my birthday in jail is a special kind of depressing. More depressing, I mean, than it usually is.

Since my birthday falls on a Tuesday this year, my gift was a visit from you, but seeing you in that blue linen suit knocked something loose inside me, and that promise I made to Michael? About not hurting myself on my birthday anymore? I wanted to break it.

It’s not like he’ll ever know.

You leaned forward, smoothing a hand down the front of your navy tie, and whispered, “Happy Birthday.”

I ripped my gaze from your beautiful blue eyes, staring instead at the ugly white cinderblock wall over your shoulder. “I always figured twenty was the magic number, you know? That I’d finally be free. And now I am.”

“You call this free?”

I shrugged, thinking of the purple envelope I’d received during mail call that morning. Thick. Heavy. A birthday card, probably. Likely filled with origami hearts. They’d already opened it—they open everyone’s mail here—but I only put his meager offering with the others: in a neat little pile under my bed. “Free of him.”

You cleared your throat. “Your dad⁠—”

“Don’t,” I snapped.

“Elliot, he’s⁠—”

“I said, don’t.”

“Yeah? Screw your don’t. It might do him some good to hear your voice.”

“I won’t talk to him,” I said, but truthfully? I’d expected to see Nic sitting at that steel table beside you today, and when he wasn’t, the disappointment crushed me. He expects me to accept a stupid card in lieu of his presence?

Fuck that.

I guess I finally am free of him.

But it doesn’t feel as liberating as I thought it would. It feels like having the floor pulled out from under my feet. It feels like I’ve been deserted. Again.

“But he⁠—”

“Keep going, and I’ll go back to my cell,” I warned.

Your jaw clenched.