Page 77 of Mad Girl

His hand, roaming lightly across my chest the moment before, clutched my camisole.

All this, over one breathless little command: bite me.

“Where?” he rasped, gaze hooded as he twisted my spaghetti strap between his fingers, dragging it slowly down my shoulder.

“Wherever you want,” I said, curling my fingers against the nape of his neck.

Michael lowered his head, his hot breath fanning across my shoulder, followed by the warmth of his mouth. Open. Sucking. Tongue on my skin. Teeth grazing.

I grabbed the back of his neck, pulling him closer. Then⁠—

Liquid hot pain. His teeth sinking in. I couldn’t even cry out—that’s what a shock it was. His fingers dug into my arm as he bit down harder.

I gasped, eyes burning with tears.

Now this…

This felt like something I did deserve. Something I could have without breaking us both. A pain that rippled across my chest and burst me open and filled me whole. A pain that temporarily blotted out the darkness.

Afterward, Michael slid my camisole strap back into place, kissing me tenderly on the lips.

“Remember that time I begged you to hurt me?” I asked, resting my head on his bare chest.

It happened the summer I turned thirteen. I’d shot him at close range in paintball on purpose, leaving painful bruises all over his shoulder. He stopped talking to me for days, but hid the incident from my dad, because he didn’t want to be read one of those letters. But I needed to be punished, because that’s what happens when I hurt people. So I begged Michael to hurt me back. I followed him around, crying and begging, until he finally did what I asked. He hurt me back by pulling my hair, and when he saw how much I needed the pain, he pulled even harder.

“Elliot,” Michael said sharply, a warning. He wanted me to stop.

But I kept going. “When you pulled my hair, it made me feel better. It made me feel…free.”

“Free from what?”

“The guilt.”

“I don’t want to talk about this,” he said, his grip tightening on my forearm.

“Why?” I whispered, a hard knot forming at the back of my throat.

“It upsets me to think about it.”

“Because it’s messed up, right?” My voice cracked on the words.

“No. It’s messed up that I did it. I couldn’t take the begging. I wanted you to shut up. I wanted you to let the incident go and never bring it up again. I didn’t want it to be one more thing you needed to punish yourself for. So I did what you asked, and I ended it.”

I curled my body against his, brushing the tears from my face.

“I wish you’d forgive yourself,” he whispered into my hair. “At some point, you have to forgive yourself.”

I tried telling him why I couldn’t. But the words were stuck, like they always were, too painful to say. Too dark and horrible to confess.

The following night, while John stayed in Boston, we had dinner with Libby and my dad.

But something was off.

Nic poked at his salmon, barely touched his salad, and scarcely added anything to the dinner conversation.

After the fourth time he asked Libby to repeat herself, I began to worry. The two glasses of scotch he’d rapidly drained before we sat down to eat—plus the two glasses of wine with dinner—seemed a matter of concern, too. My dad never drank that much at dinner.

When he came back to the table with a second bottle of sauvignon blanc, Libby laid her hand across his arm. “Are you okay, sweetie?”