Page 8 of Mad Girl

You peered at me. “And you don’t feel bad about lying? About getting an innocent person fired?”

I plucked the cigarette from your fingers again and took another drag. “Nope.”

A lie. The very first one I ever told you.

“That can’t be true,” you said.

I rolled my eyes. “Okay, fine. I felt a little bad. But then she called me a psychopath under her breath as she was leaving, and I was glad to be rid of her then.” Glad to be rid of her, but not proud of how I’d accomplished it.

A deep groove appeared between your eyebrows as you gently took the cigarette back, and when our fingers brushed, I shivered from the contact. Even back then, I wondered if that brush had been intentional.

The way I know you now, I suspect it might’ve been your quiet way of saying you cared about my feelings.

“Aren’t you a bit too old for a nanny?” you asked.

“She only stayed with me for a few hours after school until my dad got home from work, but yes. I’m way too old for a nanny, and that’s what I keep trying to tell my dad. But he doesn’t like to leave me alone. He likes to keep me on a tight leash.”

“Why’s that?”

“Isn’t it obvious? He doesn’t trust me.”

You glanced up at the house. “Has it always been just you and your dad?”

“Yep. My mom left right after my first birthday.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” you said, wearing an expression so genuine it squeezed my heart.

“Don’t be. It’s her loss, not mine.”

“Is that how you actually feel? Or is that just the thing you say to keep people from feeling sorry for you?”

The questions unnerved me, Casey. We might’ve just met, but you’d already spotted something in me I’d been hiding my whole life.

“The woman who gave birth to me was a coldhearted bitch, and I’m better off without her. It’s her loss, not mine,” I told you, but that was a lie, too. Not having a mom bothered me. Seeing other girls with their moms bothered me. Having no one to celebrate on Mother’s Day deeply fucking bothered me.

And you noticed, your gaze full of sympathy as it swept over my face. I didn’t like how you kept doing that. How you kept trying to work the truth loose when I wanted you to believe the lie.

“Can I ask you a question?” I asked.

“Sure.” Your soft response made me feel bad for what I was about to do.

“What’s going on between you and Michael’s girlfriend?”

The change of topic caught you off guard. You hesitated before answering. “What do you mean?”

“She was all over you in there,” I pointed out, lifting my eyebrows.

“Sienna and I are friends.”

“You might want to tell her that.”

“Believe me,” you said firmly, “she knows.”

“I hope so,” I said, “because if you hurt Michael, I’ll castrate you.”

You paused with the cigarette halfway to your mouth. “Excuse me?”

I looked you dead in the eye. “You heard what I said.”