Page 88 of Mad Girl

If I squinted, I could definitely see a likeness there, between you and John, especially when you smiled. The teeth—yours and John’s—almost identical, your incisors a tad longer than his.

In the looks department, Michael favors John, there’s no doubt about it. But—if I’m right about your biological mother—you favor that beautiful, dark-haired girl in the picture.

The mannerisms are where you and John are most alike. John sometimes chews on his bottom lip, and you do, too. That deep groove between your eyebrows? John has that, too. The way you really look at someone when they talk to you, eyes slightly narrowed? John—he does that, as well. John twists his wedding band around his finger the same way you twist the bracelet on your wrist.

But the biggest thing—the similarity that didn’t hit me until that Sunday at brunch—is how you and John have a gift. For tugging the truth loose.

I’m good at lying. I do it well. So well that people can’t always tell my lies from the truth. Which is why, my whole life, when Nic or Libby couldn’t get an honest answer out of me, they’d sit me in front of John. And something about John’s voice—the calm, quiet, almost melodic tone of his voice—would make me feel safe enough to talk. Until, slowly but surely, he worked the truth loose.

In fact, it was John who first pulled the truth out of me when I stabbed Michael. John, who asked me to explain the reason I’d felt compelled to stab Michael in the first place. John, who suggested I write a letter, explaining those same reasons to Michael when I asked him to forgive me. My dad mentioned this to my therapist, Dr. Goldstein, who agreed a heartfelt letter was the perfect way to express remorse for my actions.

The letters became an important step in absolving me. A cleansing device, if you will. All that darkness and rage had to be purged onto paper, where it could be sifted through and examined, made sense of. Where it could be understood for what it was and not what it looked like, because often it looked like something too cold and callous to be forgiven. But on paper, it seemed less bad. On paper, there was a reason, and once purged, the whole thing could be shut away in a drawer and forgotten.

I’ve been writing letters a long time, and it all started with your dad—with John. Because my dad couldn’t deal. My dad could barely look at me after the stabbing, let alone have a conversation about it.

When I first told you the story of the stabbing, I’d glossed over the part about my dad locking me in his office. I brushed over it so quickly you might not remember I said it at all.

But here’s the truth I couldn’t admit to Michael in bed that time at the beach—when he said I needed to forgive myself.

My dad locked me in his office after the stabbing, and he didn’t come back to let me out, and I’m not sure how long he left me in there, just that it was a really long time. So long I began to panic and beat on the door. So long my voice grew hoarse from shouting and crying. So long my mouth became dry, my bladder almost full to bursting. I’d been curled against the bottom of the door, softly begging—please, please let me out—when a key finally rattled in the lock. When he knelt down, I sprang up and buried my face in his neck, so distraught it took me a few moments to realize: it wasn’t his voice shushing me, nor was it his citrusy bergamot scent I smelled, but a sandalwood scent instead. While both comforting and familiar, this person was wrong. Because the person holding me wasn’t my dad—it was John.

I spotted my dad over John’s shoulder, sitting directly across from his office door, slumped against the wall with his head tossed back and tears streaming down his face.

Even at eight, I understood: he’d been there all along, listening to me cry and call his name, and he hadn’t answered. And that felt like a punishment of the harshest kind. The kind of punishment fit for a monster.

Still, I untangled myself from John and crawled into Nic’s lap, repeating “I’m sorry, Daddy” over and over and mopping the tears from his face. When he didn’t respond, I grew frantic, pulling at his shirt and begging him to speak. John grabbed my dad by the jaw, pressed his mouth to Nic’s ear, and whispered something sharply—and only then did my dad wrap his arms around my trembling body to hold me. The three of us sat there forever, huddled together on the floor, and at some point, I gathered the courage to apologize, tearfully asking John if I’d killed Michael. Did I kill him? Is he gone? And John said, “No, sweetheart. He’ll be okay, but he’s seriously hurt. We need to have a talk about why you did that, because it’s not enough to say you’re sorry—not this time.”

I didn’t want to tell him. The truth seemed small and insignificant compared to what I’d done. But John lowered his gaze to mine, brushed his hand over my hair, and—in a voice that was gentle and warm and everything I needed to feel safe in that fragile moment—coaxed the truth loose. It spilled out of me, in sobs and broken sentences, Nic’s arms tightening around me as I confessed, and when I was finished, Nic finally spoke. He told me he was sorry. He repeated it over and over, his body relaxing against mine.

You see, Nic couldn’t face what I’d done until he knew why. Until he understood the stabbing for what it was and not what it looked like. It wasn’t cold and callous. I had a reason, and the reason made sense to him.

I went on to write that letter of apology to Michael, and read it aloud, and afterward Nic stuffed the letter—the whole incident—away in a drawer, where he liked to pretend it had been forgotten.

But it’s never been forgotten, Casey, least of all by me.

The stabbing happened in a flash—fueled by rage and jealousy—and I barely remember doing it. But being treated like a monster by my own father?

That’s something I’ll never forget.

The thing I can’t stop punishing myself for.

I’d done something so horrific my dad couldn’t unlock the door and let me out himself.

All this to say, you were familiar to me from the very beginning, familiar because you reminded me of John—and that’s not a bad thing. John’s often been a dependable and reassuring presence in my life. It’s just that he had to be. Because sometimes my dad couldn’t.

Like you, Casey. Always showing up to visit me in jail, now that I’m something my dad definitely can’t face anymore: a killer.

Anyway, I promised to give you everything. Even the darkest things. And the office incident matters.

For you to understand me—my relationship with Nic, everything I did during our time together—you have to understand this first: that incident shaped me.

And I would learn much later that it wasn’t the only one.

Back to that Sunday.

While I searched for the similarities between you and your family, I noticed Michael had barely spoken throughout brunch or touched the food on his plate. He looked a little sick, actually, like he might’ve been hungover. The adults had just left the table when you leaned in and said to him, “Hey. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, man.” He shoved his chair back, gaze flicking across the table to me. My heart squeezed.