Page 97 of Mad Girl

“I think he’s avoiding me,” you said, depositing your phone back on the counter.

“Why?”

You lifted the teakettle and filled our cups. “He barely speaks to me at brunch, and he never wants to hang out anymore. I haven’t had a proper chat with him in weeks.”

I couldn’t tell you the truth—that Michael was avoiding you because of me. So I said, “He’s been distant with me, too, lately. He’s probably busy with school.”

More than distant. He’d practically ghosted me. On Sundays, he pretended I didn’t exist, often leaving immediately after brunch. Which sucked, because I badly wanted to tell him about losing the photos he’d given me.

As much as I appreciated how sweet you had been about the whole thing, Michael would agree my dad’s behavior had been psycho. Michael would be outraged on my behalf. Michael would join me in chewing over the various other items that might’ve been hidden amongst John’s books. I hate to say so, Casey, but having grown up with our parents and the secrecy surrounding my mother, Michael would simply get it in a way you couldn’t.

“I don’t know,” you said, sounding doubtful. You carried our teacups over to the island and carefully set mine in front of me. The sugar bowl and creamer sat within reach on the counter, but you never gave me the chance to serve myself—and why would I bother? When you always got it just right? Splash of milk. One-and-a-half tiny spoonfuls of sugar. You remembered—from the very first time we had tea together—and that always got me. Such a small thing, but it was big to me. All the small things you did were big to me.

You met my gaze, yours narrowing slightly. “Did something happen at the beach?”

I nearly dropped my teacup, a slight tremor in my hand as I set it back down. “What? No. Of course not. Why?”

I felt sick as I watched you splash a bit of milk into your tea.

You pulled out the stool beside mine. “Because we were texting every day, he sent me all those photos of you, and then…nothing. He went silent.” You paused to cast me a serious look. “Elliot, you didn’t—? You didn’t tell him my secret, did you?”

“Casey, no. I wouldn’t dare.” I turned my body to face yours. “Look, it might have something to do with Libby getting ready to announce her candidacy for mayor. He’ll have to be on his best behavior until the election next year, and if she wins, he’ll have to be careful for the next four years. All that extra attention makes him nervous.” While this wasn’t entirely untrue, it still gave me the sharp, uneasy feeling I got when telling a lie.

“Right,” you said, heaving a sigh before sipping your tea. “But it’s driving me mad, you know? Not hearing from him? I wish he’d talk to me about it, like he normally does, rather than completely shut me out.” You lowered your teacup to its saucer. “This is how badly I miss him—if he were to come over right now and ask me to watch the Celtics play, I wouldn’t be secretly consumed with dread or anything. I’d be genuinely happy to watch the game with him.”

“You don’t like basketball?”

You lifted both eyebrows. “I think maybe I hate basketball.”

“But you watched the Celtics with him all the time last year.”

“Yes,” you said seriously. “All those hours of my life—pretending to be interested in a sport that actually bores me to death—and I’ll never get them back.”

I melted. “It was sweet of you to watch all those games with him, anyway.”

You studied your black-and-white bracelet, twisting it once around your wrist. “Well, it’s him, you know—and I’d do anything for him. So.” You brought a hand to your face and rubbed at your forehead, eyes drifting closed. “God,” you groaned, “it’s ridiculous the way I’m going on about him right now.”

“It’s not ridiculous,” I said, a lump growing in my throat. “He’s your brother.”

“Yes,” you said, eyes narrowed. “It still feels very strange to call him that. And now that I know, I feel like I should’ve always known. It was right there—from the very beginning. How did I not see it?”

“What do you mean?”

“The first time we ever spoke, for instance. It wasn’t when Sienna introduced us—it was a week or so before that. I caught him on the library steps one day, all by himself, looking at his phone, and I decided to go for it—to stop being so bloody stalker-ish and finally approach him. So I walked over, I said hello, and he looked up. He looked right at me, and I just…I lost my nerve. I thought, He’s going to think this is mental. So I blabbered on about being lost and needing directions instead. He stood, gave me this polite smile, told me where to go, and by the time he was done talking, I couldn’t even find the words to speak again. I stood there, just staring like an idiot while this strange sensation came over me.”

“What was it?” I asked.

“I don’t even know how to describe it—just that it was this overall prickly sort of feeling, and the thought ringing through my head, over and over, was: I know you. Which didn’t make sense, of course, because I didn’t—beyond what I’d read about him online, obviously. He asked if I needed him to repeat the directions, and I snapped out of it long enough to tell him I didn’t. And then, later, when Sienna introduced us, he recognized me immediately. He said, ‘You’re the guy who asked for directions.’ We started meeting up after that, and we hit it off immediately. Which seemed strange in and of itself, because on the surface we have almost nothing in common.”

I smiled. “You really don’t.”

“No,” you said, smiling, too. “But still—I found myself missing him when we were apart. I found myself wanting to be near him, wanting to talk to him. For hours. About anything. I felt surprisingly and uncontrollably fond of him. And this is the biggest thing—I felt protective of him. Sienna wanted us to go to all these parties with her, and he didn’t like the parties. He always wanted to leave early, and I figured out pretty quickly why that was. People noticed him. People stared at him. People came up to him—like they knew him—and he was friendly enough, but his whole body unclenched when they walked away. I had this unbelievable urge to shield his body with mine, to protect him from all that, to get him alone someplace, where it was just us. Because with me, he was different. With me, he was relaxed and funny, and he told me things.”

“Told you what?” I asked.

“That he disliked living in Libby’s shadow at Harvard, for one. That he struggled to meet everyone’s expectations. How stifling it felt, being a Harris. He told me he wanted to be average—just an average person, going to an average school, with average parents, who set perfectly average expectations.”

I already knew this. On some level, I definitely knew this about Michael. But he’d never stated it so explicitly to me. Not like he had to you.