Letter Twenty-Five #2
You snorted right back. “What you offered me were two burnt pieces of charcoal with a bit of stale cream slathered down the middle. Where I’m from, no one even eats them because they’re shit.”
Aghast, I said, “They’re literally one of the best cookies ever made.”
“You only say that because you’re American,” you said. “You’ve been programmed to accept that sort of rubbish.”
I couldn’t believe you, Casey. The nerve. “I’m American? You’re also American!”
Michael snatched his fork back. “What?”
You shot me a distressed look over the island.
“Um, Americanized…is what I meant,” I rushed to say. “He’s been Americanized over here…in America. Clearly, he eats and enjoys our food.”
“Barely,” you scoffed.
“Are you okay, man?” Michael asked.
“Just brilliant,” you replied, aggressively scrubbing a plate dry. “By the way, what’s going on with Nic and your parents?”
Michael and I glanced at each other. “They had a disagreement,” he said. “Nic’s been avoiding them lately, and they’re a mess over it.”
“What was the disagreement over?” you asked.
I stabbed a chunk of flaky pie crust. “Me. I walked in on them trying to talk him into sending me away again, but he didn’t want to.”
“I told you he wouldn’t,” Michael said.
I glanced up, catching your gaze—unexpectedly tender after weeks of careful avoidance and near-perfect silence. You looked sad. Troubled. Maybe even regretful. My heart caught in my throat.
But then your phone chimed, breaking the moment. You plucked it off the counter and quickly typed a reply, then slipped the phone into your back pocket.
“Well,” you said, drying your hands on a dish towel. “I’m headed out for a bit. I’ll see you two later.” You cast a look at Michael. “Let it be noted, Michael, that I’m leaving you alone.”
Michael rolled his eyes.
As I watched you grab your coat and walk out the back door, the pumpkin pie churned in my stomach. If you were meeting someone, I had my answer, didn’t I?
Where did we stand? Nowhere.
Hoping to be wrong, I turned to Michael. “Where’s he going?”
Michael’s jaw ticked. “How should I know? He doesn’t tell me much anymore. But if I had to guess? Probably to hook up with someone.”
The thought of you with someone else—kissing them, undressing them, touching them—crushed me. I dropped my fork on the counter.
“Shouldn’t you be heading back home?” I asked Michael, choking back tears. “To be with Sienna?”
“She’s in Connecticut with her family.” Michael pushed the pie away, then turned in his stool to face me. “Why didn’t you tell me you stopped seeing Willoughby?”
“You’ve been busy.”
“Not too busy for you, Elliot. What happened?”
“I asked for things that freaked him out. I gave myself a bruise, and he thought that was messed up. I couldn’t be what he wanted because I’m messed up.”
Michael’s gaze hardened. “You’re not messed up. Willoughby is, for making you think you are.”
I laughed. “Will you please stop lying? You and everyone else?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You want to know the real reason my dad isn’t sending me away? The real reason he’s mad at your parents?” Michael waited. “He feels guilty, Michael. Because I caught him telling your parents how fucked up I am.”
Michael narrowed his eyes. “I’m sure you just misunderstood.”
“I didn’t misunderstand anything. He said, ‘She’s fucked up. My daughter’s broken—and that’s on me.’ He said those exact words.”
Michael reared back in shock. “Well, screw him. If anyone’s fucked up, it’s your dad—the way he’s sheltered you your whole life, all the stuff he hides about your mother, that messed-up apology thing he made you do until Casey overheard and made him ashamed of it.
And my parents are fucked up, too, because they’ve done nothing but support Nic all this time.
They act like his actions are somehow justified, and my mom—don’t even get me started on my mom. ”
“Why not?”
“Because, Elliot. I felt bad for her after you defaced her signs, but when she figured out it was you, she lit into your dad for not sending you to Arizona last summer. Plus, she started asking him all this stuff that didn’t even make sense.”
“Like what?”
“Like: ‘Why wasn’t she stopped? Why didn’t someone clean up after her before it was splashed all over the news? Did you not know it was happening as it was happening, Nic?’ Stuff like that.”
My blood ran cold. “What?”
Michael sighed. “I don’t know. It made me think maybe he had Hal keeping an eye on you that night—because of what happened last year.”
I clutched the countertop. “You think Hal might’ve been following me?”
“Not following you, necessarily,” Michael said.
“Just making sure you stayed safe. I don’t know if you realized, but your dad had a hard time getting over what happened at that Halloween party last year.
And then a few weeks later—when you ditched Bree after school and went to Willoughby’s without telling anyone?
—Nic was not okay. I saw him break down with my parents over it. ”
I stopped to consider this. “When I overheard the three of them talking about sending me away? My dad sounded like he was begging your parents not to make him. He made excuses for my behavior, and Libby said he used to do the same thing when it came to my mom. Anyway, you were right. My dad has weird attachment issues where I’m concerned. He can’t let go.”
“Yeah, I—” Michael stopped talking to look at me. “Elliot,” he said slowly. “You weren’t really asleep while Casey and I talked that day, were you?”
“Of course not.”
“Jesus, Elliot.”
“I have some questions.”
Michael sighed.
“What happened in England?” I asked. “Who is Jake? And why are you so jealous of him?”
Michael winced. “I got weird over there.”
“Weird how?”
“We had to share a bed at his sister’s.”
“Oh, the horror,” I said.
“Shut up,” Michael said, nudging me in the shoulder. “I tried sleeping on the couch, but Casey told me to grow up and stop being weird about it, so we stayed in his bedroom at Claire’s.”
“What was his room like?”
“Simple. Crazy clean. Lots of books, but beyond that, not much else. It made me sad, you know?”
“Why?”
“Well, I thought of my bedroom at my parents’ house, and how…
full it is compared to his. I have trophies, medals, pictures, and all the other crap that fills up a room, but Casey’s was so…
barren. I mean, this was his bedroom the whole time he was a teenager, but there were almost no traces of him ever growing up like a normal kid, and it made me sad for him.
Actually, everything about his life over there made me sad. ”
“Like what?” I asked, aching to know more about you. About all the things you’d never been brave enough to tell me.
“Just—everything Claire told me. She said their dad was so toxic to him after their mom died that Casey spiraled pretty hard, so she had to get him out of there. She felt like she had to protect him, because their mom would hate for Casey to be treated like that.”
“When you say spiraling,” I asked, “what do you mean?”
“Claire said he drank a lot. Dabbled in drugs. Disappeared for days at a time. Even while I was there, he got hammered a few times. Like, pass-out hammered, can’t-function-the-whole-next-day hammered.
And when he did that, it stressed Claire out, because on top of having to take care of their dad and Rhys, she was worried about Casey losing it, too, and that bothered Casey—he hates to worry her—so he’d pull it together for a while, only to get hammered again when their dad was particularly shitty to him.
One time he got so shit-faced, he kept telling me I was his brother, and I said, ‘Sure, dude, I’m your brother,’ just to get him to stop talking and go to sleep.
The next morning, he didn’t remember saying it. ”
I pressed my lips together. “Um—what did their dad say to him?”
“Well, for one thing, he loved to make all these crude suggestions about what must take place between your dad and Casey in order for Nic to let him live with you guys and pay all his bills. He kept asking if Casey missed his sugar daddy.”
I made a face. “Gross.”
“Yeah. And while Nic’s kind of shitty to you, Elliot, Nic’s been pretty great for Casey. I don’t guess I ever realized that until we got over there.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just—when Nic got him on the phone, your dad must’ve said exactly what Casey needed to hear to keep him from completely losing it.
One time, I caught Casey wiping tears from his face while they were talking.
Whatever Nic said obviously made it to where Casey wasn’t bothered so much by all that horrible stuff his dad kept saying to him, because he seemed much better after that and quit getting hammered. ”
Despite my own issues with Nic, I liked that he was able to help you through a rough time. No wonder he wanted to be a reliable father figure for you. Your adoptive dad sounded like a fucking nightmare.