My stomach rumbled, and I searched the cabinets, finally finding a box of stale crackers. I ate a handful and made my way to the bathroom. Having food in my stomach made me feel a little better, but I was still sluggish and sick.
I thought about the baggie of pills sitting on the coffee table—drugs I’m supposed to be selling or I’ll have to answer for it later.
I had to get it together. I had somewhere I needed to be.
I needed to shower and then get my ass over to campus for the support group. It was time to be the other Maxx—confident Maxx, the Maxx others listened to.
I liked that Maxx. He’s the one I wished I could be all the time. The one who was untouchable. I got off on being respected and wanted. I knew the way people looked at me, and I fucking loved it. In the group, at the club, I was a guy that mattered. I was a guy with power and control. I was a guy who knew what he wanted and took it.
The person I was in this apartment when I was alone disgusted me. His insecurity, his self-doubt, his guilt and shame were repulsive. I hated him. I wished I would never have to be him again. But he was always there, waiting to take me down.
In the harsh light of sobriety, he was the pathetic man who looked back at me in the mirror. He was everything I didn’t want to be. He was the sum of all of my failures. It’s what defined him.
That’s not the person I wanted anyone to see, let alone the woman I was becoming dangerously consumed by.
Aubrey.
She made it so easy to pretend that all of those other versions of Maxx didn’t exist, that I was just one person, with just one life, that I wasn’t hiding a million secrets. I was just a guy who liked a girl who just maybe liked me back.
Being with her, touching her, kissing her, had the power to undo everything. I felt her unraveling me every time we were together. She had a way of making me forget. She was an escape more dangerous than any fucking drug.
I had an addictive personality, and I craved, I desired, I needed.
Her.
Knowing I’d see her tonight made me move a little faster. I stopped obsessing about the pills on the coffee table, and all I could see, all I could think about, was her long blond hair and the way her lips had tasted.
When I had been with her at the movie theater, I never wanted to leave. I wanted to disappear inside her forever.
But I couldn’t handle disappointing her. I was already a failure in every other part of my life. Failing Aubrey had seemed like the worst thing I could do. Despite how drawn I was to her and how easy it would be to fall into normal with her, I couldn’t let myself indulge in it.
That wasn’t the life I was living.
It wasn’t the life I deserved.
So I had left her.
And I had gone straight to the other woman in my life, the one who would never let me go. She was a jealous bitch, and when I was with Aubrey I didn’t give her the attention she required.
Addiction was messy. It was consuming.
Addiction whispered in your ear, telling you that she’s the only one. She’s all you need.
It was easy to not think about Aubrey when I was high.
If addiction was consuming, so was lust. And desire.
Being with Aubrey had the potential to eradicate that other Maxx completely.
But I couldn’t let him go. I needed him.
And I was scared that the day would come when I would need Aubrey just as badly.
It would be a fight to the death.
And it was a fight that I didn’t think I could win.
chapter
fifteen
aubrey
maxx was late for support group. I felt his eyes on me as he took his seat, but I refused to look his way. Every time I thought of him, all I could see was last weekend at Compulsion. Him selling drugs. Him taking drugs. Him allowing some slutty chick to rub up against him. Why is it that that seemed like the biggest betrayal? I was so stupid.
He is bad news. I had chanted that mantra in my head a thousand times a day since I’d made my unfortunate discovery. I tried really hard not to obsess about how easy it was for me to believe the lies he sold me. Even as I swore I wouldn’t fall for his act, that’s exactly what I had done.
I wasn’t sure if I was more disappointed with Maxx and his inability to be honest and forthright, or with my own gullibility for thinking that, somehow, I was the lucky girl who got to see the broken boy beneath the hard exterior. I felt angry and hurt, and I wasn’t sure how to cope with it. For someone who had spent a long time bottling up every emotion, feeling something so intensely was crippling.
The image of him hawking his drugs was intricately intertwined with the memory of kissing him. And touching him. And sharing secrets with him that I purposefully had kept deeply buried.
Damn him!
I spoke very little in group, sticking to the agreement I’d made with Dr. Lowell. However, that didn’t stop the rest of the group members from watching me like I was going to flip out again at any moment. Most of them seemed almost excited by the possibility.
I made notes and did my best to wear my professional, no-nonsense face. I listened when people were talking, nodding as if their one-word answers were the most profound statements I had ever heard.
Maxx did not get my attention, even though I knew he wanted it. He was his normal charismatic, energy-sucking self. But I wouldn’t allow myself to respond to him in any way, not even when he made a rather pointed remark meant for me alone.
“Would anyone like to share something positive from their week?” Kristie asked as a way to start off the group. Of course, no one jumped in to answer. Big surprise.
And, of course, it was Maxx who volunteered first.
“I’d like to share something.” Maxx’s deep voice seemed to reverberate in my ears. I kept my eyes firmly on my notebook, making manic little doodles in an attempt to zone him out.
“Great, Maxx,” Kristie encouraged, sounding excited as she always did when Maxx took over. And that’s what he did. He controlled the flow of the discussion. He moved and maneuvered things to fit his purpose.
I had started to overlook his glaringly self-centered agenda when I felt I had a chance at finding something more beneath his narcissistic surface. But that was before I knew exactly who he was.
“I had a date last weekend, with the most amazing and beautiful girl I have ever met,” Maxx began, and I felt myself flush. Shit, shit, shit! If anyone found out who that particular girl was, I wouldn’t be walking away with a halfhearted warning. I’d have my ass kicked out of the counseling program faster than I could say poor boundaries.
“Really? That sounds great,” Kristie enthused. Twyla, the sorority girl who sat beside me, made an angry grunt under her breath.
Her friend Lisa leaned over and whispered. “You waited too long, T,” she teased. I peeked over at the girls, who both seemed less than thrilled by the news of Maxx’s fantastic date.
“We’ll see,” Twyla whispered back, smirking. I worked hard to rein in the urge to go bitch on her ass. The words He’s mine blossomed on my lips, and I pinched my mouth closed so I wouldn’t snarl them in some sort of animalistic impulse to stake my claim.
A claim I didn’t have, nor wanted to have.
I’ll just keep telling myself that over and over again, and then just maybe I’ll believe it.
“Yeah, we went to see a movie. Kind of lame, I know, but there’s something about this girl . . . we have this connection that I’ve never felt before,” he said softly.