Lead Me Not (44 page)

“It was beautiful, Maxx. They’re all beautiful. But . . .”

“But?” I asked, my words becoming hard. She didn’t like it. She hated it.

She hated
me
.

“It doesn’t change anything,” she said after a beat. And that hurt. A lot.

“Why don’t you want to see me?” I asked, loathing the sound of
my own voice. My love for this woman made me high. But it also brought me so fucking low. And it was in the lows that I felt like I couldn’t drag my way out of the pit I found myself in.

I knew she had thought she could change me. She had gone into this relationship seeing me as a screwed-up addict who needed saving. And suddenly I couldn’t help but feel like she didn’t care about me for
me
but for the charity project she thought I was. And that pissed me off.

So I embraced the anger, because that was easier to handle than the fear that I was failing her completely. The idea that a girl like Aubrey could care about me, just as I was, felt almost blasphemous. Because she deserved better. And I was terrified the day had come when she had figured that out.

My hands were shaking and I was sweating. I felt the familiar sickness deep in my gut. I reached over to my bedside table and opened it, looking for the brown bottle I knew would be there.

“I do want to see you, Maxx,” Aubrey said, and I could hear the lie.

“Then come over, just for a little while,” I pleaded one last time.

I heard her sigh just as my hands closed around the bottle I was searching for. I shook it. It was empty.

Fuck me, it was empty.

I popped the top, thinking I must be imagining things, but there was nothing there.

I threw the bottle across the room. Aubrey was saying something on the other end of the phone, but I was no longer listening.

“Maxx?” she said when I didn’t say anything. I was too busy ransacking my room, looking for anything to take the edge off. I had to have a pill around here somewhere.

“I’ve got to go,” I said in a strangled whisper.

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?” she asked, sounding concerned.

Oh, so now she wanted to play worried girlfriend? If she cared so much, she’d be here beside me, helping me when I needed her.

She was the only thing that could help.

But she wouldn’t come. She was purposely staying away.

“That’s fine, Aubrey. Stay the fuck away. See if I care,” I barked petulantly. I know I sounded like an ass. But she was giving me no choice. I had to get off the phone. I had to stop thinking about her.

There was only one thing I could focus on right now.

Finding my drugs.

“Maxx, don’t be like this. I just need some time . . .”

“Take all the time you need. I’m over it,” I spat out, hanging up.

I dropped the phone onto the bed and crawled on my hands and knees to a pile of clothing on the floor. I destroyed my room in my search and couldn’t find anything.

“Ahhh!” I screamed, curling up into a ball. My body was racked with the shakes. I felt the bile building up in the back of my throat.

My phone was ringing. I knew who it was.

Aubrey.

I reached out my hand, trying to grab it. I shouldn’t have yelled at her. I should have told her what was wrong. Then she’d be here to help me.

I needed her so badly.

The phone went silent and didn’t ring again.

She had given up. She wasn’t calling back.

I looked over at my closet, knowing what was inside.

Maybe just this once.

No. If I went down that road I’d never be able to come back.

Come on, you know you want to.

It was taunting me now. It knew how weak I was.

Just one tiny little bump. Not much at all. You’ll feel so much better.

Shit, I was hearing voices now.

I covered my ears with my hands, trying to block out the tempting voice ringing in my head.

“No!” I shouted, as though the bags of drugs hidden in the depths of my closet would hear me.

I uncurled my rigid body and dragged myself to my bed. Reaching up, I found my phone and brought it to my ear.

I wanted to call Aubrey. I needed to hear her voice. She’d get me through this. She was all I needed. She loved me. Her love was enough.

But instead, I called someone else.

The phone was ringing and then it connected.

One step closer to my salvation.

“Marco. I need you to bring me something.”

chapter

twenty-eight

aubrey

i
was trying to finish up my homework. I had spent every day of the last week trying to get caught up.

After the disastrous night at the club with Maxx and staying up all night, only to have him show up at five in the morning high, I had made a hard decision. I had stayed up for a long time after he had passed out. He had never said a word to me. Nothing. It had hurt so badly. And I had cried for a long time after that. I had been completely depressed.

Our relationship was a mess. It wasn’t getting any better. I was going to fall hard and fast with him to rock bottom.

I needed distance.

I hadn’t been able to face his bleary eyes the next morning, so I made sure to leave before he woke up.

But then he had called me later, and I recognized the panic in his voice. He was in major withdrawal.

He had begged me to come over, and I had. I had never been able to say no to him, even when it was the best thing for me.

He had his drugs, and I had mine.

And mine was Maxx Demelo.

When I had arrived at his apartment, he seemed better, and I knew instantly he had used before I had gotten there. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I want to smack the shit out of him for
not caring enough about himself to stop.

But then he touched me, and even though I wanted to push him away, I didn’t. I couldn’t. My body craved him.

So I had let him take off my clothes and throw me on the couch, where he devoured me whole.

And while he thrust into me, my body wrapped around him, my heart began to break.

He was stuck in an endless cycle, and I was stuck in it with him.

This was going to ruin me.

This wasn’t a story with a happy ending. Maxx and I weren’t going to live that perfect life with the white picket fence.

The only life we could have together was ugly and messy and destructive.

And I knew without a doubt that it would kill us both.

I couldn’t save him.

There was no changing the path he was on. He wouldn’t let me. There were forces in his life that were more powerful than my love for him. The intensity of his feelings for me and mine for him just weren’t enough. I wasn’t sure they ever would be.

He was going over a very steep cliff, and if I didn’t back away, he’d take me with him.

And I wouldn’t do that to myself.

As much as I loved him, I couldn’t turn a blind eye as he obliterated himself. I had sworn I wouldn’t walk away, that I’d stand by him, no matter what. But those promises were made by a naïve fool.

I had stupidly thought that by helping Maxx, I’d be making up for the ways I hadn’t helped Jayme. As though one life could replace the other.

It was absolutely ridiculous.

Maxx wasn’t Jayme. He was his own brand of fucked-up, and
he was so deep in his hell that the only way of being with him was to sink into it with him. He wasn’t prepared to fight any sort of battle to get better. He wasn’t willing to let me fight for him.

My issues about my sister were my own, and I had to find a way to forgive myself and move forward.

And watching the man I loved fall apart was not the way to do it.

But Maxx wouldn’t let me go. He was persistent. He called me over and over again. Our conversations were always the same.

He
needed
me. He couldn’t live his life without me. He loved me. Oh God, did he love me. He’d die if he couldn’t be with me.

He’d cry. He’d beg. He’d scream. He’d yell. He had become my own personal devil, and I was terrified of him. And for him.

I almost caved so many times. I almost rushed over to his apartment to let him hold me. Maybe, just maybe, this time he’d hear me. He’d realize that he didn’t need the drugs. That together we could get through anything.

I would almost have myself talked into it, and then the other Maxx would come out to play. And he’d become angry. He’d get nasty. And it was easy to deny the primal instinct to rush over and help him.

So I resisted. As painful as it was. I wanted him. My heart hurt from being away from him. In the short time I had known Maxx, he had become
essential.

But I was doing this for
me.
I had to.

Then he stopped calling. He stopped coming to support group. Kristie talked about reporting his noncompliance to his probation officer. I never saw him on campus.

It was like he had disappeared.

I tried calling him, but he didn’t answer. He
never
answered. He had disappeared—for good this time.

“Do you want some company at the library?” Renee asked me,
poking her head into my bedroom. I was packing up my books and assortment of pens, about to head to campus to try to keep my mind off Maxx and what he was possibly doing.

As much as I knew staying away from him was the best thing for me, it didn’t stop how maddening it was to be kept in the dark. The not knowing was going to drive me crazy.

Renee knew some of what was going on with Maxx. I had needed to confide in someone. But I hadn’t been able to tell her everything. She admitted to not being very comfortable around him.

“He’s hot as hell, Aubrey, and he’s crazy about you, that’s obvious,” she had said.

“But . . . ,” I prompted.

“But there’s something in his eyes. They’re so sad. But unbalanced. I’ve seen eyes like that before. Those are scary eyes to see,” Renee had told me, and I couldn’t deny it. Maxx did have sad eyes, and there
was
something unstable about him. I had seen that firsthand more times than I cared to think about.

As much as I appreciated the renewed confidences of our friendship, I still couldn’t tell Renee everything. I couldn’t tell her about watching Maxx sell drugs, or about knowing that every time we weren’t together, he was using.

That was an ugliness that didn’t need to be shared. It would be buried deep down in the pit of my heart.

What Renee did know was that my relationship with Maxx was in a really bad place and that I was hurting. And if there was anything my best friend understood, it was the pain only the man you loved could give you.

And I felt connected to Renee in a way I had never been before. We were linked by our love for men who could annihilate us.

“Sure, if you want to,” I said, giving her a smile.

“Let me grab my stuff, and I’ll meet you in the living room,” Renee said, walking across the hall to her room.

The doorbell rang just as I finished packing up my things.

“I’ll get it,” I called out to Renee.

My heart started to beat in triple time. Maybe it was Maxx. God, I hoped it was Maxx.

I was pathetic.

The doorbell rang again and then again. Whoever it was didn’t do patient very well.

“I’m coming!” I called out, hurrying to the door.

Please be Maxx.

It wasn’t.

It was so much worse.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked angrily.

“Please, I just need to talk to her,” Devon pleaded, his dark brown eyes ringed with black circles. His normally perfectly styled hair looked as though he hadn’t washed it in days.

He was trying his best to look contrite and desperate. But I wouldn’t be fooled. Devon Keeton was a manipulative snake.

“Get the hell out of here before I call the police!” I threatened Devon, before adding in a furious whisper, “I saw what you did to her, you piece of shit. If you think you’re ever getting your hands on her again, you’re more deluded than I thought.”

Devon’s face crumpled, and he cried big crocodile tears. “I didn’t mean to hit her.”

“So she just fell on your fist, then?” I asked, my voice dripping in sarcasm.

Devon shook his head. “I’ll change. I swear it, Aubrey. Just let me see her. She won’t take my phone calls. She won’t answer my texts. I love her!” His voice rose, and I tried to get him to back away from the door so I could shut it in his lying face.

I didn’t want Renee to see him. But it was too late.

“Devon?” she said from behind me. Devon shoved past me and into the apartment. Renee cringed back, and I wanted to kick her
ex-boyfriend’s ass for putting that kind of fear in her.

I grabbed Devon’s arm. “I said get out!” I yelled, yanking on him. He looked down at me, and the tears were gone. He was angry. Really, really angry.

“Get your fucking hands off me or I’ll break your fingers,” he warned in a deadly quiet voice.

Well, he’d just have to break my fingers then.

“Get out!” I screamed, hoping our neighbors would hear me and come see what the noise was about.

Renee had her back against the wall, but her face had softened. I couldn’t believe it!

After everything he had done, she was looking at him like she actually missed him!

Devon was speaking to her, filling her ears with every line of romantic bullshit he knew she’d want to hear. His mouth was moving, but all I heard were the lies. To judge from the look on Renee’s face, she was believing him. Or at least she wanted to.

I knew she still loved him. Why had she given her heart to someone who treated it so poorly? It was there, plain as day, on her face. Love. Heart-stopping, kill-you-slowly love.

My heart pounded in my chest as I watched them. The sight in front of me was so familiar that it took my breath away.

As Devon spoke, it was Maxx’s words I heard. And it wasn’t Renee I saw drinking in his pleading promises . . . it was
me.

Our loves weren’t so different, no matter how much I tried to convince myself that they were. They were equally destructive. Equally exhausting. And equally dysfunctional.