Lead Me Not (47 page)

“Marco, it’s me, Aubrey!” I called out.

“You need to leave now, you’re not getting in here,” Randy growled, yanking me hard by the arm. Ouch, that would leave a mark.

“Hold on, man. I think I know this chick,” Marco said.

“Dude, you know a lot of chicks,” Randy stated, and not at all nicely.

“Seriously, hang on a second.” Marco looked at me closely.

“I’m Maxx’s girlfriend,” I explained and was relieved to see understanding dawn on his metal-studded face.

“Right! I knew you looked familiar. Let her go, Randy. She’s X’s girl,” Marco said, grabbing my other hand and putting a stamp on the back.

I should have thought to use his
other
name. But I didn’t know X. I didn’t think I ever would.

Randy loosened his hand around my upper arm, and my fingers started to tingle as blood rushed back. “Sorry, I didn’t know,” Randy mumbled, giving me a small push forward.

I rubbed my arm where he had grabbed me, wincing at the pain there.

“I had no idea you were coming tonight. Maxx didn’t say anything,” Marco said, leaving his post and walking me through the door.

Marco grinned, his lips stretching and exposing a tongue ring I hadn’t noticed the last time I had seen him. “And just so you know, nobody around here calls him Maxx. That’s why Randy didn’t know who you were talking about,” Marco explained.

“Do you know where he is?” I asked Marco, my teeth already rattling from the music that blasted just behind the door.

Marco shook his head. “I’ve been out here all night. I don’t usually see him until just before closing.”

Crap.

“Thanks, Marco. I appreciate your help back there,” I said sincerely. Maybe Marco wasn’t such a bad guy, even if he did look like a tattoo experiment gone wrong.

“Sure thing, Aubrey,” Marco said, clasping my shoulder before returning to the entryway.

I took a deep breath and walked inside the club. It looked like chaos. Normally I found the craziness appealing.

Not tonight.

Tonight, I hated it. I saw it as ugly and sordid, its darkness hiding secrets and ruin. I wanted to leave.

But not without Maxx.

I started to push through the throngs of people dancing to the frenetic beat, straining up on my tiptoes in my search for Maxx.

No, not Maxx. Here, in this world, he was X.

I was pushed and jostled as the music reached its pinnacle. A mosh pit had started, and if I didn’t get away from it, I was certain
I would lose a tooth or two.

I could see the bar against the back wall, and that’s where I headed. I recognized the bartender Maxx had called Eric.

I waved him down, and I knew instantly that he recognized me from when I was here before with Maxx. When he came to my end of the bar, I asked him if he knew where X was. It felt weird to call him that. It rolled oddly off my tongue, a stranger’s name. But I knew that I was looking for a person I didn’t know at all.

“I saw him over there a while ago. But I’m sure he’s around. He never goes far, so just hang around and he’ll find you.” Eric grinned, winking at me.

I headed in the direction Eric had indicated. A door on the far side of the room led to a narrow hallway that held the bathrooms. If anyone was down there, I couldn’t tell. It was too dark.

“Maxx, where are you?” I murmured to myself. The door to the men’s bathroom opened and shut behind me, and I heard a couple of guys laughing as they walked by.

“Fucking junkies,” one was saying.

Instinct took over, and I just
knew
.

I hurried into the men’s bathroom. It was a row of four stalls, all of them shut. But the last one was propped open by a figure I would recognize anywhere.

“Maxx!” I yelled, running to him. I fell to my knees beside him, not caring about the piss and the filth on the floor. The bathroom smelled rank, making me gag. But it was nothing compared to the nausea I felt when I got a good look at Maxx, sagged over on the tiles.

He was on his side, his face pressed into the floor. His left arm was bare and stretched out beside him with a thin white strip of plastic tied tightly, just above the elbow, causing the vein to be exposed.

I knew exactly what Maxx had been doing. Anyone who had ever watched HBO or a bad health video in high school would be
able to figure it out. I patted around on the ground next to Maxx’s limp body until I found the empty syringe.

I sprang into action. I immediately loosened the plastic around his arm and threw it on the floor. Then I leaned in close to make sure he was still breathing. His breaths were slow and shallow, and when I felt his pulse it was thready. I wasn’t sure how much he had taken.

I knew that a heroin overdose could involve depressed respiratory functioning. If a person took enough, eventually their lungs stopped working, and they’d suffocate.

“What the hell, Maxx?” I asked, knowing he was way past answering. I tried lifting him up, but he was too heavy to move. I rolled him over so he lay flat on his back.

He didn’t make a sound. I laid my ear against his chest, listening to the strained beat of his heart. My tears soaked his shirt, and I turned and buried my face in the fabric, screaming to a man who couldn’t hear me.

The door of the bathroom swung open, and a few guys came in. They noticed me on the floor with Maxx and chuckled.

“Sorry to interrupt,” they said, turning to the urinals and taking a piss, unconcerned. They didn’t see what was really going on. The sight was most likely not unusual at a place like Compulsion.

When the men left, I tried to get Maxx to wake up. I yelled in his ear. I smacked his face. I shook him hard enough to bang his head against the floor. Nothing worked. He wouldn’t wake up. And when his breath started to rattle in his chest and his lips began to tinge blue, I knew I needed to get him to a hospital.

I hurried to the door of the restroom and locked it, not want
ing anyone to come in. I got out my phone and dialed 911.

And then I watched Maxx’s breathing slow down until his chest wasn’t moving at all.

chapter

thirty

aubrey

i
had given Maxx CPR while I waited for the paramedics. His skin had grown cold as I pounded away at his chest. I breathed into his mouth, wishing he would start breathing on his own.

He would for a little while, then he would stop, and I’d start CPR all over again.

The EMTs showed up with the police, who promptly shut the club down. I heard screaming and yelling, but I was too busy trying to keep Maxx alive.

I was exhausted by the time the paramedics rushed into the bathroom and took over resuscitation. One of the EMTs asked if I wanted to ride with Maxx in the ambulance to the hospital, but I said I’d go in my own car.

And I did. I went and waited in the emergency room. I waited until Landon and David showed up and were ushered into the back, neither realizing I was there.

I waited after the doors to the triage unit swung open and the shrill code blue wailed out into the ER. And I knew fear. I knew terror. I knew what it meant to feel your heart die.

I continued to wait while Maxx’s life hung in the balance.

I watched Maxx’s uncle leave the hospital hours later with Landon, who was sobbing. And I thought that was it. Maxx was gone.

Not able to sit there a moment longer, I asked the nurse about Maxx. When she asked who I was, I lied and said I was his sister.

The nurse eyed me skeptically but didn’t call me out on my obviously false story. She clicked away at the computer before giving me the information I wanted.

“He’s listed as in critical condition. But he’s stable. They’re beginning the detox process,” she explained.

“Do you want to go back and see him?” she asked me.

I stepped away from the counter.

“No,” I said, turning around and leaving the ER.

I drove home. When I got there, Renee was waiting up for me.

And she wasn’t alone.

“We’ve got company,” Renee said, giving Brooks a fierce look.

Brooks got to his feet. “Hey,” was all he said, and I lost it.

I just flipping lost it.

I rushed him and wrapped my arms around his waist, burying my head in his crisp, clean shirt, and sobbed.

Brooks stiffened the second I touched him, but as I started to shudder, my body going into spasms with the force of my cries, he slowly held me more firmly, his hand rubbing my back soothingly.

“What’s wrong, Aubrey? What happened?” he asked over and over, but I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t say a word.

Renee joined us, and my two best friends held me while I fell apart.

When I was finished crying for Maxx, for myself, for the
us
that would never be, I fell into bed and slept. Thinking about what could have happened to Maxx if I hadn’t gotten there in time was a pain I couldn’t handle.

I went to the hospital the next day and again claimed to be Maxx’s sister. The nurse on duty didn’t question me, and it was hard not to silently criticize their lack of security.

I was told to head down the hall and that Maxx’s room number was 302. I followed the directions and found myself standing out in the hallway, unable to make myself go inside.

Maxx was sleeping; there were tubes and monitors every
where. He was as white as a sheet, his blond curls lank and lifeless. Slowly I walked inside and sat down beside his bed.

I didn’t take his hand. I didn’t cry. I just stared at the man I loved with all my heart. He had been so willing to throw away what we had. And for what? This?

A nurse came bustling in, giving me a distracted smile. She checked the monitors and his IV.

“Is he going to be okay?” I asked her before she could leave.

“He’s got a heck of a hard road ahead of him. He’s been given naloxone through his IV overnight, which will put him into withdrawal. Once he’s stable enough to be moved, he’ll go to the detox unit. After that, the doctor will recommend a rehab program, but it will be up to him whether he goes or not,” the nurse reported clinically.

“Okay, thanks,” was all I could say.

“I’m guessing you’re family, right?” the nurse asked, giving me a look that said she knew I was most definitely not family.

“Of course,” I responded, my eyes flicking to Maxx, who still hadn’t regained consciousness.

“Rehab is this young man’s only chance. His heart stopped twice after he got here. His body is in bad shape. His organs were on the brink of shutdown. If he were my family, I’d do everything I could to make him go.”

I nodded, my throat uncomfortably tight. The nurse turned her hard eyes on Maxx.

“Not everyone gets a second chance. Let’s hope he takes his,” she said, her words clipped. She gave me a thin smile as she left.

I sat back in my chair, watching him sleep. I wish I could have been sure he’d make the right choice, that he’d go to rehab and get better. But I just didn’t know.

There were two sides of Maxx that were completely at odds with each other. One side wanted a normal life. He wanted to go to school, take care of his brother, love me, and be happy. That’s
the side of Maxx that would undoubtedly make the right decision.

However, there was also the darker, more self-destructive side, which was selfish and miserable and needed the escape that only drugs could provide. And that side of Maxx would never do anything that would keep him away from the thing he loved above all else—his next high.

Needing to touch him, I reached out and took his limp hand in mine. I wanted to cry, but there weren’t any tears left to fall.

So I sat there, holding his hand, knowing whatever road he’d take, he’d have to travel it alone.

“Aubrey, please have a seat,” Dr. Lowell said, closing her office door behind me. In the aftermath of Maxx’s overdose, I had briefly forgotten about my day of reckoning.

Dr. Lowell looked older than I could ever remember seeing her.

“I never thought I’d be having this conversation with you, Aubrey. To say I’m sad and disappointed is a great understatement,” Dr. Lowell began.

“You know I’ve spoken with Kristie Hinkle, and I know you are aware of what you have been accused of. Kristie tells me she has already spoken with you, and that you have admitted to engaging in an inappropriate relationship with a member of the support group you were co-facilitating. Is this correct?” she asked me, sounding weary.