Lead Me Not

chapter twenty-seven

maxx

aubrey had left. One minute I was high as a kite, the next I was freaking the fuck out. I started looking for her in the crowd but couldn’t find her. I searched for her red dress and blond hair. She should have been easy to spot. She was the most beautiful thing in the room.

I soon became frantic.

Because she was gone.

“Where’s Aubrey?” I barked at Eric, grabbing his arm from across the bar.

Eric startled and tried to pull away from me. “Who?” he asked, his eyes darting around nervously. The buzzing in my head kicked into overdrive. The drugs hummed in my bloodstream, making me want to rage and tear shit apart.

I squeezed Eric’s arm hard enough to crunch bone. “My fucking girl! Where is she?” I demanded, my vision becoming tinted with red the angrier I became.

“I don’t know, man. I haven’t seen her in a while. I swear!” Eric stammered. I lunged across the counter and grabbed hold of his shirt, wrenching him closer until I was within spitting distance.

“If you’re fucking lying to me, I’ll break your face,” I seethed, baring my teeth in warning.

Eric squirmed in my grasp. “I’m not, X! I swear it! I haven’t seen her!”

I released Eric’s shirt and backed away. I pulled my cap off and ran a hand through my hair. Shit. She was gone.

My drugged-out brain was going into meltdown mode. I couldn’t think about the situation rationally. I should never have gotten high when she was there and could see everything. And now she was missing, and I needed to find her before I lost my mind.

Soon I had completely lost touch with reality. I was smashing beer bottles, throwing bar stools, shoving people in my rampage.

“Aubrey!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. Everyone was giving me a wide berth as I destroyed everything around me.

And then someone had me in a headlock and was pulling me through the club. I struggled against the painful grip.

Suddenly I was outside and deposited on the ground. Marco punched me square in the jaw, and I fell backward into the gravel.

“Snap out of it, Maxx! Before Gash gets wind of your little tirade!” Marco snarled, flexing the hand he had just used to lay me out.

I rubbed at my face, working my jaw to make sure nothing was broken. “I can’t find Aubrey,” I explained, not caring how pathetic it sounded.

“Is that what’s set you off?” Marco rolled his eyes and pulled out his cell phone, handing it to me. I looked at it, not registering what he was trying to say.

He threw it in my lap. “Call her, dipshit.”

I picked up the phone with trembling fingers. Why hadn’t I thought of that?

I could barely dial her number, I was shaking so badly. When I finally put the phone to my ear and listened to it ring, I wasn’t sure I could handle the wait for her to answer. What if she had left me for good? What the hell was I going to do if she was finally done with me? I wouldn’t be able to survive her leaving me.

“Hello?” Her voice sent a flood of relief through my body.

“Aubrey!” I let out in a rush.

“Maxx,” she said. She sounded strange. Not upset . . . but different. But I wasn’t interested in that right now. All I wanted to know was why she had left me.

“Where are you?” I asked, my heart in my throat as I tried to control my panic.

She sighed in my ear. “At your apartment.”

“Why are you there?”

“I felt sick. I didn’t want to ruin your night.” There was that tone again. The one I should probably spend more time paying attention to.

“I’m coming home. I’ll take care of you,” I promised her.

“Okay,” Aubrey said softly. We hung up after that, and I gave Marco his phone back. I got to my feet, a smile on my face. Marco arched an eyebrow at me and snorted.

“All better now?” he mocked. I punched him in the shoulder just hard enough for it to hurt. Call it a little payback.

“Oh yeah,” I said, already going back into the club.

I told Aubrey I would come home. But I didn’t go home. Not right away. I had a pocketful of pills I still had to sell, which Marco was sure to remind me of.

So I continued to sling the pills and made my money, selling them at double the price. Club kids were fucking stupid. They had too much of Mommy and Daddy’s money and not enough brain cells. But it worked out well for me.

Many of my customers shared the joy, and I was able to get a nice, good high without dipping into the supply. Now that I knew Aubrey was safe, I could enjoy the rest of my night.

After a while, I completely forgot that I had told her I was on my way home.

Until I got there and found her waiting up for me. I was fucked-up and tired. I just wanted to sleep.

She was angry with me, I could tell. But the state I was in, I didn’t care. She tried to talk to me, but I walked by her and went straight to my bedroom, where I promptly passed out.

I woke up ten hours later, my body aching and sore and already in the throes of some heavy withdrawal, and Aubrey wasn’t beside me. She was gone again, though this time she had left a note. I picked up a piece of paper from the pillow beside me and squinted in the late-afternoon light that filtered through my window. I scanned the contents, trying to make sense of it.

Aubrey had gone back to her place. She wasn’t coming back tonight. She’d see me during the week.

Shit. I had really messed up.

I knew she was upset with me. And in the harsh light of sobriety, my body trembling, my stomach ready to heave, I just couldn’t handle it. I needed her. I needed my girl, who made it all better.

Without a thought about what I was doing, I picked up the phone and called her. She answered right before it went to voice mail, as though she had been debating whether or not to pick up.

“Please come back,” I cried, my voice breaking on a sob. I didn’t allow her to say anything. I just cried into the phone, pleading with her to come back to me. I needed her so fucking badly. I ached. I hurt. I wanted more pills. But for the first time I was pretty sure that I wanted her more.

“I can’t, Maxx,” she said regretfully.

I wouldn’t accept that. “Aubrey, please! I want to hold you. I just need to be with you right now. I’ll come there if I have to,” I said desperately. I would do whatever she wanted so long as I could touch her. Just touch her. I craved it.

Aubrey sighed, and I knew I had her. “I’ll be there in a few minutes,” she finally said, giving me exactly what I needed.

She arrived at my apartment fifteen minutes later, looking like the answer to all of my prayers, if I was a praying sort of guy. I pulled her to the couch and buried myself in her. And she gave herself to me just as she always did.

I was in too much emotional chaos to feel that there was a distance that hadn’t been there before, that she was pulling away from me.

I was too thankful to have her naked body beneath me, her mouth on mine. I ignored everything else.

It wasn’t until after we were finished, and she was making her excuses to leave, that I realized what was missing.

Her.

I had had her body for a time, but I didn’t have her heart. And that made me wild.

Later that evening, after I had taken a few pills to even myself out and was feeling more in control, I decided to confront her. Aubrey had just walked into my apartment, and I watched as she dropped her purse on the table and came over to the couch where I was sitting.

She gave me a smile that seemed disingenuous. She didn’t reach out to touch me like she normally did. She didn’t lean in to kiss me. She sat beside me, a careful distance between us. Her altered behavior distressed me.

“What’s going on with you, Aubrey? I feel like you’re purposefully holding back from me,” I said, trying not to sound as pathetic as I was feeling. I watched as a myriad of emotions flickered across her face. I grabbed her hand and lifted it to my lips, unable to hold myself back from touching her a moment longer.

She yanked her hand back, and I watched as anger settled over her features. She gave me her coldest stare. “Why should I give you everything when you give me nothing? When you’re willing to stop the crap you do, then maybe I can trust you with all of me.”

My mouth hung open in shock. Aubrey never talked to me like this. She never got angry and pissed. “What?” I asked as she got to her feet. It was then that I saw the tears in her eyes, and I was at a loss.

She leaned down and kissed my lips. “I care about you so much, Maxx,” she said, making my heart clench violently in my chest.

She never said I love you. I had given her my heart, so why couldn’t she give me hers? Why couldn’t she tell me what I needed to hear? That she loved me? I felt alone in this torment of feeling. Her silence, her refusal to say those three little words, made me insecure. It made me doubt her.

It made me doubt us.

“Don’t leave me,” I begged. “I love you!” I was fighting dirty. I knew I was using those words as my weapon. But I didn’t care. I’d use anything I could to make her stay. I needed her, now more than ever.

I started to cry. Ugly tears slid down my cheeks, and I watched as Aubrey’s face softened. Maybe the tears would do it. Maybe they would make her stay. She wiped the wetness from my face, then turned her back on me. I sobbed more loudly as she picked up her purse from the table and opened the door.

She didn’t turn to look at me. She refused to look at the tears, which were entirely her fault. “Get yourself together. Please.” And then she left.

She abandoned me to my misery.

I couldn’t sleep. I had taken a few pills earlier and knew it was only a matter of time until they wore off.

I had tried calling Aubrey a dozen times since she had left me earlier in the evening, and she never picked up.

I was becoming desperate.

I was losing it.

I was losing her.

I was in a bad place. I couldn’t see my way through.

Not able to toss and turn any longer, I threw on some clothes, laced up my boots, and grabbed my art supplies, throwing them in a large canvas sack.

I got in my car and started driving.

Given where my head was at, was it any surprise that I found myself outside Aubrey’s apartment building at three o’clock in the morning?

Her street was empty. The air was cold and quiet. My breath puffed out from my mouth like fog.

The drugs should have made me mellow and relaxed. But things with Aubrey were making me anxious and restless.

I needed to get it out somehow.

I positioned the pots of paint on the sidewalk and grabbed my biggest brush. I popped open the top of the blue paint with a flat-head screwdriver and dipped my brush. Paint coated my freezing fingers as I swept the bristles in long, even strokes along the pavement.

I was frenzied while I worked. Focused. Manic.

I don’t know how long I was out there. I didn’t care that I could be discovered.

I just needed to paint.

I needed her to know what I was feeling.

How much I loved her.

How much she was breaking me.

When I was through, I dropped the brush and stood back, looking down.

Why couldn’t I for once paint something that wasn’t fucked-up?

I sagged to my knees in front of the portrait of my despair.

I had painted the broken shards of my face. My mouth was open and screaming. It was obvious it was me in the shattered glass.

And then there was Aubrey, with her long blond hair, sweeping me into a heap of dust, gathering my pieces as she prepared to dump them in the trash.

This was Maxx.

And this was X.

This was both of us, bled out on the sidewalk for Aubrey to see.

Maybe she would finally know how much I wanted to give her all of me. Even as I fought it, the desire was still there. I didn’t want her to throw me away. I needed her to not give up on me.

And maybe one day I’d be able to give her everything she wanted.

I had fallen asleep quickly after I had gotten home from my late-night painting excursion. I woke up a few hours later sick and achy, but with a clearer head than I had had for some time.

Aubrey had been right. I was fucking up everything. The club, Gash, the drugs, they were taking over. There was little room left for anything else. Let alone Aubrey.

But I couldn’t let her go. The pills. The high. They felt too good. I had become too attached. How could I say good-bye to the one thing that kept me sane?

But I hated my need for it. I hated that when things got rough, that’s what I turned to. I looked into Aubrey’s eyes, and I saw myself as she did, a sad, pathetic excuse for a person.

But I couldn’t give her up. My habit was my truest love. The one I couldn’t live without.

Could I give up Aubrey?

No.

My obsessive painting last night should prove that.

I was in a bind. I couldn’t do without either of the things vying for my love, my attention, my soul.

Yet my relationship with Aubrey wasn’t the only thing falling apart.

I was spiraling. Worse than ever. I was losing the control I thought I was holding on to so tightly. My probation officer was breathing down my neck. It was costing me an arm and a leg to keep stocked with the herbal supplements I needed to fool the piss tests I was required to take every week.

That afternoon I was called into my academic adviser’s office. Dr. Ramsey was a stuffy dude who had the bulbous red nose of an alcoholic. I had a good idea of exactly what he kept stashed in that locked drawer in his desk.

He sat me down and looked at me over the rim of his glasses. “You’re failing everything, Maxx,” he said in his nasally drone.

I knew I hadn’t been doing that great, but I hadn’t thought I was actually failing.

“Well, shit,” I said, tapping my foot on the floor, already feeling antsy and agitated. I needed to get home. The pills I had taken before I had come to campus were already wearing off. I tried not to think about how it was starting to take more and more drugs to keep me on an even keel.

“That’s one way of putting it,” Dr. Ramsey said mildly, his brows furrowed in disapproval.

I knew he hated me. Just like I hated him. It was a match made in hell.

I took in the diplomas and certificates hanging on the wall. It was obvious Dr. Ramsey liked to show off, probably because he didn’t have anything else going for him but his modicum of success. Guys like him bugged the crap out of me.

Dr. Ramsey crossed his hands on top of his desk and pursed his lips. “Maxx, are you aware that you will need to get an A on every single exam in order to pass with a D?” he asked in that condescending way of his that deserved a punch to the throat.

“Well, I am now,” I told him dryly.

“And is that okay with you? To end up on academic probation with no chance of graduating? You’ll be lucky to still have a place at Longwood after this semester,” Dr. Ramsey remarked, curling his lip in disdain.

I was up to my eyeballs in disappointment. I sure as shit didn’t need it from snot for brains with too many diplomas and no dick in his pants. I got to my feet, shoving my hands into my pockets.

“I hear ya, loud and clear, Dr. Ramsey. Thanks for the pep talk,” I sneered, slamming out of his office without waiting for a comeback.

I left Dr. Ramsey’s office fuming. Sure, I hadn’t been as focused on school this past semester as I should have been. The club was taking up a lot of my time.

My failing grades had absolutely nothing to do with the tiny white pills that I was already obsessing about, the drugs that I couldn’t wait to get home to.

I was in complete denial that I was about to lose everything.

As if my day didn’t suck enough, my phone rang as I walked in the door of my apartment. I answered it, hearing my brother’s enthusiastic voice on the other end.

“I’m applying to an art school in Philadelphia,” Landon said excitedly. I barely heard him. I was searching through my drawer for the baggie I had put there the other night. Finally finding it, I shook out the pills I wanted.

Before I could take them, I registered what my brother had just said.

“You’re what?” I asked, knowing that I should be more supportive, that I should be excited for him. But all I heard was the sound of more money. More money I would need in order to take care of him.

The noose around my neck tightened.

“Uh, yeah. My guidance counselor says I have a good shot at getting in. She wrote me a letter of recommendation. My SAT and ACT scores are really good, Maxx,” Landon rambled on.

“How much does the school cost?” I asked, bursting Landon’s bubble.

Landon was quiet for a while before answering. “I can get scholarships, Maxx. I can get a job. I’ll make it work. You don’t have to help me,” he said, with more defensiveness than I had ever heard from him.

“You know I’ll always help you out, Landon. I just wanted to know,” I explained, and it was true. Even if it meant selling my fucking kidneys on eBay, Landon would go to school. Even if I had to drop out myself and become the biggest drug dealer on the East Coast, my baby brother would have his future.

“I don’t want you to think you have to do anything, Maxx. I know you have it in your head that you need to take care of me. But I’m almost an adult. I’m not helpless. I can do this stuff on my own, you know,” he told me firmly.

I never gave my brother enough credit for the man he was becoming. He was a fighter. He was a survivor. Just like me.

“Just let me worry about paying for it. You worry about getting your ass accepted,” I said lightly, not admitting to the full-out panic the idea created.

Then we ended our conversation and I swallowed the pills.

And when I felt mellow enough to handle what needed to be done, I did the only thing I could think to do.

I called Gash.

“I’m glad you called, X,” Gash said, sitting in his spot behind his desk.

I propped my ankle over my knee and leaned back in the chair as though I didn’t have a care in the world. Too bad I had way too much to care about. My life was one big, never-ending pile of fucking worry.

“I told you a few weeks back that I was expecting a shipment from Mexico. It just came in. This is grade-A shit, X. We’re going to make a killing.” Gash pulled three freezer bags out of his drawer and dropped them on his desk.

I picked one up and opened it, finding it filled with smaller baggies containing a fine, whitish-brown powder.

I looked up at my boss. “What is it?” I asked, sounding stupid. I knew what it was, I just wanted the confirmation.

Gash grinned. “Some of the best Black Pearl I have ever seen.”

Shit, Gash was peddling heroin now.

Okay, so I was being a massive hypocrite, but I had my standards. Selling pills was one thing, but slinging fucking heroin was something else entirely. If I made that leap, I wasn’t sure I could ever forgive myself.

There was something about the way heroin was taken. Snorted or injected. Needles gave me the heebie-jeebies, and snorting anything up your nose seemed like plain old stupid.

“I don’t know, man,” I said slowly, trying to think of an excuse so I wouldn’t have to sell that stuff.

Gash frowned, obviously not liking my less-than-enthusiastic response.

“Do you understand how much money this could make me? Could make you? Are you a fucking moron?” he asked incredulously, looking at me as though I had been offered the Holy Grail and was turning it down.

“It’s heroin, Gash. That shit is a bit too hard-core for me,” I said lamely, knowing that I sounded like a complete pussy.

Gash leaned back in his chair and let out a loud laugh. He gripped his beer belly as though he feared splitting his gut. “Are you kidding me? A drug dealer with a conscience? Give me a break!” he wheezed between guffaws.

Fuck him!

I got to my feet. “Look, I’m not going to sell that shit. Find someone else,” I said, heading to the door.

“I’d rethink that if I were you,” Gash called out before I could leave.

I froze. His words were a threat.

“I know what you and Marco have been doing. You think I wouldn’t notice the door coming up short almost every single weekend? I’ve been in this game longer than you’ve been alive, X.”

I closed the door and sat back down. This asshole had me exactly where he wanted me.

“And I know you’ve got some sticky fingers when it comes to my drugs. But you’ve made the money, so I haven’t begrudged you your fix. As long as it doesn’t impact my business, I don’t have a problem. But don’t confuse my silence with ignorance. You have your uses, X. Just as Marco does. And you’re going to sell my shit. And you’re going to sell all of it.” Gash wasn’t open to an argument. He wouldn’t take no for an answer.

I was stuck.

I needed the money.

I needed my drugs.

I needed each of those things more than I needed my self-respect.

And Gash was the one pulling all my strings.

I picked up the freezer bags and put them in my book bag.

“How long do I have?” I asked, my acquiescence making Gash very pleased with himself.

“Two weeks. Not a day more. You get ten percent like always. Make it work, X,” he said, dismissing me.

I left his office, pounds of illegal drugs in my bag—and my soul up for grabs to the highest bidder.

“Please come over,” I found myself begging again. It had been days since I had seen Aubrey. She was making herself scarce. It was killing me.

The heroin sat like a lump of stone in my bedroom closet. The pills were quickly becoming not enough. The temptation to try just a little was getting harder and harder to ignore.

I needed Aubrey.

“I can’t, Maxx. I have a lot of work to do,” she said, making her millionth excuse of the week.

“Did you see the picture? The one I did outside your building?” I asked her. She hadn’t mentioned it. It drove me crazy that she hadn’t said a thing about my soul splattered in paint on her doorstep. I had really thought she’d get it. That she’d understand.

But it was like she didn’t give a fuck.

I heard her take a deep breath. “Yes, I saw it,” she said softly.

“Did you like it?” I needled, trying to get a reaction from her. Anything. I just needed something.

“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.”