Follow Me Back

by A. Meredith Walters

  Why had I come here?

  Why would I do this to myself?

  How could I ever make myself leave again?

  I felt along the wall until I found the light switch and turned it on. Light flooded the small, cramped apartment and I put a fist to my mouth to stifle the sob that crept up my throat.

  He wasn’t there. And by the looks of it, he hadn’t been there in a long time. Nothing had been touched in quite a while. The space felt empty, devoid of life. Like listening to the echo of the person who used to inhabit it. The wave of overwhelming disappointment almost brought me to my knees.

  But honestly . . . what had I expected? What had I hoped to gain by unceremoniously walking into his apartment only weeks after telling him good-bye?

  Maxx’s T-shirt was strewn across the back of the tattered couch. A Styrofoam cup sat on the coffee table. A plate with a half-eaten sandwich covered in something fuzzy sat beside it.

  The air was ripe with the smell of rotten food. I slowly walked through the rooms, turning on lights as I went.

  My heart tripped over in my chest as a realization hit me. If Maxx wasn’t here, then where was he?

  Maybe he was visiting his brother. Or staying with friends.

  Yeah, and maybe he ran away and joined the circus.

  Each scenario seemed equally unlikely. Images of Jayme as she had looked when I was called in to identify her body flashed through my mind, and I almost crumpled into a heap.

  If something had happened to him, I would know, right? Landon, Maxx’s younger brother, would have contacted me. I frantically thought of every reasonable explanation for his absence and tried to calm down. I couldn’t allow myself to imagine the worst. I’d lose what was left of my good sense and run off trying to find him.

  Because my life wasn’t about Maxx anymore. It couldn’t be.

  And yet . . . I couldn’t bring myself to leave. I walked down the hallway and pushed open the closed door in front of me. Light from the street filtered in through the window. This room didn’t smell of rancid garbage or stale air. It smelled like him.

  Like Maxx.

  I didn’t turn on the light. I walked carefully over piles of clothes until I reached the bed. I slowly sat down and let my hands fall between my knees. It was crazy that despite everything, despite all this man had put me through, his home, his space, felt so right.

  Almost against my will, I picked up his pillow and buried my face in it, inhaling deeply. His scent clung to the fabric. Behind closed eyelids I saw Maxx’s desperate face, blue eyes pleading, blond curls in wild disarray from my fingers. I remembered words fraught and needy.

  And I want you, Aubrey. All of you. Every tiny, perfect part. I want you to belong to me, only to me, so that you’ll never leave. Please don’t leave.

  But I had left.

  I threw the pillow back onto the bed and abruptly got to my feet. I stomped back out to the kitchen and opened the cabinet beneath his sink. I was glad to see several bottles of generic cleaner. I grabbed the paper towels and pulled the trash can over from its spot by the wall.

  I started scooping the trash off the counter and into the bin. I began to spray down the counters and scrub them clean. I found a broom and systematically swept the remains of food and garbage from the floor.

  When I was done, I began to attack the piles of dirty dishes, washing and drying them, then putting them away. I wouldn’t allow my mind to ask the questions about where he was and what he was doing. I couldn’t let myself consider how much not knowing bothered me.

  I just kept cleaning.

  After half an hour the kitchen was spotless, but I wasn’t finished. I moved on to the living room, gathering up dirty clothes and putting them into the hamper. Maxx didn’t have a vacuum cleaner, so I made do with the broom.

  I straightened the couch cushions and wiped down the coffee table, trying not to gag as I disposed of the moldy food. I wasn’t entirely sure why I was doing it. Cleaning had always had a calming effect on me. It was the best way I knew to find some control in a world that had lost all sense of order.

  And maybe there was a part of me that wanted to make this space clean and safe again. That maybe by scrubbing the dishes and washing his clothes, I could get rid of the remnants of the chaos that had defined both of our lives. That putting things in order would allow me to rid myself of the ghosts of this recent past. Erasing and removing the hurt and persistent longing.

  And maybe if and when Maxx came home to his pretty, clean apartment, he’d be able to turn his life around.

  Stop thinking about what-ifs, Aubrey! It doesn’t matter! I chastised myself.

  With an armful of cleaning products I went back to his bedroom. Turning on the light, I could only stand there and look around as I was assaulted by a thousand memories that threatened to gut me all over again.

  The nightstand was overturned; empty bottles were strewn across the room. I could see Maxx, in my head, searching desperately for his drugs. And then when he couldn’t find them, turning to the stuff that had almost killed him.

  He had nearly died from a heroin overdose. I never realized he was messing with hard-core stuff. The pills had been bad enough, but shooting dope into your veins was something else entirely. How hypocritical it was of me to turn the other way when it came to him swallowing a few prescription meds but drawing the line when it came to a syringe full of smack.

  The guilt flooded me with the excruciating memory of our last conversation. Of Maxx’s anxious pleas for me to stay. And how I had denied him the one thing he wanted so much.

  I started carefully gathering the empty prescription bottles and tossing them into the garbage bag I had brought with me. There were at least thirty littering the floor. Thirty dirty little reminders of how deep into his addiction Maxx had been.

  The cold plastic bottles practically burned my fingers as I picked them up. They disgusted me. Maxx disgusted me.

  I disgusted me.

  I turned my attention to the clothes that lay in piles everywhere. Some I put into the hamper to be washed. Others that appeared to be clean I put back in neat, tidy piles in his drawers. I straightened the clothes, my hands digging among the socks and shirts. My fingers brushed against a cool smoothness.

  Knowing what I had found, I pulled out the crumpled photograph of Maxx with his family. Looking at the innocent smile on his boyish face hurt too much to bear. I quickly shoved it back into its hiding spot, unable to deal with the sight of a family that had been torn apart and the boy who would grow up to be a man hell-bent on destroying himself.

  When I was finished with the clothes, I finally made my way to the bed. The disheveled sheets looked as though Maxx had just gotten out of them. With shaking hands I started to pull up the covers and line up the pillows.

  Images flashed in front of my eyes. Memories of being tangled in these sheets, Maxx wrapped around me. Whispered words of love against sweaty skin.

  I’ve been waiting my entire life for you. Maxx’s words had enfolded my heart and squeezed mercilessly. I had become addicted to those moments of sincerity and vulnerability that, to me, seemed to reveal the real man beneath the mask.

  I blinked, clearing my head before another memory assaulted me.

  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 . . . I laid my ear against his chest, listening to the strained beats. My tears soaked his shirt as I watched his chest stop moving and the beat of his heart fall into silence.

  Then I lost it.

  I fucking lost it.

  I collapsed into a heap onto his bed, curling into a fetal position as I hugged his pillow tight to my chest.

  When would it ever stop hurting so much?

  Love was ruthless.

  Love was pitiless.

  Love was cruel.

  Love fucking sucked.

  Finally, when I had no more tears left, my body started t
o unclench, and I found that after the violence of my despair I could be soothed into relaxation. Because no matter the anguish Maxx had unleashed on my world, I felt the strongest sense of peace in his space, with his scent around me.

  And there in the bed of the man I had loved and lost, I fell into an exhausted sleep.

  chapter

  three

  maxx

  there was a five-inch crack in the plaster above my head.

  If I stared at it long enough, it seemed to grow and move right before my eyes.

  I blinked and it stopped. Then it would start all over again.

  Right now, that fucking crack was the most interesting thing in my life.

  What a depressing realization.

  “It’s time for group, Maxx.”

  I didn’t bother to look toward the voice coming from the doorway. The air was stale with the smell of sweat and too much Axe cologne. My roommate, Dominic, an obese pothead, seemed to think that dousing himself in that shit replaced the necessity of a shower.

  It was day eighteen at Barton House, a state-run rehab facility that had, for a brief period, seemed like the ticket to starting over.

  I was now starting to rethink everything.

  It had been easy to make the decision to come here. In the beginning I had been coming off the worst withdrawals of my life. I was still reeling from the fact that I had almost died and that all the people I loved had left me.

  I had been alone.

  Completely and totally alone.

  I had not been in a good place.

  So I came here thinking this was my new lease on life. This was my opportunity to show everyone that I didn’t want to end up another scary statistic in a brochure about addictions.

  I would beat this shit before it beat me.

  But then the days started to drift into each other, and once the initial desperation had worn off, I was left with the second-guessing.

  Because the physical withdrawal was long gone. The seventy-two hours in the detox unit had taken care of that.

  Now I was left with all the urges that came after my body had returned to stasis. The ones that were entirely in my head. The ones that made it really hard to stay.

  Because the longer I stayed here, playing the part of the recovering addict, the harder it would be to face what waited for me out there.

  The things that I missed so damn much.

  Aubrey.

  Landon.

  The club.

  The fucking drugs.

  Always, always the drugs.

  “Maxx. Seriously. Come on.”

  I let out an overly dramatic breath, feeling more than a little irritated. I swung my legs off the bed and slowly sat up. I refused to look at Pete, the rehabilitation assistant. I ran my hands through the hair that hung in my eyes. I needed a haircut. But there was no way I was getting ahold of a pair of scissors in this place. Too tempting to slice a vein or two, I guess.

  Nope, can’t let the recovering addict have access to pointy things.

  “Getting depressed is normal . . .” Pete started to say.

  Jesus Christ, kill me now!

  I wasn’t entirely sure what Pete’s job was at the clinic. He wasn’t a counselor. He didn’t lead any support groups. He just walked around trying to talk to the patients about their feelings. He was overly self-righteous, seemed to think he had the inside track on everyone’s addiction. It was more than obvious he was floundering through his dead-end job. And no matter how many token buzzwords he used, he sounded like someone trying way too hard.

  I stared at him, eyeballing him through narrowed slits. He wasn’t much older than me, but his thinning hair and sad comb-over made him look middle-aged. He suffered from a clear case of bad genetics, poor bastard. I watched Pete swallow audibly and take a noticeable step back into the hallway. I intimidated him. For a brief second, I got a sick sense of satisfaction from that. Then I felt slightly guilty for enjoying his discomfort.

  The old Maxx would have loved his reaction. I would have used his clear intimidation to my advantage. But this Maxx didn’t do those things. And honestly, I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. I didn’t know how to be without the drugs in my system. I had to learn how to be this stranger taking up residence in my own skin. I had to develop a personality separate from the drugs. And I wasn’t exactly sure how to do that when so much of who I was had been wrapped up in a scene I was forcing myself to leave behind.

  “I’m not depressed. I’m bored,” I told him. I got to my feet and followed Pete out into the hallway.

  I had checked myself into rehab convinced I was making the right choice. Hell, it was probably the only choice I had. When I got out of the hospital, I had been coming off the aftereffects of a crash course in detox. My body had been weak and my mind even weaker. I had felt horrible, both physically and mentally. I couldn’t remember a time I had ever been so low. But all I could think about was making things right again.

  Because Aubrey had left me. Smashed my fucking heart and walked away without looking back. I both hated and loved her for that.

  I was miserable without her, but it was also the swift kick I had needed to make some serious changes. For the first time in my life I had wanted something more than the drugs. I still wanted that rush. I was scared I always would. But more than anything else, I just wanted her back.

  So I had been convinced that I could change. That I could be a better person. That I’d clean up my act here at Barton House, then get out and sweep Aubrey Duncan off her too-good-for-me feet.

  But the initial sense of desperation to get my life in order that had gotten me through my first week here was fading fast as the reality of this depressing, hopeless place started sinking in.

  The lure of my old life was poking me in the subconscious. Reminding me that it was still there, waiting for me. And the longer I stayed locked behind these walls, the more I wavered between wanting to do things right and wanting to get back to the life I used to have. The one where I didn’t feel so small and helpless.

  The one where I felt in control.

  Because here I was most definitely not in control.

  Every second of every day was monitored and accounted for. I couldn’t take a piss without someone knowing where I was and what I was doing. And losing control, my autonomy, on top of everything else was proving almost too much to handle.

  But when I thought back to what rock bottom had looked like, I did my best to push aside my inner grumblings and go to group. Sit through therapy and vow that I would never allow myself to be that person again.

  But every day was a new battle between the old Maxx and the new one. And I never knew which one would win.

  “Is your brother coming this weekend?” Pete was asking, though I barely heard him.

  “Huh?” I asked as we walked down the hall toward the conservatory where the support group was held.

  “Is your brother coming up for visiting hours this weekend? It would be a great opportunity to utilize family counseling. That’s a huge part of the program. It could be a great step for both of you.”

  My hands clenched into fists, and I had to work hard to control my reaction to the innocent question.

  My feelings about my little brother were all messed up. Guilt and shame and anger. It was a festering cesspool of twisted, dark stuff inside of me.

  The memory of Landon’s visit to the hospital, looking at me with absolute disgust while I lay in that bed, was still heavy on my mind, every day.

  I had tried to talk to Landon, but he wouldn’t hear me. And after a few minutes of uncomfortable silence he had turned and left.

  Finally, he sees you for the worthless shit you really are. He’ll hate you forever, Maxx. And you fucking deserve it, my uncle David had sneered before following my brother out of the room.

  That had been the last time I had seen Landon. I had attempted to call him several times over the last few weeks but was put through to his voice mail every time. I knew it was
completely intentional.

  My brother was avoiding me. Not that I blamed him. I had disappointed him. Shattered the illusion he had held of his competent and capable older brother. I stopped being the guy he could count on, and I only became the failure. Knowing how he felt about me, the real me, was my biggest shame.

  I had never intended for him to know the truth about me. He had been my responsibility since the death of our parents. I hadn’t wanted him exposed in any way to the ugly reality I lived in. But now he had been. And because of that, he wanted nothing to do with me.

  “No, he’s not coming,” I said shortly, grinding the words out like glass in my mouth. I was done talking about him.

  “Why not? It would be an excellent opportunity—”

  I cut Pete off with an angry grunt. “He’s not coming, all right?”

  Pete was clearly flustered by my response. I shrugged, unapologetic, and left him rambling about taking advantage of services or some shit. I shouldn’t have snapped at Pete. He was just doing his job, whatever that may be. But I couldn’t talk with him, or anyone, about Landon. I entered the conservatory and found a spot in the circle of chairs.

  This support group was the same as the last one I had attended on the LU campus in a lot of ways. Same topics, same overly emotional talking points. Same mundane activities meant to make us “think.” But it was the one significant difference that made sitting here day after day extremely difficult.

  I love you so much, Maxx. I do. And that’s why I can’t watch you kill yourself. I won’t.

  It had been weeks since I had spoken to Aubrey, but the decimation remained. And I couldn’t think about Aubrey without thinking of other things. Gash. Marco. The club. The world I had lived in that was as much of an obsession as Aubrey could ever be.

  And of course that made me think about the drugs. Which wasn’t surprising. I always thought about the drugs. The way they tasted on my tongue. The burn in my throat. Those horrible yet blissful moments while I waited for them to take over. The thrill as they wasted me away.

  If losing Aubrey had almost destroyed me, then losing my drugs damn near ripped me apart. Not having that part of my life anymore had taken away the person I had spent years becoming. Without the drugs, without the club, who the fuck was I?