Follow Me Back

by A. Meredith Walters

  “Aubrey, I know things have been hard since Jayme died—” my mother began.

  “That’s a bit of an understatement, don’t you think?” I threw back at them, not able to keep the vicious spite out of my voice.

  My mom bit down on her bottom lip and closed her eyes.

  “What your mom is trying to say is we’ve been unfair to you. We haven’t been the parents that you needed us to be. It’s inexcusable and wrong. After Jayme died, we shut down, and in the process we lost not one but both of our daughters,” my dad said, leaning forward.

  My eyes began to burn with unshed tears. How long had I thought about them with only resentment and bitterness at emotionally abandoning me when I needed them most?

  “You hurt me, badly,” I whispered, staring down at my hands.

  I startled at my mother’s hand touching mine. “We know. We were in so much pain, and it was easier to blame you than to accept our own culpability in what happened to Jayme.” I felt the first tears escape down my cheek, and I hurriedly wiped them away.

  “But you weren’t wrong. I should have told you what was going on with Jayme. I should have done more to save her.” My voice was broken, and I could barely hear myself over the thudding of my heart.

  My dad came to sit beside me, and my mother gripped my hand tightly between hers.

  “That’s where we failed you, Aubrey. Because you were a child, too. We should never have put that sort of responsibility on you,” my father said firmly.

  “But—” I began, but my mother cut me off.

  “No! We were the parents. Not you. We should have seen what was going on with our daughter. That was our responsibility. And it was our guilt and shame that made it impossible for us to see how we were treating the only child we had left. I’m sorry, Aubrey.”

  I let out a choked sob and couldn’t hold back the tears any longer.

  “Why now? Where did this sudden realization come from?” I demanded, feeling my tears mix with years of anger.

  “We were in the kitchen drinking our coffee one Saturday morning and made the decision to go through Jayme’s things. Neither one of us had been able to do it in all the years since she had been gone. But something clicked that Saturday, and we grabbed a few bags and went up to her room,” my dad stated.

  “Going through her things brought up the hurt and pain all over again. And as we cried and laughed with each new discovery of who our daughter had been, we realized that we weren’t just missing Jayme, we were missing you, too,” my dad finished softly.

  “Then we heard from your school about your suspension from the counseling program, and we knew that all of it was our fault. That we hadn’t been the parents we should have been. That we allowed you to go off to school only months after losing your sister, alone in your grief. We should have helped you, but we didn’t, and we will never be able to forgive ourselves.” My mom’s words were punctuated with her muffled sobs, and we cried together. My mother and me. And our mutual tears began to heal the brokenness inside of me.

  Tentatively, my mother wrapped her arm around me, and I let her hug me, unable to hold on to the anger I had felt for so long. I needed this. I needed to feel the love that only my parents had ever been able to give me.

  I had been defined by my grief and regret for years. They had weighed me down and pulled me under. It was time to let some of that go.

  My dad’s arms came up to encircle both my mother and me, and I felt warm from the inside out.

  They held me for a long time, my mother and me continuing to cry and my dad holding us both.

  chapter

  twenty-nine

  aubrey

  i felt right.

  Perfect, even.

  I had made peace with my parents. It was only the first step, but it was an important one. We still had a lot of baggage, but I felt we were finally putting the painful past behind us.

  My mother wanted to know about my apartment and my friends. My dad asked about my classes and what the food was like at the commons. I was a junior in college and it was the first time my parents had asked about any of this. But at least they were asking now.

  But then they wanted to know about the details of my suspension.

  “The letter didn’t go into specifics. Only that you were found guilty of an ethical violation,” my mother stated, her brows furrowed in confusion.

  “What does that even mean?” my father asked.

  I sighed, wishing I didn’t have to go into this right now when we were starting the process of mending our relationship.

  “I was facilitating a support group on campus to work toward my volunteer hours. I became . . . involved . . . with a member of the group,” I admitted, figuring it was best to be up front rather than drag it out.

  “Involved?” my mother questioned.

  “Yes. As in we were together. He was my boyfriend.”

  My parents digested that piece of information. I looked at them and waited for their attack. They looked concerned. Upset. But not appalled.

  “Is this person still in the picture? What about Maxx? I thought he was your boyfriend?” my father asked, confused.

  I took a deep breath. “Maxx is the guy, Dad.”

  My parents recoiled a bit in shock.

  “You’re still involved with him? What about the counseling program? What about your future?” my mother asked, seeming horrified.

  “Maxx is my future, Mom. And as for the counseling program, I’m . . . I’m not sure that’s where I belong anyway.”

  Just then, at the worst possible moment, the front door opened, and Maxx came in with a shopping bag.

  He lifted his hand in a wave, recognizing the strange tension in the room. My mother gave him a tight smile, but my dad called him into the room.

  Maxx gave me a questioning look.

  “We were talking about my suspension,” I filled in, and Maxx tried to cover his look of panic.

  “Oh,” he replied shortly.

  “Please have a seat, young man,” my father said, and I found that I had missed his overprotectiveness. Because I could see as clear as day he was about to go papa bear on poor Maxx.

  “Our daughter was just filling us in about your history. And we have to say, we’re very concerned. Are you aware what Aubrey is putting on the line by continuing your relationship?” Mom asked.

  Maxx squared his shoulders and faced my parents. “I know that Aubrey is an amazing woman that I love with my whole heart. And while I know to most people our relationship doesn’t make any sense, to us, it does. I’m a better man because of your daughter, and I have to believe that if she is willing to take the risk by being with me, then I have to do everything I can to be worth it.”

  God, I loved him.

  There wasn’t much more to say after that, and my parents had reluctantly dropped the subject.

  The next day, after breakfast with my parents, I had decided to give Maxx a tour of Marshall Creek. He had seemed more than ready to get out of my parents’ house for a few hours.

  “I don’t think I’ve seen you smile so much . . . ever,” Maxx commented after I had shown him my high school and the church where Jayme and I had been baptized.

  “I don’t think I’ve smiled this much since I was seventeen,” I admitted, turning in to the small parking lot of a tiny diner in the center of town. Maxx held the door open for me as I walked into Sunset Café, a Marshall Creek staple that had been slinging burgers and fries since the fifties.

  After we grabbed a table, I looked up automatically at the chime of the bell above the door and noticed a tall, thin young man with dark hair to his shoulders walking in. He moved with a swagger that indicated total self-confidence.

  He hadn’t changed.

  Not in three years.

  I hated him for it.

  Because Blake Fields deserved to have the weight of his actions destroy his life the way they had destroyed my sister’s.

  But there he was, looking healthy and alive.
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br />   God, I fucking loathed him.

  “Aubrey,” Maxx was saying, but I barely heard him.

  All I could do was watch the person who was responsible for the death of my sister turn to a girl who had followed him into the diner and put his arm around her, pulling her close.

  He smiled down at her, and she reached up on her tiptoes to kiss his mouth. He smoothed the hair back from her forehead and smiled down at her in a way I had never seen him smile at Jayme.

  “Aubrey!” Maxx said again, but I ignored him.

  Before I realized what I was doing, I was on my feet and moving toward the front of the diner. Blake and his girlfriend were looking around, obviously trying to find a place to sit. Neither saw me approach. It wasn’t until I stopped in front of him that Blake bothered to look at me at all.

  I saw his puzzled frown and knew he was trying to place me. I could see that I was familiar to him, but he couldn’t figure out how he knew me.

  “Uh . . . hey?” he said, posing his statement more as a question. His girlfriend looked at me, then at Blake, seeming confused.

  I swallowed, feeling suddenly nauseous.

  I wanted to punch him in his smug face. I wanted to rip the hair from his head. I wanted to break every bone in his pathetic body and leave him to die in a dirty alley just as he had left my sister.

  I thought of a million ways to kill the man who stood before me. A million horrific, painful ways to inflict on him the same torture he had unwittingly inflicted on my family by simply being the person he was.

  A manipulative, cowardly drug dealer.

  I still hadn’t moved. I blocked their way into the diner. I opened my mouth to scream. To yell. To hurl insults and threats into his face.

  Blake cocked his head to the side, looking more and more confused.

  He was alive.

  My sister was dead.

  And there was no changing that.

  “I’m Aubrey Duncan,” I said, my voice soft and crushed. Blake frowned, uncertain, still not able to figure out who I was.

  I felt Maxx come up behind me and put his hand on my arm. “Who is this?” he whispered in my ear, but I shook him off.

  Blake’s girlfriend gripped his arm and looked up at him. “What’s going on, Blake?” she asked, seeming irritated.

  Blake’s frown deepened. “Am I supposed to know you?”

  “I’m Jayme’s sister,” I said, choking on the words as they passed my lips.

  My statement hit Blake with the force of a punch to the jaw. He flinched, his face paling. He took a step backward, away from me.

  I stared at him, wanting to say so much more. I wanted to tell him how I blamed his thoughtless actions for the destruction of my family. I wanted to remind him of his selfishness that had killed the person I had loved.

  But seeing the look on Blake’s face, I didn’t need to.

  “I’m sorry,” he let out in an agonized rush, his face crumpling.

  We stood there, Blake and me, two people irrevocably connected by the girl we had both lost.

  “Why did you leave her there?” I asked. Because that was what haunted me the most. The thought that this asshole had left my baby sister to die. Alone.

  Blake’s girlfriend tugged on his arm, trying to get his attention, but he was focused on me. I knew we were making a scene. I could feel people looking at us, but I didn’t care. I was vaguely aware of Maxx’s warm hand on my skin, but I couldn’t look away from this pathetic man in front of me.

  Blake moved forward a step, then stopped. He dropped his girlfriend’s hand, as though he didn’t remember she was still there. We were both stuck in a quagmire of heartache.

  “I didn’t know!” he implored, his hands becoming fists at his sides.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I demanded, not caring that my voice was rising and I was the center of attention.

  “Aubrey, this probably isn’t the place to do this,” Maxx said, curling his hand around my upper arm and trying to pull me back.

  I resisted and continued to stare at Blake, who had gone white.

  “We had gotten into a fight. She saw me—” Blake cast a quick look around. “I was doing some fucked-up shit that I shouldn’t have been doing. And she got upset. I tried to get her to leave with me but she refused.”

  “So you left her there! Alone with a bunch of druggies!” I accused, feeling my throat starting to constrict painfully.

  “I wasn’t thinking! I was stupid and fucked up and I just thought we’d talk about it in the morning and everything would be fine!” Blake’s eyes filled with tears, and I was shocked to see them drip down his face.

  “I didn’t know that would be the last time I saw her! I didn’t know that the last thing she’d ever say to me was that she hated me!” Blake’s voice cracked, and he ended on a sob.

  I was rendered completely speechless. I had often wondered about that last night of my sister’s life. I had hated and vilified the man standing in front of me for so long. But watching him wipe his tears, I could see that he, too, was broken. That even though there was a girl by his side, he still struggled with losing Jayme.

  Just as I did.

  “God, I’m so sorry! I know I should never have taken her there. That I should have made her leave with me! I wonder every day what would have happened if I had made a different choice that night.”

  “Well, she wouldn’t be six feet under the ground, would she?” I asked coldly.

  Blake made a choking sound and shook his head, his dark hair falling in his face.

  “I loved her, too. I loved her so much,” he half spoke, half cried, and suddenly it was too much.

  I could see, all too clearly, that Jayme’s death had destroyed something in him as well. Something he’d never get back, or ever recover from. Blake Fields, at the heart of everything, was just as messed up, just as damaged, as the rest of us.

  But he was still an asshole. He was still the guy who had manipulated and degraded my sister.

  Without saying another word, I pushed past Blake and ran out to the parking lot.

  I pulled my keys out of my pocket and got into my car. Maxx barely had time to get in before I was throwing the gearshift into reverse and driving blindly away.

  I felt the stickiness of tears drying on my face but did nothing to wipe them away. Images of my sister slammed into me like a freight train.

  My grief ripped into me, tearing me open. The desolation I had felt so acutely in those first few weeks after her passing flooded over me all over again. This is why I never came home. This is exactly what I had been afraid would happen. I wanted to shove the pain back down where it belonged. Tiny, compact, and out of the way. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I was in a mindless frenzy of grief.

  This was the problem with suppressing emotion. When you finally allowed yourself to feel again, you were ill equipped to handle the good and the bad. You were left unable to cope with the ebbs and flows. You shattered too easily.

  “Stop the car, Aubrey,” Maxx said firmly but softly.

  I kept driving crazily, not really seeing where I was going.

  “Aubrey, seriously, pull over.”

  I jerked the steering wheel to the right and threw the car into park, not paying attention to where I was.

  “It’s okay. It’s okay to let it go,” Maxx was saying, but it sounded like he was shouting from the end of a tunnel. My blood rushed in my ears, and I worried I might pass out.

  “I’ve hated him for so long. I’ve blamed him for what happened. He was a fucking drug dealer.” I barely acknowledged the way Maxx balked at my brutal assessment.

  “He got her hooked on drugs and then took her to that place where she died! I’ve never allowed myself to see him as anything other than a selfish bastard.” I took a deep breath and looked at Maxx, who seemed to be bracing himself for something.

  “And he’s all of those things. Each and every one of them. But . . . what’s the point of blaming him? It won’t b
ring Jayme back. And it doesn’t change the fact that Jayme made her own choices that night. Stupid, horrible choices that cost her her life. I can’t walk around with this hole in my heart.” I put my hand over my chest. “I hurt, Maxx. So much. Losing Jayme turned me into someone I didn’t recognize. It destroyed my family. My relationship with my parents.”

  Maxx cupped my cheek with his hand, his thumb stroking the curve of my face. “I’m tired of it. I’m tired of the pain. The resentment. The bitterness. I’m tired of hating Blake and keeping my parents at arm’s length.” I bowed my head. “I’m tired of being scared of you and this thing between us. I’m ready to be happy. To live life the way it’s meant to be lived.

  “I can admit that there was a part of you that reminded me of Blake. Even as I loved you, I hated that side of who you were. It disgusted me even as I was drawn to you.” I took a deep breath before continuing.

  “But Blake was just a screwed-up kid. You were screwed up. You made some shitty choices. You were selfish. You were self-centered. But you were broken, too. And it’s hard to resent someone who is as lost as I am.”

  And I felt it. That instant when the weight that had taken up residence in the center of my chest all those years ago actually started to lessen.

  For the first time, I felt . . . lighter.

  I looked up at the man I had gone to hell for. “I love you, Maxx. I went down this scary, dark path with you, and I thought you’d drown me.” I sniffled rather inelegantly, but I didn’t care.

  I kissed his mouth softly . . . gently. “I was terrified of everything you were. Everything that you did. But I couldn’t stay away from you. And then the worst happened, and I thought the best thing I could do was walk away and never look back.” Maxx’s eyes were reddened and wet, and I could feel the fine tremors in his hands as he held my face. He was silent, not saying anything, letting me say my piece.

  “But I was wrong. And I’ve never been so glad to be wrong in all my life. We belong together. Today. Tomorrow. Forever. Because you made it impossible for me to shut down. You reached down inside of me and yanked the heart I had almost forgotten I had to the surface, dripping and bleeding but still beating.” I closed my eyes, overcome with emotion. But when I opened my eyes again, I was smiling, tears staining my cheeks. “You’ve shown me what it means to truly live, Maxx.”