I stopped outside a closed door and knocked loudly and with purpose. I squared my shoulders and stood up straight. I was ready for this.

I had to be.

“Come in,” a voice called from the other side. I pushed open the door and walked into Stacey’s cramped office. It smelled like blueberry muffins and was filled with enough frilly shit that made me wonder whether she farted rainbows.

“Maxx. Come in, have a seat.” I did as I was told, choosing the only option available, a chair covered in bright orange upholstery. “I see that you’re all packed and ready to go,” she commented, indicating the duffel at my feet.

I kicked it with my shoe and nodded. “Yep. Just here to get the official sign-off and then I’m out of your hair.”

Stacey typed something on her computer, and then papers started coming out of the printer. She looked up at me as she waited for the last of the paperwork to finish. “You’re sure you’re not interested in the full ninety-day program? Thirty days, while a great start, isn’t nearly as effective as the more intensive in-patient treatment plan,” she said, giving me the same shit she had been forcing down my throat for the last week.

I knew that she and the other counselors at Barton House thought I was making a huge mistake by not staying on for the longer program. And there was that small part of me that agreed with them. The whispering in my ear that told me that I wasn’t ready. The self-doubt was almost crippling. But the truth was that the longer I stayed, the harder it would be for me to fix what I had messed up out there.

There was one thing I knew for sure, deep in my bones: I was going to take my newfound sobriety seriously.

“I’ll call on Monday and set up an intake at the clinic downtown. I’ll stick to the outpatient treatment plan,” I promised, taking the pile of paperwork Stacey handed me.

She nodded, handing me a pen. “That’s good to hear, Maxx, though you understand that coping with addiction triggers is much harder once you’re back in your own environment. You have to make sure you have strategies in place to deal with them. It’ll be tough. There will be days you will want to use. So it’s extremely important that you keep those numbers on that last sheet handy, if you ever feel like you’re about to turn to drugs.”

I flipped to the last page of the pile she had given me. There was a list of numbers, including the statewide hotline and a crisis number at the rehab facility. Christ, she acted as though my failing was inevitable. Which sort of pissed me off. Because there was that voice again telling me that it was inevitable.

I’ll be there waiting for you. You can’t stay away from me forever.

I clenched my fists and worked on breathing through the sudden paralyzing apprehension. Maybe I should stay. Maybe I couldn’t do this.

I can do this! For Aubrey. For Landon. For myself.

I folded the paper and tucked it into my pocket and finished scribbling my signature on the required forms. When I was done, I handed them back to Stacey with what I hoped was a confident smile. “Thanks for everything,” I said, picking up my bag and getting to my feet.

“Don’t be afraid to admit you can’t handle things, Maxx. You can’t control addiction. Addiction controls you. The second you forget that, you’ve lost,” she said ominously, and I felt myself bristle defensively. But I didn’t bite her head off. Because her words were ones I had thought a thousand times already.

Stacey gave me a wan smile and shook her head. “I really hope we don’t see you again, Maxx.”

I chuckled. “Well, thanks,” I replied blandly.

Stacey patted my back. “If we don’t see you again, then that means you’re doing all right. I really hope you succeed, Maxx.”

“Thanks,” I said again, wanting to get the hell out of there as fast as my legs could carry me.

Stacey walked me toward the front door. Hal, the security detail on duty, handed me a bag with my cell phone and a set of keys, the things they had confiscated when I had checked myself in.

“Take care, Maxx,” Stacey said, holding the door open for me.

“You, too,” I replied, actually meaning it. I walked down the front steps and out into the driveway, where a cab waited to take me back to the real world. I slid into the backseat of the cab and gave the driver my address. He grunted in acknowledgment, and then we were driving away from Barton House and I refused to look back as we left.

I was ready to put that part of my life behind me.

I turned on my cell phone and it started to ding loudly in my hands. My screen lit up with a hundred texts and missed calls. Most of them from Marco and Gash.

Shit.

That was one piece of my world I wasn’t eager to have to deal with. Because I couldn’t go back there. That was obvious. It would be too easy to fall back into everything I had vowed to stay away from.

I was five minutes out of rehab and I was already hit with the strong urge to go back. Because fuck if Stacey wasn’t right. It was harder out here. Inside you could pretend these things didn’t exist. It made it easier to ignore the cravings. The desire to lose yourself all over again.

I erased every single text message without reading them. It felt good to do that. I thought about calling Landon, letting him know I was out of rehab. Maybe try to bridge that gap, but I didn’t think a phone call would erase the weeks of bad blood that had built up between us. And truthfully, I didn’t have it in me to be rejected all over again.

The cab pulled up in front of my apartment building. I gave him my last ten-dollar bill and got out, duffel bag in hand, and walked up the narrow steps to the place where I lived but had never really been a home.

I dreaded going inside, knowing it was probably a mess. I had been in a rush when I got out of the hospital. I had come home, grabbed some clothes, and left, checking into rehab before I lost the nerve. I unlocked the door and was hit by the smell of lemons.

Lemons?

I turned on the light and looked around in shock. I had never seen my apartment so clean. The floors had been swept and the furniture dusted. All of the clothes I remembered being strewn across the floor were gone and there were even pillows on my couch. I didn’t even realize I had pillows.

I dropped my bag and walked into my kitchen, where the shock continued. The dishes had been washed and put away. There were dishrags folded and hung on the hook by the stove. The cabinets had been scrubbed and the refrigerator gleamed white. Further inspection revealed that the rest of the apartment was the same. The bathroom was spotless, the tub had been cleaned, and the mold that had been a permanent fixture in the corners was gone. I could eat off the floor, it was so damn clean.

Only two people had a key to my apartment, and I was pretty sure my landlord wouldn’t have bothered to do all this. He gave new meaning to the term slumlord. No, this was Aubrey. She was the only person who would think to come here and do this.

I walked into my bedroom and knew instantly that I was right. All of my clothes had been washed and sat in the basket I didn’t even know that I owned. My sheets had been changed and the covers pulled up. And in the middle of the bed I could see the outline of an impression where someone had lain. I ran my hand along the concaved pillow, indented where her head had been. Aubrey had come into my apartment and cleaned it. Then she had lain down on my bed.

I kicked off my shoes and slowly lowered myself down on the exact spot where she had been. I pulled the pillow to my face and thought I could smell her there. I didn’t know when she had done this. It could have been weeks ago. Or it could have been yesterday. I wasn’t exactly sure what it all meant except that she had come into my apartment and made it a home.