“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 bring 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.”

He made a noise in the back of his throat, and then he was kissing me.

He was healing me.

He was giving me my future.

And I walked toward it happily and for the first time in a long time . . . with hope.

chapter

thirty

maxx

going to North Carolina with Aubrey had seemed like such a good idea.

But what I was left with in the end was a reminder of who I really was at my roots. In my dark, twisted heart.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Blake, her sister’s ex. He was a conceited little punk with an arm full of track marks and teeth rotting from meth use. He was obviously the worst kind of druggie. The forsaken kind. The type with no future.

I had looked at Blake Fields and seen myself.

The person I had been for a long time.

Aubrey had looked at him with so much disgust, and in that moment I didn’t see a whole lot of difference between him and me.

And I hated myself all over again.

Aubrey left her parents’ house happier than I had ever seen her. We talked the whole way home, but I couldn’t get rid of the heavy weight in my chest.

The fear that I’d lose her. That she’d wake up one morning and remember that I was just like Blake. A sad, sorry loser.

I took Aubrey’s bag as we walked up the steps to my apartment. The bass from my neighbor’s stereo was blasting. I unlocked the door and turned on the light.

Aubrey dropped onto the couch and stretched her arms above her head. “I’m exhausted,” she said with a yawn.

I joined her on the sofa and pulled her into my arms. It still amazed me how easily she fit against my body, like we were two pieces of the same puzzle. Yeah, it was cheesy as hell, but true.