“I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I did that,” I replied.

Kristie shook her head. “I have a good idea why, but this isn’t the time or place to get into that. I think it would be best if you left tonight. I’ll finish group by myself. And then I think we need to sit down with Dr. Lowell and talk about whether your continued participation in this group as a co-facilitator is suitable,” she remarked, sounding nothing like the compassionate and nurturing counselor I knew her to be. Right now she was disappointed and unhappy.

Wow, I had really messed things up.

“I understand,” was all I said. I felt horrible, both physically and mentally. I should have gone home and gone to bed and worried about the mess I’d made in the morning. But the thought of possibly running into Renee was less than appealing. I wasn’t able to hide my emotions very well, and even though she was on most days still firmly up her own ass, my roommate still read me better than anyone.

I ended up wandering around campus. I felt achy, and I most likely had a fever, but I just couldn’t make myself go home. It was late, and very few people were still out. I finally sat down at a bench by the library and stared at a wall that was painted with bright greens and blues. The central image was a figure of a woman walking off a wooden pier into a sea of black sludge, her long blond hair waving behind her as she fell. Her face was nondescript except for her smile. It was as though she was happy to be going to her death.

Well, that was freaking depressing.

I stared harder at the picture, uncomfortable with the odd sense of familiarity I felt. Looking at the woman’s graceful yet agonized form, I felt as though I should recognize her.

Bothered by my increasing disquiet, I stood up and walked closer. This was not your typical campus painting of daffodils and laughing students. I had seen this particular kind of art several times before. I leaned in to try to see the details in the poor lighting. And there it was—the tiny patterns on the woman’s dress composed of dozens of Xs.

I didn’t notice any numbers or words in this picture, though, so I didn’t understand what its intent was. It was my understanding that X’s paintings held the clues to the location of the club Compulsion. But this picture seemed to have nothing to do with that.

This was a painting created for some other purpose.

“So what do you think?”

I looked over my shoulder to find Maxx standing behind me. I turned back to the picture, not bothering to answer him. The truth was, my outburst in the group had left me feeling raw and vulnerable, and seeing him so soon after making a gigantic ass of myself was embarrassing.

As he came up beside me, the sleeves of our jackets brushed against each other. Maxx inclined his head toward the painting and asked me again, “Well, what do you think of it?”

I shrugged, not really in the mood for small talk. My pounding head couldn’t handle a go-around with the group Romeo. I started to walk away from him when he grabbed hold of my arm.

“Wait, Aubrey. Please.” It was that word that did it. Please. It was uttered softly and sincerely. And it held me as fast and surely as if he had put his arms around me.

“Thank you for talking about your sister tonight,” he said quietly, tugging on my arm so I would face him again. Slowly I complied, looking up into his eyes. All coyness was gone, and I could see only genuine gratitude.

“You don’t need to thank me. What I did was wrong. I shouldn’t put my shit on you guys. You’re there for your own reasons, and they have nothing to do with me and my past,” I replied quickly.

Maxx slid his knuckles down my arm and took my hand in his. My fingers were curled into a fist, with his much larger palm surrounding it, protecting it.

“Don’t say that. What you said, what you showed me . . . us . . . was that you get it. And it made me feel, I don’t know . . . connected maybe,” he said. I didn’t know what to say. I was so tired, both from being sick and from trying so hard to hold it together. Tonight I had cracked. Some of the raging whirlwind inside me had leaked out in the worst possible setting.

But maybe it had helped. And that made my failure seem less . . . destructive.

His next words took my burgeoning pink fuzzies and flushed them down the toilet.

“You feel responsible for what happened to your sister, don’t you?” he asked, and my immediate reaction was to deny, deny, deny. I didn’t know him. I didn’t trust him. He had no right to the information he was digging for.

But when I opened my mouth, only the truth came out. “Yes, I do,” I responded. Maxx’s broad shoulders rose and fell with his deep breath. He seemed to find something in my words that fortified him.

His blue eyes darkened as he looked over my shoulder into the distance. “I understand that, you know? Feeling responsible for someone else and failing miserably,” he said with so much pain in his voice that I felt it in my bones.

He continued to hold my hand tight and secure in his, his thumb drawing circles on my skin. I didn’t say anything, I knew instinctively that Maxx needed to share something with me, but he needed to do it at his own pace.

The wind blew around us, chilling me, but I didn’t move away from him. “My brother expects a lot of me. Landon, you met him,” he said, looking down at me, his lips quirking into a tiny smile.

I smiled back. “He seemed like a nice kid,” I offered.

“He is. He’s a great kid. Better than me, that’s for sure,” Maxx said tiredly. I didn’t respond to that. What could I say? That’s not true, you’re a great guy! Because that would have been a lie. I didn’t know whether Maxx deserved that kind of commendation or not.

“He looks up to me. He expects me to be this great and powerful person. To make our lives something better. I just can’t do that. It’s beyond me to be the sort of guy he needs me to be,” Maxx admitted, his voice breaking at the admission.

I was absolutely bewildered by the man who stood with me in the cold January air, his fingers wrapped around mine. He had handed me honesty. I could only do the same. It was only fair. It’s what this moment deserved.

“Jayme tried to tell me about her boyfriend, Blake. I wouldn’t listen. She wanted me to know what was going on. I ignored her,” I let out in the barest whisper.

Maxx’s hand squeezed mine. “Jayme was your sister?” he asked, and I nodded, feeling my throat tighten with a suppressed emotion I hadn’t allowed myself to feel in a very long time.

I pulled in a shaky breath. “He’s the worst kind of evil. Blake. He hooked her on drugs, used her over and over again, and then left her to die. But maybe I’m even worse because I had the chance to save her and I didn’t. I was so focused on my own life I didn’t see how much she needed me.” My voice was a strangled sob.

Maxx pulled me into his chest, his arms coming up to press me close, as though I could burrow inside him and be safe. I curled my arms up underneath me and tried to get my breathing under control. I didn’t cry. I never cried. My tears had dried up a long time ago.

But I felt the seams of my world tearing apart as Maxx held me. Something had been altered in the fabric of my universe, and I didn’t know what that meant for me or for the man who held me.

I felt Maxx lean down, his breath fanning across my face. And still he said nothing. He just held me tightly against his body, and I thought I might have imagined the tiny kisses along the crown of my head.

But I hadn’t imagined how in the space of a few minutes I had calmed down. I could breathe easier, and I was able to unclench my fists.

After what felt like an endless amount of time, he released me. “You should get home,” was all he said, his hands returning to the pockets of his jacket. I felt disjointed by the abruptness of our physical separation.