I didn’t want to give a shit about anything. It felt too good not to.

“Did you want something?” I asked, sounding like an asshole.

“I just thought you could come over sometime this week and help me fix up the car,” Landon said. I was supposed to be helping him fix up Dad’s old Mustang for when he got his license. But I hadn’t been to my uncle’s in over a month.

He sounded so goddamned hopeful. Fuck hope. It was a worthless bitch.

“I don’t know,” I answered noncommittally. Truth was, I had the time, just not the inclination. I didn’t want to put on my smiley face. I hated that fucking face.

Because I didn’t have the energy to be that other Maxx.

The one with way too much responsibility.

The Maxx that would fail miserably each and every time.

The Maxx I was trying to be didn’t fail at anything. He was on top of the goddamned world, and nothing would bring him down. People wanted him. He was the center of the fucked-up universe.

He was a guy who wasn’t alone.

“Yeah, I guess you’re busy and all. You can’t be some hotshot doctor without putting in the work. Hey, maybe Aubrey could help you study or something,” Landon teased, attempting some good-natured brotherly ribbing.

His unwavering faith in me made me sick. The mention of Aubrey put me on edge.

What the hell was I playing with her? And more important, was I really playing at all? Because being with her after group earlier in the week hadn’t felt like an act.

She had told me about her sister, and it made me . . . feel.

My heart had hurt. For her. For her pain.

And I had shared my own pain. My own hurt. Things I spent a lot of time denying even existed.

And for a brief moment, it had been real.

Comforting.

Safe.

I didn’t have time in my life for real.

It pissed me off.

My mellow high dissipated the angrier I became.

“Look, I gotta go, Landon. I’ll try to come by over the weekend,” I said quickly. I didn’t wait for Landon to say good-bye before I hung up the phone. I didn’t want to hear the disappointment in his voice.

I couldn’t handle his expectations. The weight of his dependency was like a noose around my neck.

I gripped the phone in my hand and then threw it across the room. Surprisingly, it stayed intact as it fell to the hardwood floor.

I felt like I was suffocating.

I needed numbness.

I needed to escape this shit reality I lived in.

I needed . . . nothing.

I picked up the baggie of pills on the coffee table and shook out three 30 mg tablets of oxy.

I heard a pounding on my door, followed by Marco yelling.

I ignored it.

I crushed the pills with the end of my Statistics textbook, swept the powder into my palm, then dropped it into my mouth. The bitter dust tickled the back of my throat and caused a loud coughing fit.

Marco could hear me, so he kept pounding on my door.

Too bad for him, I kept ignoring him.

The moment the drugs hit my system, everything was better . . . calmer.

They never let me down.

The high was my only constant.

When I needed it, it was always there, unconditionally. It didn’t need me. It didn’t weigh me down with unrealistic expectations. It was the most perfect relationship in my life.

It gave without expecting anything in return.

It was the best friend I had.

aubrey

i felt like a kid who had gotten caught by the principal smoking in the bathroom. Dr. Lowell had called me yesterday and asked me to come to her office after classes. I knew what this was about. Kristie had warned me she would be calling my adviser. But in the wake of my strange run-in with Maxx and the insanity of my course load, I had somehow forgotten about how badly I had messed up in support group.

Repression was a glorious thing.

Well, it was time to pay the piper. Face the music. Eat my goddamned words.

“Aubrey, come on in,” Dr. Lowell said from the doorway to her office. I picked up my bag and followed her inside. I took a seat in front of her massive desk after she closed the door.

“You know why you’re here,” Dr. Lowell said without preamble, getting straight to the point. I nodded, my mouth suddenly dry.

“Would you care to explain what happened last week in support group?” my professor asked, sitting down at her desk and folding her hands in front of her. Dr. Lowell was an attractive woman, one of those people who were aging gracefully. Her brown hair, which was only now starting to gray, was cut short and held back with a clip, and her face was wrinkle-free.

And I appreciated that instead of jumping to conclusions, she was looking at me thoughtfully, expecting a good explanation.

“I messed up, Dr. Lowell. I ended up sharing things I shouldn’t have in group. I got angry. These people are there to learn ways to change their lives, and they act as if they couldn’t be bothered. I guess I was sick of it. But what I did was wrong, and I understand if you think I need to leave the group,” I said quietly, ready to take my licks.

Dr. Lowell regarded me intently. She didn’t say anything for a long time; the only sound in the silent office was the ticking of the clock on the wall.

She slowly pushed her chair out from behind her desk and got to her feet. She crossed the room and filled her coffee cup from the fancy Keurig she had in the corner.

Why wasn’t she saying anything?

Maybe Dr. Lowell was a secret sadist and enjoyed watching her poor, panic-stricken students squirm.

“Would you like a cup, Aubrey?” she asked, holding one out.

I nodded, never able to say no to coffee. I took a sip of the gourmet blend, refusing to allow myself to appreciate the taste when I was most likely going to be seriously reprimanded. But damn, this stuff was tasty.

“I don’t want you to leave the group,” Dr. Lowell said finally, after I had polished off half of my coffee.

I blinked in surprise. “Really? Because when I spoke to Kristie she seemed to think my presence in the group wouldn’t be appropriate anymore,” I said.

Dr. Lowell rolled her eyes. Yes, my hard-as-nails professor actually rolled her eyes.

“Kristie is an excellent counselor, but she can be a little rigid sometimes. We’re all human, Aubrey. Part of this process is for you to learn your boundaries, to understand the limits in a group dynamic. You will only ever learn those things with hands-on experience. I would be doing you an extreme disservice if I were to remove you from the group. We all make mistakes. That’s not to say you didn’t act inappropriately. Because you did.” She looked at me levelly. “I just don’t think you need to be raked over the coals for it.”

Dr. Lowell returned to her seat behind her desk. “When I was first out of grad school I had just gotten my license, and I was running a court-mandated anger-management group. All of those attending were known abusers; they had all been convicted of assault, usually on family members. They were a nasty bunch of men. And they treated me like I was a joke. To say I didn’t take that too well, particularly since I was a lot more hotheaded in my younger days, is a bit of an understatement.” She laughed, and I found myself smiling too.

I just may escape this meeting in one piece. Hallelujah!

“I dumped a glass of water on a group member’s head. He apparently hadn’t liked what I had to say and had called me the B word.” I gaped. I would have done a hell of a lot more than dump water on his head.

“To say my superior was unforgiving was putting it mildly. You have to remember, times were different then, and women were only just starting to be accepted in the workplace. This was the seventies, and while advances had been made in gender equality, it still felt like the stone ages. I was put on professional probation for three months, and I wasn’t allowed to facilitate another group until I attended my own anger-management classes.”