There was nothing about this Maxx that I understood, even if that twinge was still humming under my skin.

When he turned his face in my direction, the lights flickering madly overhead, I stood rooted to the spot, with people dancing all around me. I wanted him to see me. I wanted to yell Liar! into his stupid, gorgeous face. I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to ask why he was doing this. Why he had made me believe a lie. Why he could make me feel a million different things that I had never felt before, only to obliterate them with a truth I desperately wished I hadn’t learned.

But he looked past me, his eyes never registering my presence. He didn’t expect to see me here, so his drug-addled brain simply didn’t see me. And when he turned away, I was both disappointed and relieved.

“There you are! I’ve been looking for you everywhere! Are you ready to go? It’s really late, and I have to be up early for a cram session,” Brooks shouted in my ear, grabbing me by the elbow. I turned my eyes away from Maxx to look at my friend. I nodded.

“Sure,” I responded, quickly returning my gaze to where Maxx had been standing.

But he was gone.

Disappeared.

And I didn’t bother to look for him again.

maxx

i was covered in paint. It was in my hair, in the creases of my fingers, splattered on my pants. I dipped a brush into the red paint and smeared it along the brick wall. I was precariously balanced on a ten-foot ladder, my paints propped up on a piece of wood.

It was almost morning, and I should be at home, in bed, not freezing my ass off. I had class in less than four hours. I had shit to do that evening. But I had been out here since one a.m. Because I couldn’t sleep. Because all I could think about was her.

Aubrey.

We had only spent a few hours together, and I had felt something shift inside me. I had wanted her. I had been drunk on the taste of her. Recognizable lust had blazed between us.

But strangely, it had been more than that. Sitting in the movie theater, laughing and talking to her had been easy and uncomplicated. I couldn’t help but relax in Aubrey’s company. She had a way about her that was comfortable.

Then she had asked me questions. She made it clear she wanted to know me. It had been a long time since anyone had given a damn about the person I am, the man behind the mask that I’ve created.

Being with Aubrey made me feel, for one perfect moment, that maybe, just maybe, I could be someone else. That I could be someone simple. And that perhaps she’d like me for who I was. Deep down, I could admit I had always craved acceptance, and Aubrey seemed to offer that without conditions.

So I had kissed her. I hadn’t been able to stop myself from touching her. I couldn’t keep myself from establishing some sort of physical connection with her.

But it had been too much, too soon. I had been overwhelmed. And yeah, I freaked out.

I had left her.

I had run like a coward.

But that hadn’t stopped me from thinking about her. From wanting what I had glimpsed in those moments we’d had together, however unrealistic they were.

Now I was filled with a confusing mix of emotions, and I needed to let them out somehow. The only way I could do that was to paint.

Lately, my pictures had been for the club. With those, sure, I still got creative with the message, but they weren’t organically mine. They belonged to someone else. They were for them, not me.

This picture, these images . . . they were all for me. They said everything that I felt but couldn’t say.

I swept my brush into a large arc of red, followed by orange and then purple, a massive sunset. But it wasn’t all pussified and pretty. Fuck, no. I didn’t paint crap like that.

There were two people holding hands beneath a sky that erupted above them. And from that brilliant, colorful sky rained blood. It flooded everything. And those two people, so content, so happy in each other, would be swept up and carried off by it.

Yeah, it was morbid. No one ever accused me of being Polly Sunshine.

I finished up the sky and slowly made my way down the ladder. I could barely stand. I was much too wasted to be out. I should be facedown in my own drool with the amount of oxy I’d taken tonight.

But when the mood hit, I couldn’t deny where it took me. I took the paints and tossed them in the Dumpster. There was no point in lugging them back to my apartment. I didn’t have the energy for that, not now that I was finished and the adrenaline rush that had led me here was gone.

I collapsed the ladder and dragged it back to the alleyway where I had found it. I was one for improvising when it came to my art, borrowing or taking whatever I could find to make the picture I saw in my head.

Standing back, I looked at my massive painting under the streetlight as morning tiptoed in. It was huge. It was fucked-up. But goddamn it, it was me. And every ounce of longing I felt was all over that fucking wall.

I nodded once, my eyelids starting to droop. I’d better get home before I passed out on the side of the road.

I barely remembered getting there.

I woke up later in the day feeling sick. I was huddled up in my bed, freezing my ass off. I must have forgotten to turn the heat on before I had gone comatose. Every joint, every muscle, ached.

I reached over to my bedside table and felt around for the bag I knew was there. My hand hit the lamp and sent it careening to the floor. The tremors took over, and I could barely pick up the small pill between my trembling fingers.

I pressed it to my lips but dropped it. I patted around the pillows, trying to find my tiny piece of salvation.

After I found it, I put it between my teeth and crushed it before swallowing, the grit coating my tongue. I lay back, closed my eyes, and waited.

And waited some more.

It was taking too long, so I crushed another pill and swallowed.

And waited again.

Still too long.

I took another.

Then finally I could feel it. The gradual slide into numbness. My heart slowed, and I felt like I could finally breathe.

And only then was I able to get out of bed. It was already two o’clock in the afternoon. I had slept through both my morning classes. I had another one in forty minutes, but I just didn’t give enough of a shit to make myself go. I needed to get a shower. I reeked. I should probably eat something too. I couldn’t remember the last time I had bothered with food. But my stomach didn’t feel empty. I was too fucked-up to feel much of anything.

My phone rang. With languid slowness, I picked it up and answered without bothering to look at who was calling.

“Maxx! I got out of school early, do you want to come over and help me with the car?” my brother asked excitedly. I should probably have felt bad for letting him down, but I didn’t. Like I said, I didn’t feel anything at all.

“Can’t, I’ve got stuff to do,” I replied, shuffling into my cramped living room and turning on the crappy television set in the corner. Cool, reruns of The A-Team were on. My afternoon was set.

“But you said you’d come over this week,” Landon said in a small voice.

“Yeah, when did I say that?” I asked, not really paying attention to the conversation. I made promises and I broke them. What else was new?

“Please, Maxx. David has been asking when you’re coming by. I think he needs more money,” Landon said, dropping his voice into a whisper.

Typically the mention of my asshole uncle would have set me raging. I hated that fucker. I hated that he used his guardianship of my brother as a noose around my neck. He had it in his head that I would finance his gambling habit just because he gave Landon a place to live. But I had enough habits of my own that needed to be taken care of first. My uncle wanting to play poker wasn’t high on my list of priorities.