Maxx’s eyes had gone unfocused as he talked. He was showing me the bigger picture, and I felt like I was finally being given a glimpse of who he really was. No pretenses. No illusions. This was Maxx. The real Maxx.

“For the first time, people were seeking me out. They wanted to be around me. They liked what I offered. And I was the only one who could give it to them. For the first time in years, I was somebody people knew. Someone people needed. Someone people wanted.”

Maxx’s face brightened with a fanatical light, and I knew that this power, however wrong it was, fed something inside him. It gave him a purpose, no matter how shady it was.

“I like how it makes me feel, Aubrey. I won’t apologize or feel bad about that. It helps me take care of my brother. It keeps a roof over my head. It lets me stay in school and try to make something out of this shitty life I’ve been given,” he stated defensively.

“Do you honestly like the way you’ve felt the past two days? You’re hurting yourself, Maxx,” I tried to reason. I brought his hand up to my lips and kissed his knuckles, positioning my body so that it pressed against him.

“You don’t need that stuff to feel good about yourself. You have so much more going for you than that,” I appealed to him.

Maxx laughed humorlessly, pulling away from me slightly. Even though it was only the barest of inches, it felt like miles now separated us.

“I know what you think. I see the way you’re looking at me. How you always look at me. I know you think I’m just like every other fucked-up junkie out there. That I can’t function without drugs. That I’d suck dick for a fix if I had to.” I tried not to cringe at his anger. He was pissed.

“But I’m not like that, Aubrey. I’m not some cracked-out fiend who wakes up in the morning thinking of where and when he can get high. I can function without it. I was able to live most of my life without it. I can quit any time I want to. But why would I want to when it can give me something nothing else can?”

I frowned in confusion. What was he talking about? I didn’t understand. I couldn’t even pretend to. I didn’t get his logic at all. But I could tell that in his mind, he was making perfect sense.

“It stops me from thinking, Aubrey! And for a guy like me, thinking sucks! I need the peace,” he explained, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

I wanted to shake him. I wanted to smack him upside the head and tell him to wake up and see the state of the world he was living in. I wanted to tell him that his few moments of peace came at a hefty price. He might not remember the violently ill, barely conscious person he had been two nights ago, but I did! And from what I could see, those pills weren’t giving him peace; they were pushing him that much closer to total obliteration.

He honestly thought he didn’t have a problem. He had a clear idea of what it meant to be an addict, and in his mind, he wasn’t ticking any of those boxes. His delusions would destroy him.

I remembered clearly the person who had lain curled up in a ball on his bed, throwing up on the floor, shaking and sweating as the drugs left his system, and the way he had cursed and threatened me when he couldn’t get the fix he thought he needed. This was not a person who could quit when he felt like it.

His mind wouldn’t let him quit, and his body sure as hell wouldn’t either. He was trapped in the prison of his addiction, whether he realized it or not. And his denial was what was keeping him there.

But I wouldn’t argue with him about it. It was a waste of time. You couldn’t help someone who wasn’t willing to help themselves. All I could do was be there and hopefully stop him from losing everything. I’d be there if he fell, and I would pick him up when he hit bottom.

I needed to do this for him. I needed to do this for me.

As I listened to Maxx talk, I could see my sister, crying out for the help I never gave her. Not this time. I’d hold on tight to Maxx and weather this storm with him.

“I want to be the guy who can take care of his brother. The guy who can go on and save the fucking world like my mother thought I could. But I also like being the other guy, the one who doesn’t let anything touch him, who can’t be dragged down—the guy who can be everything. And I want to be that guy for you,” Maxx said, with so much conviction it was easy to believe he could be all those things. But the cost of that was too much.

“Why can’t you just be Maxx Demelo? I kind of like that guy,” I said, cupping my hand behind his neck.

Maxx smirked, a ghost of the smile I was familiar with. “I can be so much more for you. I want to be everything you could ever want.”

I shook my head, not understanding where this was coming from. Why did he feel like he had to be superhuman? Why couldn’t he just be happy with the person he was?

“I just want you,” I told him, hoping he heard me.

“And I want you, Aubrey. All of you. Every tiny, perfect part. I want you to belong to me, only to me, so that you’ll never leave. Please don’t leave,” he whispered, a choking plea.

God, how could I deny him anything? He was practically shoving his heart into my hands, insisting that I take it. He wasn’t giving me a choice. And even if I had been given one, I knew the decision I would make. I would hold on to him—his heart, his soul—with everything I had.

Here was a man who tried desperately to mute the insecure little boy inside him, who was terrified of being abandoned or not ever being enough.

I wished I could get him to see the wonderful person he was without all the other stuff messing it up.

I leaned up and kissed his swollen eye, letting my lips linger as they traveled down the side of his face. Maxx had sucked me in, and there was no escaping it.

I just hoped I wouldn’t regret my decision to stay.

aubrey

my heart had betrayed me.

It held me prisoner to a fierce whirlwind of emotions that were unfamiliar and overpowering.

Taking care of Maxx, seeing his brutal struggle, had altered something inside me. I had stopped looking at him as the man he wanted me to see, and I began to view him as the person he was. The sad, lonely, scared boy who had lost so much and was trying to hold on to the last little bit of control he had.

Seeing him at his worst had inexplicably softened me toward him. The last bricks in my formerly impenetrable wall had come crashing down. A shift had taken place. I no longer just thought about fixing him. My feelings had become more complicated than that. More confusing.

And a hell of a lot deeper.

And while I was still petrified as the parameters of our relationship stretched and strained to make room for this new reality, I was also eager for it. I wanted it. I wanted him.

I should have been wary and hesitant. Here I was, jumping into a heady, soul-consuming relationship with a guy I had met under the most unconscionable of circumstances.

Where was the girl who worried about screwing up? She had apparently taken a backseat to the girl who was discovering true emotional connection for the first time.

I knew it was wrong. I was already paranoid that people would catch on, that when my classmates looked at me, they’d see a girl doing something she definitely wasn’t supposed to be doing.

But I couldn’t stop myself.

Leaving Maxx’s apartment was jarring. I had lived in this self-contained bubble for two days, forgetting that anything or anyone existed outside of it. It was easy to forget about trivial things like schoolwork and friends when I was in Maxx’s world. That was how quickly he absorbed me.

But reality was a cold, hard slap in the face when I realized as I left that tonight I’d have to face Maxx in an entirely different setting, one that would most likely be trying and difficult and definitely more than a little bit awkward.