A. Walters - Lead Me Not

But somehow, Dr. Lowell had seen something in me and had quickly taken me under her wing. I respected her refusal to make or accept excuses for anything. I had been drawn to her gruff yet kind personality and the way she expected me to hold myself accountable but be ever mindful of my grief.

She nurtured my desire to be a counselor. She guided me down the path I had chosen. She was my mentor. My adviser. My favorite professor. And the thought of letting her down made me sick to my stomach. I was terrified of looking in her eyes one day and seeing disappointment.

Finally, Dr. Lowell gave me her attention, and I almost sagged in relief when I saw her smile. This wasn’t someone who was unhappy to see me. On the contrary, she seemed pleased.

“I don’t want to keep you, Aubrey. I know you must be busy. I just wanted to take a moment to tell you I’ve heard such great things from Kristie about group,” Dr. Lowell said, shocking me.

“Really? I was pretty sure that after my screw-up I had been written off,” I said, making Dr. Lowell laugh.

“I think she’s gotten over it. Kristie can be a tough sell. She comes across nice enough, but she’s pretty inflexible about things. So the fact that she’s come around is a huge compliment.”

The praise didn’t bring with it the warm glow of pride it normally would have. No. In fact, it made me feel worse. What would Dr. Lowell and Kristie say when they realized how inappropriate I was actually being? I shuddered at the thought of their faces if the truth ever came out.

So why wasn’t that enough to make me walk away?

Because I suffered from my own addiction, which sucked away all logic.

“Thank you,” was all I could squeak out. Dr. Lowell beamed at me, and I wanted to flee. Run away. Now.

“Check my schedule on the door, and put yourself down for a one-on-one after group is over. We can talk about how things went and look at options for your next volunteer placement,” my professor instructed, dismissing me.

I didn’t say a word as I got to my feet. I hurried out of the office and did as Dr. Lowell requested. I already dreaded the meeting.

I should go to the library. I had a mountain of work to catch up on, but right then I just wanted to get off campus. I wanted to go to Maxx’s apartment and submerge myself in the feelings I experienced only when he touched me.

I pushed through the doors that led out onto the academic quad. I rushed down the sidewalk and came up short. The sight of color at my feet caught my attention. I looked up and saw that the entire length of the pavement was covered in a drawing.

I backed up so I could get a better look at what was an elaborate kaleidoscope of images. At the center were two figures that looked like marionettes on strings. Their joints were depicted as jagged, bloody seams held together by nuts and bolts. The strings holding them up disappeared into a thick, raging fire above them.

The marionettes were clutched together, their awkward limbs trying to hold on to one another. The ground below them was giving way, crumbling and disappearing. The long blond hair of the female puppet was wrapped up in flowers that obscured her face, the fair strands an intricate weaving of the letter X.

While I stood there, transfixed by the strange yet unbelievably beautiful image, water hit the tip of my nose, followed by more drops on my cheek. Looking up, I saw clouds moving in and watched with sadness as rain flooded the drawing on the sidewalk, erasing it.

It seemed such a shame for something so amazing, something someone clearly spent a long time creating, to be ruined by a rain shower.

I hadn’t prepared for the turn in weather, so I stood there in the downpour, getting soaked. I watched with morbid fascination as the vibrant colors mixed together, washing down the pathway. The two puppets, locked in their passionate yet uncomfortable embrace, faded away until there was nothing left.

“Why can’t he just draw on paper like a normal person?” a hateful voice asked from behind me.

Brooks stood beside me, moving his umbrella so that it shielded me from the rain. I hadn’t spoken to him in weeks, not since our confrontation after support group. He continued to sit there week after week, but he hadn’t initiated any sort of interaction since. Nevertheless, I felt him watching me closely. And he wasn’t the only one. I knew that others were watching me as well, which didn’t help my paranoia, which was already near the breaking point.

The marionettes were completely gone. “I thought you liked X’s paintings,” I remarked, still not taking my eyes away from the rain-soaked pavement.

Brooks snorted. “It’s like that club, just a delusional waste of time. Sure, it looks pretty, but it only hides a heart that’s rotten to the core,” he spat out. I knew he wasn’t talking about the painting.

“Why so bitter, Brooks? It takes a lot of talent to create something like this,” I argued, shivering from the cold and the wet clothes clinging to my skin.

The rain beat down on the umbrella, pouring in rivulets around us, splashing my shoes and jeans as it hit the ground.

Brooks shook his head. “I get it, Aubrey. It’s easy to be distracted by something like this. But don’t forget the ugliness underneath. It may be nice to look at, but it’s only paint, and it washes away eventually.”

Brooks’s metaphors were making my head hurt. But his meaning was crystal freaking clear. If I had wondered about the state of our friendship before, I didn’t now. I could practically taste his disapproval.

I stepped out from underneath the protection of his umbrella. I looked up into my former friend’s eyes and saw nothing of the kind, compassionate man I used to see.

“I feel bad for you, Brooks. It’s so easy to criticize what you don’t even try to understand. To pass judgment without looking at what’s really there. I’m sorry if I haven’t lived up to the expectations you had for me. That I disappointed you. But I had to come down off that pedestal eventually.” Brooks opened his mouth, looking like he wanted to say something, but then shook his head.

“I’m sorry too, Aubrey,” he said sadly.

I looked down at the ruined painting again. All that was left was a puddle of color in the grass.

“You’ll miss out on some amazing things in life if you can’t look past your nose to see the beauty that’s out there in the most unconventional places. And complexity isn’t ugliness. It’s the complication that makes it worth it,” I said softly, turning and walking away.

I pulled out my phone and tried calling Maxx again. No answer. I was freezing, the tips of my fingers going numb. But I couldn’t go back to my apartment. I couldn’t be on campus.

There was only one place I belonged. Only one person I needed.

So I walked the four and a half blocks to find him.

And when he wasn’t there, I waited.

I’d always wait for Maxx.

aubrey

“why can’t I come with you?” I asked Maxx as I lay naked and tangled up with him in his bed. His fingers stroked up and down my back, making me squirm.

We had been wrapped up in each other for most of the day. It had been almost a week since we were last together, and when I finally saw him again, there was no explanation for his disappearance. There never was.

I wanted to be angry with him. I wanted to be upset and sad. But I couldn’t be. Not when he touched me and held me like his life depended on it. Not when my own feelings were jangled and raw from my burst of self-realization.

I loved Maxx Demelo. I felt it deep in my bones.

I was bursting with wanting to tell him. To lay my heart at his feet as easily as he had done. I imagined the way his eyes would light up when I told him. I fantasized about his reaction. He would kiss me, make love to me, worship me with his beautiful words.

But I love you was quickly being swallowed by other things.

Primarily it was the life he led when we were apart, the life I hated as surely as I loved the man who lived it.

The need to protect what little hold I had left on my heart rendered me mute. So the words remained unspoken, even as they tattooed their presence on my heart.

“I won’t be there long. Just a few hours. Why don’t you stay here, just like this? So that when I get home, I can do this,” Maxx replied huskily, rolling me onto my back and fitting himself between my thighs.

I had learned that Maxx used sex as a way of shutting me up. When I questioned him or expressed concern, he’d flop me on my back and fuck me into silence.

And while I couldn’t help but enjoy the methods he used to control the direction of our conversations, it was also frustrating.

So when he pressed the tip of himself between my wet, warm folds, kissing me so that our talk was finished, I resisted.

I pulled my hips back even as my body begged to join with his. I tore my mouth away and turned my head to the side. I pushed against his chest. “I want to go to Compulsion, Maxx. Please, take me with you,” I pleaded.

I’m not sure why I was making a big deal about going to the club with him on Saturday. Except that I was tired of spending my weekends wondering what he was doing while he was there, though I didn’t have to imagine too hard to figure it out.

While he tried really hard to keep the drugs away from me, I knew they were still there. The bitch demanded so much of his time. While he denied his addiction was there at all, it was a constant presence in our relationship. And he gave her, his need for pills, more attention than he gave me.

I was jealous.

I was scared.

Maxx was turning me into a mess of emotions both good and bad. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to help him. Here I was, studying to become an addictions counselor, and I couldn’t do anything for the man I had fallen in love with.

Every time I had tried to bring up his drug use, he claimed that there wasn’t a problem, that I needed to stop worrying about him. He didn’t see himself the way I did, as a sad, desperate man who had no idea of the destruction he was unleashing on himself. He thought he had it under control. He thought he was in charge. He thought that he could hide the worst of it from me, that I’d never know.

He was so, so wrong.

I could tell the difference between the Maxx who was high as a kite and the Maxx in the grips of withdrawal, both of which were starting to occur with more frequency and severity, and the Maxx who fell somewhere in between.

The two extremes were quickly becoming the only state he lived in. The in-between Maxx was slipping away. I knew he struggled, he hurt, he craved. And though he didn’t use in front of me, not since that time after we went to see his brother, I knew he still spent the majority of his time high.

I wanted to press him, demand to know the truth, but I was scared to. I knew that if I did, he’d freeze me out, and then I’d never have a chance to help him. So I let myself be quieted, hating that I was allowing it, yet frantic for him all the same. I was letting him use our bodies to make us both forget the truth.

But I was growing weary of my willful ignorance. I was frustrated with the levels of my own denial. I was sick and tired of turning a blind eye even as Maxx shredded us both.

I wanted to go to the club with Maxx.

I had decided that being with him was a hell of a lot better than obsessing about it all alone. All I could think about in those dark hours until I saw him again was whether this would be the time he wouldn’t come home at all. I was afraid that eventually the limits wouldn’t matter and he’d go over the edge.

Maxx let out an irritated breath and sagged his body, resting his forehead on my collarbone. “Why is it such a big deal to you?” he asked, sounding annoyed. “You’ve been there, and I can tell it’s not your scene.”

I pushed out from under him and rolled onto my side. I folded my hands beneath my cheek and regarded him steadily. “Because I want to be with you. I hate waiting around for you to come home, wondering what you’re doing,” I explained.

Maxx folded his arm under his head and looked up at me, lines forming between his eyebrows. “You know what I do there, Aubrey,” he said softly. Yes. I knew what he did at Compulsion. He made money selling drugs to the miserable and hopeless. How could I ever accept this part of him?