Follow Me Back

by A. Meredith Walters

  “And you honestly think hooking up with a random someone is simple? Are you serious?” I asked incredulously.

  My face flamed hot and I felt an uncomfortable flip in my stomach at Renee’s suggestion. It wasn’t that I was against the idea of ever being with someone else. But I had the inexplicable feeling that I was betraying Maxx by even contemplating it. Which was ridiculous.

  “I’ll save releasing my inner hoochie for another night, I think,” I joked, pushing aside my unease.

  Renee playfully swatted my arm and grinned.

  “It doesn’t have to be a full-on sexcapade. You could just . . . you know, kiss someone a little. Find a hot stranger to whet your appetite,” Renee teased, trying to break the heaviness in both of our hearts.

  Her words had me recoiling at the thought of the last hot stranger I had been drawn to. I swallowed around the lump in my throat.

  I forced a dry laugh from my mouth. “I appreciate your efforts in facilitating random hookups for the night. But I think just a beer and some nachos will be all that I need,” I said.

  “And probably a lot less drama,” Renee quipped.

  On a whim, I grabbed her hand and squeezed. “Come out with us,” I said.

  “I’d rather not be on hand to witness the Brooks Hamlin drool fest, thank you very much.”

  I rolled my eyes. “It’s not like that anymore, Renee. Brooks and I are friends. He isn’t looking to get into my pants,” I swore, though I felt a twinge of doubt at the truth of my words.

  “Yeah, well, it would still be kind of third-wheelish. You and Brooks have all those dork jokes you think are funny and no one else does. And when you start reciting Adam Sandler movies, it makes me want to slit my wrists. Just sayin’, ” Renee teased, and I tossed my hairbrush at her.

  “Would you rather have us quote Magic Mike? I know how obsessed you are with that particular cinematic masterpiece,” I laughed.

  “Do not mock Channing Tatum,” she warned, shaking my hairbrush in my face.

  I snatched it out of her hand and pulled my hair up into a ponytail.

  “Go get dressed. You’re coming with us. I won’t take no for an answer,” I told her, shooing her out of my room.

  Renee groaned. “One Happy Gilmore quote and I’m taking a cab home,” she yelled from the hallway.

  I grinned as I finished getting ready.

  I was going out . . . with my friends.

  I felt pretty damn good.

  Of course, I should have known that it wasn’t meant to last.

  chapter

  eight

  aubrey

  we ended up going to a bar downtown that was a regular hangout for the LU crowd. I hadn’t made a habit of frequenting the place, because I wasn’t much on socializing in general.

  I had never been the type of student to play beer pong at frat parties or do keg stands until I passed out. When we were freshmen, Renee had dragged me to several parties, but I had typically spent my night hanging awkwardly by the door like the stereotypical wallflower.

  I was on my third Sam Adams and was experiencing the fuzzy light-headedness that meant I was slightly inebriated. A little sloppy and very giggly drunk.

  “God, they suck!” I yelled into Brooks’s ear as we watched a crappy band play their instruments really badly on the small stage at the back of the room. They were butchering Led Zeppelin’s “Tangerine” into something almost unintelligible.

  Renee’s new “friend,” Iain, had shown up and they had gone off to play a game of pool. She hadn’t answered me when I had asked her whether she had called him. She played it coy, refusing to acknowledge that she was enjoying his company as much as it seemed that she was.

  I knew that to acknowledge that she was opening herself to someone who wasn’t Devon seemed impossible right now. But I was happy to see that she was trying.

  So maybe I should follow her example.

  The suggestion to find a stranger seemed entirely too daunting. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy the company of the person I had come with. And right now, with more than a little bit of alcohol in my system, I found myself pulled in by the comfortable familiarity of the man who sat on the stool beside me.

  Brooks bobbed his head up and down in time to the music. He had also had several mixed drinks, though he didn’t seem to be remotely drunk. It was clear that he was a lot more used to it than I was. Brooks looked over at me, his eyes twinkling. “They’re not so bad. At least they know who Led Zeppelin is,” he joked, referencing my lack of rock history knowledge when we had first started dating.

  He had been horrified when he had played Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy album and I had asked who they were. As I was growing up, my parents had subjected me to all manner of country music. As a teenager I was more likely to listen to Top 40 than to the Rolling Stones. After that he had made it his mission to educate me on the finer points of rock and roll, forcing me to know every song by Jimi Hendrix and the names of every member of the Who.

  And I could now consider myself properly schooled. I smacked his leg and then let my hand rest there, not moving it away. “Shut up. I know who they are now,” I slurred a bit. My hand felt clammy against the fabric of Brooks’s jeans. I thought I felt his muscles clench beneath my palm and I dug my fingers in slightly.

  Leaning in toward Brooks, I reached over his arm, purposefully brushing my breast against his bare skin, and grabbed his Jack and Coke and took a drink. I made a face and handed it back. “That’s disgusting,” I sputtered, licking my lips in a slow, exaggerated gesture. I was being shameless. But I was committed to throwing myself into a good time with my very available friend if it killed me.

  Brooks laughed, his face looking almost pained. He placed his hand on top of mine. For just a moment, he lingered, and it felt strange. I didn’t understand what I was doing or why I was doing it. But I did know that for right now, that horrible emptiness inside of me had disappeared.

  I tried not to feel embarrassed when Brooks lifted my hand and placed it carefully on my own leg. He didn’t move away, but he didn’t touch me again, and I felt myself flush in silent mortification.

  “Brooks—” I began, but he cut me off.

  “You think they’d play ‘Cinnamon Girl’ if I asked them to?” Brooks had gone back to bobbing his head in time to the music.

  I looked at him and knew exactly what he was doing. He was giving me my out so that I wouldn’t feel weird about whatever strange pickup move I had just attempted on him. I wanted to be ashamed, but there was something about Brooks that wouldn’t let me be.

  “Maybe. But do you think your ears can handle the massacre of your favorite song? Because that dude up there ain’t no Neil Young,” I said, moving past my discomfort.

  “Let’s go ask. Come on.” Brooks hopped down from his stool and headed toward the stage. He took my hand and tugged me through the crowd. We were able to convince the wannabe rockers to play “Cinnamon Girl,” and then we were dancing. Very, very badly. Because dancing and Neil Young ballads didn’t really work.

  I remembered seeing Brooks dance with Courtney at Compulsion and thinking how horrible his moves were, even in a place where style and technique weren’t required. But I didn’t care. Because we were having fun.

  Renee and Iain joined us, and even though they danced with us in a group, I could see the way they turned toward each other. Iain was smitten, and it was obvious that Renee was losing the battle to not be smitten in return. Things were pretty freaking awesome.

  And then it all went to shit.

  My phone started buzzing in my pocket and I looked around at my friends, knowing they were the only people who ever called me. I pulled it out and looked down at the screen in the dim lighting and frowned at the unfamiliar number. It was local, but not one that I recognized. I hit ignore and shoved it back into my pocket, thinking it must be a wrong number.

  “Who was it?” Brooks asked.

  I shrugged. “No clue,” I said as he swung me aro
und in a circle. I laughed, feeling the threads of something that felt distinctly like happiness curl around me.

  Then my phone started buzzing again.

  I pulled it out of my pocket and saw the same number flash across the screen.

  “Maybe you should answer it. It might be important if they keep calling,” Brooks said.

  “Yeah, okay. I’ll just go outside for a minute. See if they’ll play some Backstreet Boys when they’re finished,” I said, grinning, knowing Brooks’s aversion to all things pop.

  “Never!” he yelled as I started to push my way through the crowd.

  My phone stopped buzzing and I waited to see if whoever was trying to reach me would leave me a message. I paused by the back entrance to the bar, staring down at my phone, feeling strangely apprehensive. Then it lit up again as the number blazed across the screen. I walked out the back door and into the cool night air, feeling some of the alcohol haze clear.

  “Hello?” I said, sounding a little out of breath. There was an endless moment in which no one said anything and I wondered whether I was right and it was a wrong number.

  And then the person spoke and I wished like hell I had never picked up the damn phone in the first place. Followed by the inevitable self-loathing for thinking that at all.

  “Hey, Aubrey,” Maxx said quietly, though I could hear him as clearly as if he were standing next to me.

  I didn’t say anything.

  I couldn’t say anything.

  I wanted to ask him where he was. To demand answers to the questions that had been plaguing me. I wanted to yell at him, to know why he was ruining the first night in forever where I was actually feeling normal. A thousand uncontrollable emotions flashed their way through my mind, flittering in and out before I could figure out what I was actually feeling. Though I recognized homicidal rage and bone-deep desire mixed up with the rest.

  “Are you there?” Maxx asked, sounding small and unsure. I leaned against the wall, needing it to hold me up before I fell.

  “I’m here,” I answered. The weight of those words was not lost on me. Nor how much of a lie they really were.

  “Oh, well, that’s cool. I thought you might have hung up. Not that I’d blame you,” Maxx said, clearly nervous. We fell into silence like we had so many times before. But there was nothing comfortable about this quiet. The heaviness of unspoken words pulled us both down. What did he want me to say to that? Did he want me to disagree with him? Because that wasn’t going to happen.

  I had every right to hang up on him. Just as he had every right to be angry with me. We both had a right to be a twisted, complicated mess of angry, bitter, and hurt feelings. But instead I felt this sad sort of numbness, as though all of my emotions had been bled out of me.

  I looked around the dingy alleyway behind the bar and thought of how much it looked like the place where Jayme had been found. What a strange time to think about that. But of course I thought about her as I heard Maxx’s voice for the first time in weeks. They had become intricately twined together in my mind. The loss of each merging together until it was hard to differentiate one from the other.

  “What do you want, Maxx?” was all I could manage to say. I sank to the ground, my head falling back and connecting with the concrete behind me as I slumped against the wall. The sharp bite of gravel underneath my legs cleared the last of the alcohol from my head.

  “I just needed to hear your voice. I wanted to know how you were doing. I hoped you’d want to know how I was. I’m in rehab, you know. I decided to check myself in. Just like you wanted me to.” The relief that I felt at his words was violent and almost painful. Maxx was in rehab. This is what I had hoped he’d do.

  I wanted to cry. I wanted to shout out in jubilation. And I wanted to run far away from the momentary elation his admission brought me. Because while I was glad to find out the reason for his prolonged absence, I was also scared that this inopportune phone call would completely throw me.

  “So how are you, Aubrey? I think about you every second of every day. I miss you,” he breathed out softly.

  He missed me. Why were my traitorous lips smiling at his confession? I blanked my face and then sighed, feeling the prick of anger take the place of irrational pleasure at hearing his voice again. “Do you want me to lie and say I’ve been great? That I’ve taken up yoga and have finally finished that crossword puzzle I had been struggling with?” I spat out, my voice layered in bitter sarcasm.

  Maxx chuckled nervously. “No, I want you to tell me the truth,” he said, sounding less and less like the confident man I had known before. I thought back to that day months ago when I had first seen him. He had been a force of nature. Magnetic and irresistible. A man who was self-assured and in control.

  And while I had been drawn to his confidence, it was his vulnerability that had made me fall in love with him. That very same vulnerability that was now coming through the phone.

  I should hang up.

  I shouldn’t sit here on the dirty ground listening to his sad voice and feeling the way my heart flipped over in my chest.

  But I couldn’t get over the fact that I felt as though I owed him something. That after everything he had been through, he needed some sort of compassion from me after I had refused to stay by his side.

  But that didn’t mean I couldn’t give him a taste of exactly what he had put me through.

  “The truth is, Maxx, things suck. Does that make you feel better?” I asked coldly.

  “No, it doesn’t, Aubrey,” Maxx said quietly, and the sound of my name on his tongue made me shudder involuntarily. “I hate that I’ve made things worse for you. I hate that you wouldn’t give me the chance to prove to you that I can make things better.” He didn’t sound angry or upset. He just sounded resigned, and that was almost worse.

  I swallowed back the tears that I wouldn’t allow to fall. I stared up at the streetlight until my eyes burned. I bit my lip so it wouldn’t tremble and I wouldn’t speak until I was sure I could do so without wobbling.

  “I can’t do this, Maxx. I told you before that I can’t. I’m not sure what you’re looking for from me, by calling after all this time, but I can tell you I can’t give it. I won’t.” I sounded so sure. So steady. It was all a goddamned lie.

  “Is this some sort of ‘making amends’ assignment? Because I can assure you it’s not necessary.” I sounded hard and unforgiving. Which I knew was the last thing he needed, given what he was undoubtedly experiencing. But I also knew that if I opened myself up to him, that if I showed him a moment’s kindness, that it would be a quick and ferocious fall right back to where I was a few short weeks ago. And I just couldn’t do that to myself.

  The back door of the bar opened and Brooks poked his head out. He raised his eyebrows when he saw me sitting on the cold ground, my phone pressed to my ear. I could only imagine what my face looked like.

  “You okay?” he mouthed. I forced myself to smile and nod my head. I covered the phone with my hand.

  “I’ll be back inside in a minute. Order me another beer, would ya?” I said, trying to act normal and unaffected.

  Brooks, of course, wasn’t fooled. He took a step out into the alleyway. “Who are you talking to?” he asked, a little louder this time.

  “Aubrey, are you still there?” Maxx’s voice danced into my ear, bouncing around in my head.

  I removed my hand from the receiver. “Yeah, just hang on a sec,” I told him a bit tersely before turning back to Brooks.

  “Just my mom,” I whispered to my friend, rolling my eyes and affecting a grimace.

  Brooks pulled a face. “Ugh, sorry. I’ll order you two beers,” he said with a smile that I really appreciated right then.

  I gave him a thumbs-up as Brooks left me alone.

  “Look, I’ve got to go,” I said, returning to Maxx, who had waited silently on the other end.

  “Who was that?” he asked quietly, and I recognized the tone clearly. He was jealous. And hurt. And there was a hint of
betrayal as well. Which pissed me off.

  “That was Brooks, all right? Not that I should have to explain that to you,” I replied grumpily.

  “Oh, your friend. Right,” Maxx said, sounding relieved.

  “Well, if you’re finished asking about my social life, I really need to go,” I said, wanting to get off the phone. And also not wanting to get off the phone. I wanted to run away and I wanted to stay exactly where I was.

  Which had always been the strange dichotomy of my feelings for Maxx. He instigated a swirling, manic sort of confusion that consumed me.

  I was trying really hard to be a woman who could learn from her mistakes. Not dive headfirst back into them.

  I had also hoped that three weeks would harden my heart a bit more than they had.

  “Aubrey, please. I know this will sound incredibly selfish, and I know you will probably say no, but I want to see you. I want to look at you and tell you how sorry I am. I need to see you and know that I didn’t ruin everything.” His words were a plea that was incredibly hard to resist.

  His request both shocked and thrilled me.

  I couldn’t see him. It would undo everything I was fighting so hard to rebuild.

  What would be the point of reopening wounds that were only just now starting to heal? I was walking on this path with a clear and distinct destination. And as things stood, there was no place for Maxx Demelo in Aubrey Duncan’s new world order.

  But . . .

  Ugh! There it was . . . the doubt. The second-guessing. The brief hesitation and unwillingness to say no.

  He’s doing exactly what you wanted him to do. How can you punish him for that? the obnoxiously romantic girlie voice inside of me trilled loudly.

  You’re making a life for yourself without him. Don’t let Maxx derail you now that you’ve finally made peace with your disastrous choices! the stern, rational voice yelled, drowning out my other arguments.

  “I know you made your decision . . . but it doesn’t change how I feel about you. It doesn’t change the fact that I have a hole in my heart where you belong. I miss you. I just . . . I want to see you. Just to say a proper good-bye, I guess.”