I flipped to the last page of the pile she had given me. There was a list of numbers, including the statewide hotline and a crisis number at the rehab facility. Christ, she acted as though my failing was inevitable. Which sort of pissed me off. Because there was that voice again telling me that itwasinevitable.
I’ll be there waiting for you. You can’t stay away from me forever.
I clenched my fists and worked on breathing through the sudden paralyzing apprehension. Maybe I should stay. Maybe I couldn’t do this.
I can do this! For Aubrey. For Landon. For myself.
I folded the paper and tucked it into my pocket and finished scribbling my signature on the required forms. When I was done, I handed them back to Stacey with what I hoped was a confident smile. “Thanks for everything,” I said, picking up my bag and getting to my feet.
“Don’t be afraid to admit you can’t handle things, Maxx. You can’t control addiction. Addiction controls you. The second you forget that, you’ve lost,” she said ominously, and I felt myself bristle defensively. But I didn’t bite her head off. Because her words were ones I had thought a thousand times already.
Stacey gave me a wan smile and shook her head. “I really hope we don’t see you again, Maxx.”
I chuckled. “Well, thanks,” I replied blandly.
Stacey patted my back. “If we don’t see you again, then that means you’re doing all right. I really hope you succeed, Maxx.”
“Thanks,” I said again, wanting to get the hell out of there as fast as my legs could carry me.
Stacey walked me toward the front door. Hal, the security detail on duty, handed me a bag with my cell phone and a set ofkeys, the things they had confiscated when I had checked myself in.
“Take care, Maxx,” Stacey said, holding the door open for me.
“You, too,” I replied, actually meaning it. I walked down the front steps and out into the driveway, where a cab waited to take me back to the real world. I slid into the backseat of the cab and gave the driver my address. He grunted in acknowledgment, and then we were driving away from Barton House and I refused to look back as we left.
I was ready to put that part of my life behind me.
I turned on my cell phone and it started to ding loudly in my hands. My screen lit up with a hundred texts and missed calls. Most of them from Marco and Gash.
Shit.
That was one piece of my world I wasn’t eager to have to deal with. Because I couldn’t go back there. That was obvious. It would be too easy to fall back into everything I had vowed to stay away from.
I was five minutes out of rehab and I was already hit with the strong urge to go back. Because fuck if Stacey wasn’t right. Itwasharder out here. Inside you could pretend these things didn’t exist. It made it easier to ignore the cravings. The desire to lose yourself all over again.
I erased every single text message without reading them. It felt good to do that. I thought about calling Landon, letting him know I was out of rehab. Maybe try to bridge that gap, but I didn’t think a phone call would erase the weeks of bad blood that had built up between us. And truthfully, I didn’t have it in me to be rejected all over again.
The cab pulled up in front of my apartment building. I gave him my last ten-dollar bill and got out, duffel bag in hand, and walked up the narrow steps to the place where I lived but had never really been a home.
I dreaded going inside, knowing it was probably a mess. I had been in a rush when I got out of the hospital. I had come home, grabbed some clothes, and left, checking into rehab before I lost the nerve. I unlocked the door and was hit by the smell of lemons.
Lemons?
I turned on the light and looked around in shock. I had never seen my apartment so clean. The floors had been swept and the furniture dusted. All of the clothes I remembered being strewn across the floor were gone and there were even pillows on my couch. I didn’t even realize Ihadpillows.
I dropped my bag and walked into my kitchen, where the shock continued. The dishes had been washed and put away. There were dishrags folded and hung on the hook by the stove. The cabinets had been scrubbed and the refrigerator gleamed white. Further inspection revealed that the rest of the apartment was the same. The bathroom was spotless, the tub had been cleaned, and the mold that had been a permanent fixture in the corners was gone. I could eat off the floor, it was so damn clean.
Only two people had a key to my apartment, and I was pretty sure my landlord wouldn’t have bothered to do all this. He gave new meaning to the termslumlord. No, this was Aubrey. She was the only person who would think to come here and do this.
I walked into my bedroom and knew instantly that I was right. All of my clothes had been washed and sat in the basket I didn’t even know that I owned. My sheets had been changed and the covers pulled up. And in the middle of the bed I could see the outline of an impression where someone had lain. I ran my hand along the concaved pillow, indented where her head had been. Aubrey had come into my apartment and cleaned it. Then she had lain down on my bed.
I kicked off my shoes and slowly lowered myself down on the exact spot where she had been. I pulled the pillow to my face and thought I could smell her there. I didn’t know when she had done this. It could have been weeks ago. Or it could have been yesterday. I wasn’t exactly sure what it all meant except that she had come into my apartment and made it a home.
It was no secret that I wasn’t much of a cleaner. And I was also aware of Aubrey’s OCD when it came to neatness. The knowledge that she had thought about me at some point to come in and do this gave me a hope I hadn’t felt in a while. As I lay on clean sheets and looked around my spotless bedroom, things suddenly didn’t appear so bleak.
I must have dozed off, because I woke up sometime later. The sky had turned dark and the only light came from the soft glow of the clock on my dresser. Hit by a desire that had become very familiar over the last few weeks, I jumped up and opened my closet, rooting around inside until I located a large container of sidewalk chalk. I didn’t bother trying to find my paints, knowing that I had used up the last of them before I had gone into rehab.
I looked for my car keys, finding them in the same spot I had left them. Driving my car after so long felt a bit like hanging out with an old friend. It was a piece of shit, but it wasmypiece of shit and I had a crazy love for the clunking of the engine and the squealing of the brakes, even if these meant that it needed some serious maintenance.
