I sighed, wishing I didn’t have to go into this right now when we were starting the process of mending our relationship.
“I was facilitating a support group on campus to work toward my volunteer hours. I became...involved...with a member of the group,” I admitted, figuring it was best to be up front rather than drag it out.
“Involved?” my mother questioned.
“Yes. As in we were together. He was my boyfriend.”
My parents digested that piece of information. I looked at them and waited for their attack. They looked concerned. Upset. But not appalled.
“Is this person still in the picture? What about Maxx? I thought he was your boyfriend?” my father asked, confused.
I took a deep breath. “Maxx is the guy, Dad.”
My parents recoiled a bit in shock.
“You’re still involved with him? What about the counseling program? What about your future?” my mother asked, seeming horrified.
“Maxxismy future, Mom. And as for the counseling program, I’m... I’m not sure that’s where I belong anyway.”
Just then, at the worst possible moment, the front door opened, and Maxx came in with a shopping bag.
He lifted his hand in a wave, recognizing the strange tension in the room. My mother gave him a tight smile, but my dad called him into the room.
Maxx gave me a questioning look.
“We were talking about my suspension,” I filled in, and Maxx tried to cover his look of panic.
“Oh,” he replied shortly.
“Please have a seat, young man,” my father said, and I found that I had missed his overprotectiveness. Because I could see as clear as day he was about to go papa bear on poor Maxx.
“Our daughter was just filling us in about your history. And we have to say, we’re very concerned. Are you aware what Aubrey is putting on the line by continuing your relationship?” Mom asked.
Maxx squared his shoulders and faced my parents. “I know that Aubrey is an amazing woman that I love with my whole heart. And while I know to most people our relationship doesn’t make any sense, to us, it does. I’m a better man because of your daughter, and I have to believe that if she is willing to take the risk by being with me, then I have to do everything I can to be worth it.”
God, I loved him.
There wasn’t much more to say after that, and my parents had reluctantly dropped the subject.
The next day, after breakfast with my parents, I had decided to give Maxx a tour of Marshall Creek. He had seemed more than ready to get out of my parents’ house for a few hours.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you smile so much... ever,” Maxx commented after I had shown him my high school and the church where Jayme and I had been baptized.
“I don’t think I’ve smiled this much since I was seventeen,” I admitted, turning in to the small parking lot of a tiny diner in the center of town. Maxx held the door open for me as I walked into Sunset Café, a Marshall Creek staple that had been slinging burgers and fries since the fifties.
After we grabbed a table, I looked up automatically at the chime of the bell above the door and noticed a tall, thin young man with dark hair to his shoulders walking in. He moved with a swagger that indicated total self-confidence.
He hadn’t changed.
Not in three years.
I hated him for it.
Because Blake Fields deserved to have the weight of his actions destroy his life the way they had destroyed my sister’s.
But there he was, looking healthy andalive.
God, I fucking loathed him.
