Seriously . . . f**k . . . him.

“Get your shit together, Maxx. And do it for yourself, and for no one else. And then maybe I can learn to trust you again, trust myself to be with you. Because this”—I paused for a moment—“is wrong. This is unhealthy. And if you truly loved me, you’d see that.”

There, I had said my piece. What he chose to do with my words was on him.

Maxx must have sensed my finality because I could hear him start to cry again. “Don’t leave me,” he whispered.

I couldn’t do this anymore. If I listened to him begging any longer, all my conviction, all my strength, would evaporate, and I’d crawl back to him, broken and bleeding.

“I’ve got to go. I hope you get better. I really do,” I told him, my throat closing up over the words.

And then I hung up before he could say anything else. For good measure, I turned off my phone and dropped it into my bag.

My heart was wounded, but it wasn’t destroyed. I would recover from this, eventually. And I sincerely hoped that the day would come when Maxx would come back to me, healthy and whole.

But I couldn’t hinge my life on that. I had to go on.

And despite the emotional upheaval Maxx had unleashed on my life, I could never regret him. I hoped, in the future, when I looked back on our time together, I’d be able to look past the gut-twisting, heart-shattering wreckage and see everything that knowing him had done for me.

Because of him I had been opened to a side of myself I thought would never exist again.

Because of him I had learned to love with my whole heart.

Because of him I was stronger than I had ever been before.

I knew that in the next few weeks, when I was faced with the consequences of my choices, I would be sure that the path I took was the only one I could have traveled.

In the end—because of everything, rather than in spite of it—Maxx Demelo had been worth it.

Feeling a weight lift from my shoulders that I hadn’t realized I’d been carrying, I headed home. And when I opened the door to find Renee curled up on the couch, watching TV, I knew, without a doubt, that I’d be okay.

Out of the ashes I would rise to become something better.

And I would find the strength to go wherever my road would lead.

Epilogue

maxx

i stared down at the phone long after Aubrey ended the call. And long after there was nothing left but silence.

And all I loved, I loved alone.

Poe had been right. Loving was lonely.

I had really f**ked up this time.

She had left me.

I should have known it was only a matter of time.

Aubrey Duncan was entirely too good for a screwup like me.

But she loved me.

Finally, she had told me the words I had waited so long to hear.

Even though she had given them to me as she had ripped out my heart, I was still happy to hear them.

But then I remembered her other words, and I knew we were over. And the decisiveness of that almost undid me completely.

And now I was stuck in this shithole I called a life.

Aubrey had given me a glimpse of something better. Something good. Something clean. And I had craved it so much, but ultimately I had destroyed it.

And now here I was, laid up in a hospital room, lucky to be alive.

When the doctor had come around and explained the detox process, he had encouraged me to continue with treatment by going to rehab.

I had dismissed the idea outright. I didn’t need rehab. That shit was for junkies and losers.

I would be just fine. And I would do it on my own.

All I needed was Aubrey.

She’d help me. She’d get me through anything.

She was my savior.

But I didn’t have Aubrey.

She had made it clear she wouldn’t be there. That she couldn’t help me.

That I had to help myself.

Shit. Now what was I going to do?

Landon had been by earlier with my uncle. Neither one of them said much. I had expected David to be a dick, so no big surprise. But I hadn’t expected the stony silence from my kid brother.

It had ripped me in half to see an expression on his face I never thought I’d see.

Disappointment.

After Landon had left, I felt depressed. I was as low as I thought I could get.

I was wrong.

Because I had decided to call Aubrey.

I had been tormented with wondering why she hadn’t come to the hospital to see me. I had no idea she had been the one who had found me at the club and essentially saved my life.

And now she was gone.

My chest ached with a pain I was all too familiar with.

Grief.

The night after talking to Aubrey I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned and thought about the ways I could have done things differently. What I could have said to make her stay.

And in the early hours of the morning, I was hit with a clarity that comes only when you’ve lost everything.

So after forcing myself out of bed, I got dressed in the same clothes I had been admitted in. They hung loosely on my hips. I had lost weight in the week I had been in the hospital. Looking in the mirror at my hollow cheeks and sallow skin, I barely recognized the man looking back at me.

I hated him.

“I have your release paperwork here. You just need to read over everything and sign at the bottom,” the doctor said, coming into my room a short time later.

He held out the papers, waiting for me to take them.

This was the moment when I could change everything.

“Actually, I’d like to hear more about rehab.”