Brooks munched on his cookie and seemed to be mulling something over. “Why don’t you ever go out, Aubrey? I hope I didn’t ruin you for guys forever?” he teased, and I was relieved that he seemed less serious.

I snorted. “Yeah, after you I’ve started to rethink lesbianism,” I joked. The skin around Brooks’s eyes tightened, but his lips curved into a smile.

“Now, that would be such a waste,” he replied, and I chuckled a bit nervously.

“What’s up with that guy from your group? The one in the hall? He seemed kind of weird.” And here it was. The topic we had both been avoiding.

I cleared my throat and trained my eyes back on my notebook. “He’s just a guy. I don’t really know him,” I lied. My mind instantly flashed to him and me in the hallway last week. His hand stretching and pressing the most intimate parts of me, the look of wild desire on his face.

I crossed my legs in an effort to stave off the sudden warmth between my thighs at the memory of the foolish, extremely stupid, but mind-blowing things we had done. If I closed my eyes and concentrated, I could still feel his fingers moving inside me, his breath on my neck as I came.

Fuck.

“Really? Because the way he was looking at you was downright . . . proprietary,” Brooks said lightly, though I didn’t miss the underlying accusation or the flash of potent jealousy.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“What are you saying?” I asked defensively, not appreciating his insinuation, no matter how truthful it was.

Brooks’s eyes shifted away, and he looked ashamed. “Nothing, Aubrey. Forget I brought it up.”

I thought about pressing him. I wanted to hear his suspicions, and just maybe I could share what had happened with him. I hated the secrets. I hated the guilt. And most of all I hated the bone-crushing want that dampened my will. I needed to talk to someone about this dangerous place I found myself in with Maxx. I worried that I was entirely too close to making the worst mistake of my life.

I must have been experiencing early senility if I thought for one second that Brooks was the person I could confide in. Whatever our friendship was, seeing his face, pinched and unhappy, I knew that confessing my sins where Maxx Demelo was concerned was not wise.

The silence in the room was deafening. Neither of us said anything. You could taste our discomfort, and it was bitter on the tongue.

Brooks let out a noisy sigh. “Aubrey . . . ,” he began, but before he could finish his thought, the front door flew open and Renee hurried inside.

Brooks met my eyes in astonishment as we both took in the sight of my roommate. She was huddled in her black leather coat, her red hair matted down the sides of her face. Her head was bowed low as she shuffled into the apartment.

Her shoulders quivered, and I knew she was crying. She didn’t say a word as she dropped her purse on the floor and practically ran back to her room. Her door clicked softly as she disappeared behind it.

“What was that about?” Brooks asked, our earlier weirdness gone. I looked down the hallway, knowing that something was most definitely wrong.

“I don’t know, but I think I’d better go back there and find out,” I told him, getting to my feet, thankful, in a completely selfish way, for Renee’s timely entrance, whatever the reason.

Brooks grunted in frustration. “Don’t put on the white knight getup just yet. It’s probably just another slice of the Devon Keeton bullshit pie. You don’t need to get bogged down in that crap,” he warned me, and for the first time his dismissal of Renee irked me.

“Well, she’s still my friend, and I should check on her. I think you’d better head on out,” I said shortly, letting him know by my tone that I didn’t appreciate his comment.

Brooks frowned, knowing he’d pissed me off. “Look, Aubrey, I didn’t mean anything by what I said. But this is the same ol’ rodeo, you know. Don’t start thinking you can make this all better for her, because there are some people who don’t want the help. The sooner you realize that, the better off you’ll be,” he said angrily. I had to wonder whether it was Renee we were really talking about.

“Wow, that’s so compassionate of you, Brooks. Glad to see you’re going into the right profession,” I bit out. Brooks’s jaw clenched.

“Okay, well, I’ll just talk to you later,” he said, gathering his stuff. I instantly felt shitty. Whatever had been going on between us earlier didn’t change the fact that he had my best interests at heart. Always.

“Wait, Brooks . . . ,” I started, but he shook his head.

“Go see what’s up. I’ll talk to you later,” he said, not giving me the chance to make right whatever had gone wrong between us. It felt horrible.

So I did nothing. I let him leave and then turned down the hallway to see about Renee.

I knocked on her door. When she didn’t answer, I went on inside. She was curled up in a ball in the center of her bed. She hadn’t taken her shoes or her coat off. She looked as though she was trying to disappear inside herself.

In my mind, I flashed back to another time and another person who had been curled up as though she would fall apart if she let go.

I thought about the time I had gone into Jayme’s room a few months before she had died. Our rooms were beside each other, and I had heard her coming in hours after her curfew. Mom and Dad had been out of their minds with worry when she hadn’t come home at eleven like she was supposed to. They had been after me to go find her, but I had a huge research paper due on Monday, and I had convinced them she was just acting out in a stereotypical teenage rebellion. I had been the good girl. Jayme had been the wild one from the time she started her period.