My curiosity got the better of me, and I made my way over to the crowd. Shouldering my way through the group, I was confused by what I saw—more particularly, by why it was creating such a reaction.

I tilted my head, trying to make out the detailed picture that had been spray-painted onto the brick. A massive hand was holding a grip of figures meant to be people. Some were screaming, some appeared to be laughing, and others were falling to the ground, a mass of flailing limbs, as they jumped from the grasping, God-like fingers. The picture had been painted in vivid reds and oranges, and the people were outlined in thick bands of black.

Beneath the picture in sweeping block letters was the word Compulsion followed by a series of numbers.

It was definitely impressive, for graffiti. I just couldn’t understand why people were staring at it as though it held the meaning of the freaking universe.

I turned to the two girls standing beside me. They were talking in excited whispers, pointing at the painting. “I don’t get it,” I said blandly, arching an eyebrow.

The girl closer to me looked shocked. “X did this,” she replied, as though that would explain everything.

“X?” I asked, feeling like I had missed an important lesson on college cultural relevance. From the way the two girls were staring at me, I might as well have a damned L tattooed on my forehead. Look at me! I’m the loser who has no appreciation for spray paint on a wall!

“Uh, yeah,” the second girl said, over-enunciating her words as though she was talking to a total idiot. Apparently, I was the idiot in this situation.

“He leaves these pictures for everyone to find. You know, to help people find where Compulsion will be over the weekend. You can tell it was him. See the line of tiny Xs in the drawing along the back of the hand,” girl number one answered, with just enough nastiness to make me want to slap her.

But again, my curiosity got the better of me, and I overlooked her huge case of bitchitis. “What the hell is Compulsion?” I asked, throwing a little of my own bitchiness into the question.

“Are you kidding? Have you been living under a rock for the last decade?” a guy snorted from behind me. Bitch One and Bitch Two snickered, and I gave them a look that was meant to shut them up but only prompted simultaneous eye rolling.

I looked over my shoulder and tried my look of death on my newest ridiculer. The guy had the sense to take a step back and drop his sneer.

“Uh, it’s just that Compulsion is the biggest underground club in the state. Finding the location in the painting is part of the mystery. It’s like a real-life urban legend,” the guy explained.

I looked back at the picture, clearly not seeing what I was supposed to. I wished I could share in everyone’s enthusiasm. Their anticipation was tangible.

The girls pulled out their cell phones and started punching the numbers into their GPS. As people figured out the super-mysterious location, there were shrieks and whoops of excitement.

Normally I didn’t think too much about how much I had missed in my single-minded focus to become Aubrey Duncan, super student.

But right now, surrounded by people who clearly had way more excitement in their lives than I did, I felt like I had forgotten about some necessary steps in the whole growing-up-and-experiencing-life thing.

Ugh, this was too deep for a Friday night. There were reruns of Judge Judy on the TiVo calling my name.

“Good luck,” I told the less-than-friendly group before pushing my way back through the crowd.

I headed off campus and walked the two blocks to my empty apartment. The loneliness that greeted me was more pronounced than it had ever been before.

And for the first time in years, I hated it.

chapter

two

aubrey

normally organizing, categorizing, and putting things in their place was all I needed to go to my warm, happy place. Forget mood stabilizers. If I was depressed, just give me a dustrag and sixty minutes to declutter. Sure, my room looked like something out of OCD-R-Us, but it was that small semblance of control that helped me get through the day.

Renee, back when we could talk about more than whether it was T-shirt or sweater weather, would tease me about having my shoes lined up in perfect rows. She used to fuck with my almost obsessive need to have my desk laid out in completely symmetrical piles. My pens and highlighters, an exact number of each, were sitting just so in my green Longwood University mug. My laptop was placed at an exact midpoint between my Texas Instruments graphic calculator and my leather-bound daily planner.

Okay, so maybe I took the whole neat and tidy thing a bit too far. But I liked knowing where things were. I liked knowing what to expect when I walked into my room. Surprises sucked. Being blindsided, whether in a good or a bad way, put me on edge, and it didn’t take a PhD to figure out why.

Too much of my past had been dictated by things beyond my control. One tiny twist of fate, and I had been catapulted into a scary oblivion that I was still trying to claw my way out of.

But if there was one thing Aubrey Duncan did well, it was surviving. Whatever it cost me, I put one foot in front of the other and kept on walking. There wasn’t any other option for me.

“You really need to get in the habit of locking your front door. What if I was a robber here to swipe all of your 90210 DVDs,” a voice called, startling me out of my mission to get the dust bunnies out from underneath my bed.

I slithered out from under the mattress on my stomach and peered up at the good-looking guy with the dark brown hair who was dominating the doorway.

“I keep those under lock and key, Brooks, you know better than that,” I answered, blowing my hair out of my face and wiping a grubby hand across my forehead. I was pretty sure I looked like something pulled out of a ditch. Fortunately for me, Brooks Hamlin wasn’t someone I felt the need to impress.

“Shit, you’re cleaning your room again? Aubrey, this is bordering on clinical, you know.” Brooks shook his head, his green eyes sparkling in amusement.

I smirked as I got to my feet. “Is that your professional diagnosis?” I asked, wiping my hands down the front of his perfectly pressed shirt. Brooks made a face and playfully pushed me away.

Brooks and I were both in the counseling program, though Brooks was a year older and set to graduate in just a few months. Back at the beginning of our acquaintance, I had made the mistake of sleeping with him. More than once.

Brooks was cute and smart and everything I should have looked for in a guy. He checked each and every box. We started dating a couple years ago after we’d shared an Abnormal Psychology class. I was the wide-eyed, freaked-out freshman; he had been the more confident and suave sophomore. But mostly, our relationship was the result of my pathetic need to connect. And I had been convinced that opening my legs was the perfect solution for my emotional isolation. I had been lonely.

A date here and there had eventually progressed to frequent fucking. But then feelings got involved. More specifically, Brooks’s feelings, and the whole thing had gotten entirely too messy. I liked Brooks, truly I did, but my heart hadn’t been in it the way his had been. The truth of it was that it wasn’t just Brooks. Because my heart was never in it . . . with anybody. It was as though the organ was permanently disengaged from the rest of my body.

So I had ended it as gently as I was able to. Brooks had taken it well; kudos to the healthy male ego. And we had, surprisingly, become close friends in the aftermath. I still caught him looking at my boobs more often than I would have liked, but I chose to ignore it.

Brooks handed me a slim paper bag. I peered inside and grinned. “Why, Brooks, are you planning to get me drunk?” I teased, heading out into the hallway, closing my bedroom door behind me.

Brooks chuckled. “Nah, just figured you’d want to break up your wild and crazy evening of alphabetizing the soup cans in the pantry.”

I pulled two glasses out of the cabinet and unscrewed the bottle of vodka. Brooks found a carton of orange juice in the refrigerator and set it on the counter. I mixed our drinks while he found a bag of potato chips and dumped them into a bowl.

“I hadn’t gotten that far yet,” I admitted, following my friend out into the tiny living room. The space was cramped, yet homey. It held a worn-to-the-point-of-ugliness love seat and armchair and a circular coffee table. There was just enough room to walk between the furniture on your way into the kitchen without smacking your knees.

Sure, the couch smelled like feet and the table had mismatched legs, but I held each and every piece in an affectionate regard. Renee had called our interior design “Goodwill chic.” I liked it because it was mine. Just mine.

“Is Renee out?” Brooks asked, making himself comfortable in the armchair before reaching for his drink. I curled my legs beneath me on the couch and sipped at my cocktail.

“Well, she’s not hiding in the closet,” I joked, making a face as the alcohol hit my tongue. Way too much vodka, not enough orange juice. Shit, if I wasn’t careful I’d be falling on the floor after three sips.

“Is she with Captain Douche?” Brooks asked, making me snort.

“Where else would she be?” I responded, knowing I sounded annoyed.

“What’s with that guy? He seems like the sort to tear the wings off butterflies for fun. What does she see in him?” Brooks asked around a mouthful of sour-cream-and-onion chips.