CASSIDY
I only get a block away from the bar before the reality of the evening hits me...
Fuck!
My stomach begins to roll as I realize what I've done, the sensation is all too familiar...I've fucked up once again.
Like a drunk waking up after a major bender, in my memory I'm doing things, saying things, I don't feel like I was really present for... but there's no denying this evening...
And as I would after a drunken binge, I battle to keep the contents of my stomach in place...
I can't claim to have put no thought into the visit to Barba...it was all I could think of, since I heard about Reggie's confession. But I never made a decision to go to the DA and tell him...that...
Not truly...
I wanted to make the lawyer understand what the kid was living with...what he would be dealing with, for so, so, long...
I needed to fix what I had caused, by my inability to control my mouth, and my long buried emotions... but I wouldn't...I couldn't say... it...
And then, as I have done so many times before, I just jumped in headfirst...hoping the things I couldn't deal with, but couldn't escape from, would just magically resolve themselves by running my mouth.
Even as I stepped up to him, I didn't really intend to tell Barba...
I expected him to be pissed at me...Fuck! I caused a mistrial! And even by my low standards, that's an all-time record... but the undisguised hatred he leveled at me as he listed off my fuck-ups... was shocking.
I did what I always do; I mouthed off... "Fire me then..."
It wasn't what I intended to say...it wasn't even what I wanted to say... I'm not sure if this defense method of firing first, was always part of who I am, or if it developed...after...
But then, the truth just spilled out... the thoughts that had filled my mind, started to burst out of my mouth...I didn't quite say ...it...at first...but still, talking to a man like him, I gave myself away long before I finally admitted it. Saying "it was my Little League coach" was the final confirmation... and it meant I never had to say the words I have spent a lifetime avoiding, whilst still disclosing my truth...
In that exchange with the DA, I felt myself do all the little things I've always worked so hard to avoid...all those little non-verbal 'tells'... victim tells...
My whole demeanor changed, and I allowed the vulnerability of my 12 year old self, the kid who is still there, to show all too clearly.
I've spent so much of my life covering it up...hiding those tells so carefully behind bluster, behind aggression, behind being such an insufferable dick, that no one ever suspected...
It is a night of ghosts, as I remember that's not quite true...the mask has slipped before...I remember back to a day almost a lifetime ago, when the tears could no longer be held back. I hadn't been in SVU very long, I was determined not to show my weakness, I had planned I would just distance myself from what had happened to the 'vic'...after all it wasn't the same...there was no comparison between what had happened to me, and SVU's cases...but even with my best efforts, the emotions I tried to deny were way too similar; the pain, the betrayal, the guilt of the victims SVU dealt with...they were all too familiar to me.
When Cragen called me into his office and gave me the assignment to go speak to one of his "old" victims, I felt that maybe I had hidden my struggles well, that he trusted me, that I could make SVU work...but as I watched the tape he gave me, understood what had brought her to unit at the age of nine...it shattered me.
I was still deeply in denial...telling myself my captain didn't know, he had no suspicions about me, it was merely coincidence... But after I heard , from her, what she had been through for a second time...not just gang-rape, but being further assaulted by a supposed Good Samaritan...the effects I had been trying to hide, for too long, were all too evident when I tried to report to my boss...
When he pulled the bottle and glass out, I knew that my pretense had already failed abysmally... I remember wiping away tears as I tried to recount her experiences, while my commanding officer looked at me with undisguised sympathy, as he carefully swallowed down his own emotions.
He didn't ask, not then, not ever, I guess he didn't need to, he just offered up a transfer, which I grabbed...I needed to get away, I couldn't deal with everything that SVU brought up for me. I didn't try to fight him, I just asked "Where?". His last words have stuck with me all this time "It wouldn't be like this, Brian...". It was like he understood there were no words that would truly describe all I was feeling, and wrestling with...
I don't think I ever admitted why I was leaving, not even to myself...I remember telling my partner, Munch, that I was still embarrassed buying condoms in a drugstore, how could I work sex crimes...?
I still sometimes wonder about the 16 year old girl that broke down the last of my defenses...I wonder how she is doing?
Just like the day I left SVU, I feel like I have let myself down...that I am weak...
I had no intention of bringing my long hidden, personal experiences to light...but as with that day in Cragen's office, today, there was no real plan to reveal myself. It just happened...my defenses were stretched too thin to hold out for one second longer...
If I'm honest though, my carefully guarded façade started to fail when I lost it on the stand; the perp was too familiar, he reminded me too much... It wasn't Detective Cassidy on that stand, it was the kid Brian, battling with his shame, his guilt, his fear that what happened made him less of a man even before he had left his childhood. I was afraid I would give myself away, and I let my long honed defenses take over, I went on the offense... completely ruining any chance of a guilty verdict for all those kids, and their devastated families.
I don't know what I expected the smart mouthed DA to say to my thinly veiled admission...to the reluctant explanation of my inexcusable behavior on the stand...but it wasn't "Olivia didn't tell me".
If I had any chance of controlling my mouth, that was it gone... it wasn't the sympathetic look that accompanied his words; or the implied request for confirmation he was understanding me correctly; it was his immediate instinct to let me know that Olivia had kept my secret...even from him, that decimated my shields.
There were so many times, I had considered telling her. Especially after Lewis...
The day I surprised her, and she pulled a gun on me, I pried it from her shaking hand, her emotions were so raw, she just cried into my chest as I held her, and she tried to apologize in between wracking sobs ... When I brushed aside her weeping words, she thought I didn't understand her over-vigilance, her seemingly irrational fear...she couldn't know how intimately familiar I was with them.
There were so many of those occasions, in those early weeks...so many times that she felt I couldn't understand how she was feeling, and I was never able to open up to her. And once the first opportunity was ignored, it got harder and harder, to then turn around and tell her the truth.
Would it sound like I was diminishing her experiences by equating them with mine?
Would it sound insincere, like a ploy to show false understanding?
Would she question my account after so much silence?
Would she even believe me?
I wish I could claim my reticence was because she never really shared her experiences with me, but I was just selfish. I didn't want the woman I loved to look at me the way she looks at her victims...
Despite knowing that she would never judge someone for being sexually assaulted, the fear that I would be less of a man in her eyes...I couldn't risk it.
Maybe that was part of what finally pushed us apart...
I desperately want to avoid being one of those people who blames all their personal defects on a bad experience. I don't want to be someone who carefully collects all my grievances, curating them and molding them into a 'get out of jail card' for any of my own bad behavior. I don't want a bad childhood experience, well, a few of them...to define me... But it does, in so many ways...
Sometimes, on a bad day, I sit on the side of my bed wondering what I did to attract him? I was a kid... in my head, I know I can't be held responsible...but I feel like I should have been more manly...fought him off... I never should have let it happen...Isn't that what a man does? A man, doesn't let anyone do something like that...
And then when it had happened the first time, I should have done something, anything...but I was almost more afraid of my father, my family, my friends, finding out. I would rather risk anything than let the other kids know how soft I was... I'm sure it wasn't only in my head, I'm sure I heard it said somewhere..."Men don't get raped..."
It seems ridiculous, but as time went on, and I frantically hid it from my dad, I started to believe he would reject me, if he ever found out. I thought he would be disgusted at me...that he would disown a son who was anything but the "Big Guy" he thought he was raising.
When he found out, and kicked the crap out of the coach, I'm still not sure if I was more relieved it was over, or that my Dad didn't wash his hands of me...
We never really talked about it much after. Dad handled the problem, I was safe, and he never really asked how I let it happen.
I tried to hide the effects, always afraid that if my Dad knew the whole story, he would be disgusted by me, that he would think that I wanted it, enjoyed it... that I was gay...
I coped the only way I knew how...I started getting aggressive, fighting, being what I thought a strong man was...I was never going to be anyone's victim again.
And maybe when I didn't tell Olivia, all those times when she thought I couldn't understand...I was still fighting not to be seen as a victim...
I've always found relationships hard... It's hard to be open when you're hiding so much...but with Olivia, I tried...she was the best woman I had ever had. I wanted to spend my life with her. But when we had a pregnancy scare, I realized how much she wanted kids... and I couldn't do it...not even for her...
She is so amazing...with everything she has been through, everything she has seen...she can still see the good in the world. But I can't, I don't want to bring a kid into this...I wouldn't be a good father... Hell, I can't even look after myself!...
I don't know if finding out what I hid from her, would help her understand me better, or if it would just make her hate me more...but the time for grappling with the question of whether or not to tell her, has long passed. The decision was inadvertently made long ago... in every hesitation, in every silence.
It is only in that moment, that I realize I have just laid bare my secret to the man she loves, her partner...and I never asked him not to tell her...
I don't even have the self-awareness to worry about how crazy I must look, standing in the street with tears rolling down my face.
I debate going back to the bar, where I know they are most likely still sitting... but what would I say?
Should I call her, try to explain, try to mitigate the huge betrayal of not telling her myself?
Should I try to tell her, before he can divulge my closest held truth?
Should I call him and plead with him to maintain the confidence he never agreed to keep?
Before I can even really consider claiming he misunderstood, I remember the damage I caused on the stand; leaving West's victims without justice because of my lack of self-control...this time I can't run away. I can't claim the DA misconstrued my words; I need the man to clean up some of my mess...
I'm just going to have to deal with whatever happens...
The rolling in my stomach has intensified, and chills pass through my body as I breathe deeply, trying to keep calm.
I'm backed into a corner, I'm terrified... so I head into the nearest familiar bar, promising myself only a couple of drinks...just enough to take away these feelings, to quiet the fear...
Picking up my first drink, I swallow down the knowledge that this is just Cassidy-the-fuck-up, along with the burning alcohol...