Chapter 14- Coming Clean

I sighed and started. "You know that my family was poor, I have told you that. I wouldn't go back because I don't miss fighting to just survive. My father hated his life and chose to drink and take it out on my brother and I. We went to school covered in bruises on many occasions. I watched him stab my brother with a fork once."

McCoy covered his face and sighed. "Didn't your brother try to protect you? Where was your mother?"

"My mother worked her ass off at a factory making minimum wage, so I never really saw her. My brother was all I had, but he and I were very different. He was a happy go lucky kind of guy and I had always been quiet and smart, but stubborn. He tried to figure out how to please my father so he wouldn't get beat, but I didn't care. My attitude was go ahead and swing away until you are tired because it won't matter, it won't change me a bit. My brother was 5 years older than me, so he moved out at 17 leaving me there alone. I don't blame him, I would have too."

"Did it get worse?" He asked tensely.

"I lived with it for another 4 years. Then, when I was 16 I fought back for the first time. All along I just passively let him wail away, but I had enough. Of course I lost terribly, but I still felt like I won because it shook him up. He left me alone for about 6 months and then it started again, so I ran away. If I stayed I know I would have killed him in self defense."

He nodded slowly. It was a bitter admission, but he seemed to understand. "Where did you go?"

"The odd thing was I wanted to stick around the area to finish school. So I would go to class during the day and sleep on the street at night, but it was dangerous. At the time there were only two ways to make money: prostitution or sell drugs. There was no way I was going to turn tricks; I saw way too many women with scars from attacks by johns. So, I sold drugs to the most willing market: my classmates. I did enough business to rent a cheap room in a sleazy hotel, it was nasty but better than sleeping on the street."

He blinked his eyes slowly no doubt trying to imagine what that life was like. He couldn't have grasped the fear, guilt and loneliness of that world even if he tried. "And all this time your family never looked for you?"

"It was one less mouth to feed and my brother didn't know what was going on because he lived out of state working as a mechanic. I certainly wasn't going to tell him that I had jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. As often happens there comes a time when you start testing your own product when you realize what a hellhole your life has become. I sold just about everything, but you can learn a lot about an addict by their drug of choice. Mine was stimulants: cocaine, crystal meth, ecstasy. I would do others if it was all I had, but it wasn't my preference. It got to the point that I was high most of the time, but I was still able to get my school work done."

He hung his head and massaged the bridge of his nose. "That's why you don't like taking medications." He sighed. His voice was full of regret as though he should have known it all along or perhaps his mind reading ability had somehow failed him.

"Yeah, better safe than sorry." I replied. "It was all going pretty well until I got robbed by three guys who jumped me on the way home from school. I knew that when you play the game it entails the possibility of being arrested or robbed, but I didn't think it would happen to me. I was not your typical dealer, so I didn't think I would be targeted."

His head jerked up. "What happened?" He was as concerned as though it happened yesterday, not forever ago.

"I don't really know, I woke up in the hospital with a fractured cheekbone and some broken ribs. Of course the staff had to alert the police who found out I was living alone and on top of that, one of my buyers tipped them off so I was arrested for possession with the intent to distribute. I was made a ward of the state on my 17th birthday and held in a juvenile detention center until my court date. When I went to court, the judge had pity on me because I was a first time offender and I was still attending school. She sentenced me to rehab and the remainder of my time in a foster home with the stipulation that I report to a probation officer and take random drug tests."

"Did you manage to stay clean?" He asked quietly.

"Clean as in I didn't take drugs because there was no way in hell I was going to violate my sentence and be thrown into juvenile jail until I turned 21. But did I keep selling? Yes, until I was 19."

"Why did you stop?" He inquired.

I smiled and laughed. "It was the strangest thing. I got busted by a vice cop for selling $20 worth of meth to him and that should have been an automatic 5 year prison sentence. He remembered seeing me at my court appearance for my prior arrest when he was a bailiff. He asked if I finished school and I did, so he gave me my bag of meth back. He told me he would make a deal with me: if I enrolled in college courses at least half time within two weeks he would forget the whole thing. If not, he could find me pretty easily and I would be off to the big house and have a girlfriend named Butch." McCoy chuckled. "So I went back to my squalled little room I lived in that used to be an abandoned crack house. I looked around and asked myself if my life was any better than the one I left. I decided that I couldn't live like my family did nor did I want to end up beaten, raped, or murdered if I kept going the way I was. So, I signed up for some psych classes."

"What happened to the policeman?" He asked sitting up in his chair.

"Officer Mike." I smiled at his memory. "He checked in every once in awhile. He was the only one that came to my graduation. All of them, actually. Then he was killed in the line of duty by a crack head during a traffic stop." I sighed heavily at the waste. "It was hard for me not to be angry. I often wondered if that guy knew what he was doing when he killed him. He couldn't have known that Officer Mike was a good guy who helped me and who knows who else."

"Well, I would say that his death was tragic, but he left behind a hell of a legacy." McCoy smiled. "Sounds like he was a big part of who you are. You might have done all the work, but he had to give you a kick in the ass to get you moving in the right direction."

"Yeah, well. There you have it. Now you know the big secret." I mumbled. I just knew he would never look at me the same way again. How could he? Who wants to work and sit next to a former junkie?

He reached out and grabbed my arm with a firm grip. "Hey, I know that was tough for you to admit to. Believe me, it was tough to hear, but I am glad you trusted me enough to finally open up. I am just sorry you had to live like that."

"I'm not." I shrugged. "It is all part of who I am. I am not necessarily proud of what I did, but I learned a lot about self reliance, redemption, and recovery."

He nodded appreciatively. "I will have to be more careful to respect your wishes regarding meds in the future, but don't think that you have to suffer. There are non-addictive meds I can prescribe. Thanks for telling me so we can maybe work together on your health needs."

I paused and summoned up the courage to ask, "Please tell me the truth. Knowing what you know now, does that change anything for you?"

He squinted while he thought about it. "Yeah, it does." He finally answered with a decisive nod. "Now I can see where that strength and determination comes from. Now it makes sense how you have largely been able to adapt to what has happened to you both in terms of being slingshot into the future, being held by the Romulans and the Klingons, and the way you are able to read a situation and react so calmly. It also explains why you are so reluctant to let anyone get close to you and why your 'boundaries' are so damn important to you- they keep everyone out. What I still can't figure out is how then you can still do your job with such compassion when almost everyone you knew kicked you in the teeth. I sure as hell wouldn't be so forgiving."

"You asked about my childhood and that sucked. But as an adult, I began to see that life may not always be fair and I may have had to fight for everything I had, but in the end it made me a better, stronger, more resourceful person. Even if at times I didn't feel that I deserved to live the life I had because of my past, I still enjoyed it and I even found love for a time. My worldview was starting to change and I began to see the world in fluid rather than static terms. That is what I meant when I told you that you met me at a very strange time in my life." I smiled.

"As far as it changing the way I see you as a professional, no it doesn't." He winked. "We all have skeletons in the closet, no one is perfect and you shouldn't expect yourself to be either."

I gave a small nod and we lapsed into silence, listening to the rain wash away the dirt and grime of the outside world to make it clean again.