The Gritty Truth

by Melissa Foster

  His head dropped forward with relief, her words a salve to his newly opened wounds. He was so damn thankful, he gathered her in his arms, holding her as he hadn’t been able to moments earlier. She may send him away after she heard the rest, but he had this. He kissed the top of her head, and in a strained voice laden with too many conflicting emotions, he said, “Thank you.”

  They went upstairs, and as they stepped into her apartment, it felt completely different than last night, like even the room knew he should have told her everything yesterday.

  “Do you like iced tea? Or do you want water?”

  “Iced tea is great, thanks.” He set his helmet on the table by the door and hung up his jacket. As she got their drinks, he went to the couch where he’d lain her down last night, and more guilt swamped him. He was still standing there when she returned with their drinks.

  She set them on the coffee table and said, “Are you okay?”

  “No,” he said honestly. “I really should have told you all of this before we went so far last night.”

  “I understand.” She sat down and took his hand, pulling him down beside her. “I might not have told you about my accident yet if you hadn’t seen me dancing. Some things aren’t appropriate first- or second-date conversations. But I would have told you before we…um…before you saw me without my clothes on, because my scars are ugly.”

  “No part of you could ever be ugly. Scars are reminders of the things we’ve gone through that brought us to this point and made us who we are. They may not be memories we want to revisit, but they don’t make us ugly. To me, ugly comes out in actions. Ugly was killing that man. I’ve done a lot of ugly things, and for years I was repulsive, even to myself. But when I look in the mirror now, I no longer see that guy. I know he’s inside me, and he will lurk over my shoulder every minute of every day, weighing into every decision I make. But I have learned from my mistakes, and I’m doing everything within my power never to be ugly again.”

  She curled her fingers around the cuffs of her sweater and said, “I know you killed a man, but that was to save your mother. I don’t feel like that makes you ugly. You’re so good to me and your friends and to Kennedy and the other kids I met last night. I just can’t imagine you being as bad as you’re describing.”

  “Well, I’m going to help you imagine it, and then, if you let me, I’ll help you find your way across the rickety bridge of acceptance.” More shards of glass filled his mouth, and he said, “And if not, then it’s my loss. But I’ll still be around as a friend if you need me.”

  “You would still want to be my friend if I said I couldn’t handle whatever you’re about to tell me?”

  “Of course, Roni. There’s a reason I didn’t keep pushing to become more than friends for all these months. I wanted to be friends first, to keep things light, for a few reasons. I never had real friends in my life until about two years ago. I value friendship like other people value money and jewels. You’re an incredible woman, but I’m not one of those guys who feels unworthy or unlovable. I know I’ve become a good man and a good friend, and it wasn’t easy to get to this point. I’ve fought hard to overcome my upbringing and my own choices and to understand and accept all of it, including who I am right now. But I’m also a realist, and I know that some baggage is too heavy for others to carry, and if that’s the case, I would never hold that against you. My past is my burden to bear.”

  She nodded, brows knitted, and folded her hands in her lap, sitting up straighter as she said, “Okay, well, let’s unpack that baggage and find out.”

  His chest constricted, and he took another deep breath, wanting to remember exactly the way she looked right then: strong, beautiful, and willing to listen. It took everything he had to begin telling the rest of his story. “The night I killed that man, Truman found me huddled on the living room floor, my clothes bloody, my cheek torn open. The man was still lying on my mother. She’d come to by then and was screaming and crying, but I was paralyzed with fear and in shock.” A lump lodged in his throat, memories pummeling him. “Before Tru even moved that man’s body off our mother, he came to me. He dropped to his knees and pulled me into his arms. I’ve never felt so helpless or lost in all my life as I did in the time between when it happened and when Truman walked in. But with him there, I felt safer. I knew he’d know what to do.”

  He took a drink, needing a second, and said, “When Tru heard the screams, he thought he’d find me dead. He was so scared, checking my body for bullet holes.” Quincy pushed to his feet and paced, rubbing his hand over his chest and stomach as Truman had done that night. “Once he saw that I wasn’t in danger, he moved the body and calmed my mother down. She passed out again, and I told him everything. I’ll never forget what he said right before he called the police. ‘Don’t say a word, Quincy. You’re not taking the fall for this.’ I argued with him, but he was worried that at thirteen I’d be tried as an adult. I’d followed his lead my whole life, and I went along with it. I never should have, but he was my guiding light. Protecting me was what he did best.”

  Her jaw dropped, tears welling again. “He took the blame?”

  Quincy nodded, lowering his eyes, shame and guilt twining together like a noose. “The public defender said he wouldn’t go to prison. He called it a ‘heat of passion’ murder. But our mother got clean long enough to spew lies on the witness stand. She’d always had it out for Truman. She said she wasn’t in any danger, and Truman was charged with murder.” Tears spilled down Roni’s cheeks, sending that spear of guilt deeper into his chest.

  “Oh my God, Quincy. Why would she do that?”

  “I don’t know. Probably because Truman having his shit together brought all her failures to the forefront. He served six years of an eight-year prison sentence for a crime I committed.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t believe your mother did that.”

  “She was a real piece of work.” He paced, wringing his hands. “Everything changed after Tru went to prison. I was a kid, completely lost. I was consumed with guilt, and I had no direction, no plan to follow. Bear took me to see Tru a couple of times, and man, that devastated me even more. I had put the brother who spent his life protecting me behind bars. I should have been the one in prison, not him.” His voice cracked, and he tried to swallow past his thickening throat. “Every time I thought about it, I got paralyzed just like that awful day. I despised my mother, but I think I hated myself even more.”

  He stopped pacing and met her gaze, needing to feel the pain of every word, underscoring the importance of his recovery. “One day she handed me a crack pipe and told me it would take all my demons away. I knew it was the beginning of the end, but my brother was rotting in prison because of me, and I was so consumed with guilt and filled with hate and venom, I was so lost, I would have followed Satan straight to hell. So I took what she offered and created my own hellish prison to rot in.” He curled his fingers into fists, fighting the shame and forcing himself to get the rest out. “That’s when it started, and I went all in. I stopped returning Bear’s calls and followed my mother underground. Addicts know how to disappear, living in crack houses and on the streets. It started with crack and ended with heroin. I have no idea how I survived or even what happened to the house my grandmother left us. I think my mother traded it for drugs somewhere along the way. The things I did, the blackouts…Roni, that is what ugly is, turning your arms into pincushions to escape the demons in your head.” He held out his arms, showing her his scars from track marks. He wanted to turn away from the horror in her eyes, but he knew better. This was his due. “I spent most of six and a half years blitzed out of my mind, with brief periods of mild lucidity.”

  “Six and a half years?”

  “Yes, years. One thought of Truman, and I’d spiral, and since he was always on my mind…Until my mother got pregnant.”

  “Oh God, no.” She covered her mouth, more tears spilling down her cheeks.

  “Kennedy and Lincoln aren’t Tru and Gem
ma’s biological children. They’re our siblings.”

  Her eyes widened. “Your siblings?”

  “Yes. Our mother got clean when she found out she was pregnant. There was a druggie who claimed to have been a doctor before he started using, and he knew what he was doing. He helped her through withdrawal both times, and when she gave birth, he was right there to pump her full of drugs again.”

  “Those poor babies.”

  “I took off with Kennedy about a week after she was born. I wanted to drop her at a fire station or a hospital. Anywhere would have been better than living on the streets. But my mother sent her friends after me, the same way she had to Truman, only I got the shit beat out of me. Broke a few ribs, one eye was swollen shut.” He rubbed the scars above his right eye and said, “So I dulled the pain with more drugs.”

  “Quincy,” she said, openly crying. “Why didn’t you get clean when she did?”

  “It’s not that easy when no one cares if you’re alive or dead.”

  “But what about Bear or his parents? Couldn’t you have gone to them?”

  “I could have, and they would have helped me. But it would have taken clear thinking to get there, and even though my mother wasn’t using, she was still pushing drugs on me. She was happier when I was high. I think it made her feel better about herself. You might have noticed our presidential names. What a joke they are. When she named Kennedy, she told me it was important to have an unforgettable name, since we’d have forgettable lives.” He paced again, his gut knotting painfully. “I tried to get Kennedy away from her several other times, and when Lincoln was born, I tried to take them both.” Tears sprang to his eyes. “I knew better than to let them grow up on the streets.” He looked up at the ceiling as his tears fell, guilt tearing at his heart. “It was an awful cycle. I’d try to go without drugs to be there for the kids, steal food for them, formula for Linc. They cried all the time. I felt so fucking guilty about them, about Truman, I’d turn to drugs to…” He dragged his forearm across his eyes and forced himself to meet her crying eyes and said, “To fucking escape the repulsive person I’d become.”

  She looked down, and in that moment he knew he’d lost her, but he had to go on. He had to tell her everything.

  “Days, weeks, years, blended together. I stole food, money, clothes. I did so many things I’m not proud of to make sure those babies survived. I stayed with them every minute I could to make sure nobody fucked with ’em. Then Tru got out of jail and tracked me down. He tried to convince me to get clean, but when you’re an addict, you don’t see what others see, and somehow you also do see it. It’s confusing because you don’t realize—or don’t want to realize—you’re wasting your life and hurting everyone around you, and you make them into the villains. But at the same time, I felt like such a waste, and the guilt ate me alive. I couldn’t handle being around the brother who had worked so hard to save me. I was afraid to tell him about the kids because I’d already ruined his life, and I knew my mother’s posse of crackheads would come after him if he tried to take them away. I couldn’t do that to Tru, not after everything he’d done for me.” He clenched his teeth, guilt rising to the surface again, and said, “So I told him to fuck off, and then I did what I’d learned to do best. I went deeper underground with the kids and our mother so he couldn’t find us. I wasn’t thinking about how bad it was for the kids, and I should have been. There’s absolutely no excuse.” Tears rolled down his cheeks. “When I think of how they lived…”

  He turned away, trying to regain control, but the self-loathing and sadness was bone deep. Letting those horrid feelings out was the only way he’d get past them, so he faced her again, speaking faster. “Months went by, and one night I’d gone out to try to scrounge up money for formula, and when I stumbled back into the place where we were staying, I found our mother lying lifeless on the floor. She’d overdosed, and the babies were screaming their heads off on an old mattress where they’d been sleeping when I left. I felt like that thirteen-year-old kid again, lost, powerless, and as ashamed as I had been the night I’d killed that fucking rapist. So I called Tru. I knew he’d take the kids, and then I could disappear. Get as far away from the three of them as I could, so I’d never hurt them again.”

  She looked up through teary eyes and said, “But you didn’t, right? That’s when you got clean? When Truman came?”

  He shook his head, feeling like his heart was being ripped from his chest. “No. That’s when it got worse, because shit got real. I was furious at Truman for going to prison. I was a stupid kid for all those years. I felt like he’d abandoned me. As soon as I got clean, I knew it made no sense. I twisted things around in my drug-infested head and made him into the bad guy. Him. The guy who fucking raised me and gave up his freedom for me. It’s messed up, I know, but it’s the truth. He was as disgusted with me as I was with myself. He took the kids, and I got into trouble with some really dangerous people. A few days later, I showed up at his apartment stoned out of my mind, asking to borrow money so I could pay off my debt. He lived above Whiskey’s Auto, where I live now. But he did the right thing and sent me away. I went back over the bridge, away from Peaceful Harbor, to the hellhole where I’d spent the last six and a half years, and tried to hide from the dealer. But his guys found me and dragged me back to him. There was all sorts of shit going on—a dozen or more guys were there. They started arguing with each other, and I saw a chance, so I took off running. They came after me, but I got away. I have no idea how long I ran or how I evaded them. It was a nightmare, followed by weeks of hiding out, terrified. Eventually they caught up with me again, beat the hell out of me, and left me for dead. I don’t know how I survived that or walking miles back over the bridge to the auto shop. I don’t remember most of that night. I thought that was the end, that I’d die and the torture I caused everyone would finally be over. But I guess I passed out in front of the shop, because that’s where Tru found me, and when I woke up, I was in the hospital, and he was right there with me.”

  Roni inhaled shakily, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Thank God he found you.”

  He nodded. “The first thing I asked was if I was alive. It’s a strange question, but I really thought I’d died that night, and when he said barely, I thanked God, and I thanked Tru. He asked if I was sure I wanted to be alive, because I was doing everything within my power to kill myself. When I didn’t answer, he leaned over me in the hospital bed, looking directly into my eyes, and said he wasn’t ready to lose me.”

  Quincy looked up at the ceiling again, blinking against tears. “After all I’d put him and the kids through, he wasn’t done with me. For all those years I thought he’d hated me as much as I hated myself. But he still loved me. Talk about a second chance. That’s when I saw the light and agreed to go to rehab, which was another kind of hell. I had to deal with all those feelings that had drowned me for so long. Tru came to see me as soon as they allowed him to, and I gave him shit, blamed him for my drug use. That’s all part of the process, and it sucked. But he never gave up on me. He was still the guiding light he’d always been. And after rehab and with the help of therapy, I turned a corner, and once I did, I saw the devastation I had caused. I’ll never get over what I put Tru and the kids through. What I put Gemma through, and all our friends who were there for them when I was on drugs.”

  Roni wiped her eyes, staring at her fidgeting hands in her lap, not looking at him. He didn’t blame her, and he waited in silence for a long time, until she finally lifted her devastatingly sad eyes and said, “When was that?”

  He sat beside her, thankful when she didn’t look away. “Two years ago on Halloween night was when he found me and I went to rehab. The reason I didn’t push for more with you after the auction was because the chemistry between us was so strong that first night when we talked. I’d never felt anything like it before. Then we started texting, and our texts were light and fun, and I loved every second of them. It was nice getting to know you without this hanging over my h
ead, and I made the decision to wait until I’d been clean for two full years before really trying to get you to go out with me. I wanted to hit that milestone. I know it’s not a long history of being drug free, but it was important to me to be able to tell you I’d been clean for two years rather than a year and a half. I knew I’d stay clean, but it takes a lot of trust to believe in a junkie.” It was torture to get the words out, but he wasn’t about to stop until he told her everything. “When your grandmother died, not being able to help you through it was like asking me not to breathe. We barely knew much about each other, but I already had feelings for you. I wanted to be there for you. It was a good thing Red, and to some extent Jed, talked me out of it, because I would have told you all of this then, and that would have just added to your pain.”

  She looked down at her hands again and said, “This is a lot to take in.”

  “I know it is, and I realize that the time we’ve had together was a gift. I’m not going to try to push you into giving me a chance, but I want you to know a few things. I’m determined to stay clean for myself first, for Truman and the kids, and for all of our friends who have helped us get to this point. I have a roof over my head and a job I love. I aced my GED, and I’m taking classes toward an accounting degree. I’m also committed to helping others stay clean. I run NA meetings every Wednesday night in the basement of the Lutheran church, and I’m a sponsor to another person in recovery. I have the most incredible support system with my brother and our friends, and I haven’t thought about using drugs as a way to resolve my problems even once since I’ve gotten clean. I don’t feel like I’m fighting that urge to use drugs. I feel like I’ve moved past that, like it happened in another lifetime. But you need to understand that just because I feel that way doesn’t mean an addict doesn’t live inside me. Addictions are lifelong villains, and they lurk in every hard, dark moment for a chance to attack.”