High Achiever Page 27

  “Of course you did! You had to!” she screamed. “We’ve got your face, clear as day, pawning all of Deputy Right’s and his parents’ shit. You signed a piece of paper with your fingerprint at the pawnshops stating you were the rightful owner of these items and had a right to pawn them. We have copies of your driver’s license from the pawnshop. So, yeah, I can understand why you admitted to those things because you didn’t have a damn choice. When I asked you why, you claimed you owed some drug lord money, which is obviously complete bullshit. Now what I need from you is some honesty regarding the guns and the money from the wallet. It’s clear you took them. So let’s just get this over with,” she growled.

  I knew she was trying to scare me, but she didn’t. The only thing they had on me for sure were the pawned items, but that was it.

  I stared across the table at her, because I had the right to remain silent, damn it. Besides, I wasn’t stupid, I knew that the envelope was a ploy to get me to cop to the crime. There was nothing in it.

  “Okay, you wanna play it that way?” Detective Sherlin asked, realizing I wasn’t going to cooperate. “You want to make it difficult, that’s fine. I can play too. In fact, I wanna play a game now. Let’s play Guess What’s in the Envelope.”

  I stared her in her eyes, unmoving.

  She stared at me for a moment and smiled. She pulled the contents of the envelope out and laid them on the table in front of me. It appeared to be lists, and on the lists, a few areas had been highlighted.

  The moment I realized what I was looking at, I sank.

  She began to speak.

  “The thing about criminals is, they aren’t the smartest, right?” She laughed. As if I was supposed to agree with her.

  “For example, you, a girl who thinks she’s smarter than everyone. A girl who shares a phone plan with her deputy boyfriend, a girl who has spent the past two years leading a double life, a girl who sends texts to known drug dealers saying things like, Hey, I’ve got the AK-47, I can bring it by tonight and Can I get some blues, I’m desperate. They always slip up, eventually.”

  I looked at the transcript of my phone records on the table in front of me. The texts between Lazarus and me were highlighted in yellow. It was all there, in writing. The details of the things I’d done in black and white. I knew that it was over. I was caught and there was no denying that I’d taken the guns. It was all right here.

  “Now let’s start over. I’m Deputy Sherlin, and I’ve got some questions about the day of November twenty-second. The day before we sent eight uniformed officers to your home to dust for fingerprints and investigate a crime that you yourself committed. The day you offered them pizza and soda as they wasted their time and resources to find a criminal, a criminal that was standing two feet away from them. Why don’t you start from there.” She leaned back into her chair and crossed her arms across her chest.

  There was a small group of deputies—friends of mine—gathered outside the door to watch the show. It was over. Life as I knew it had come to an end. The lies I’d fought so hard to keep juggling in the air came crashing down around me. Everyone was about to know what a monster I was. I had no choice, I had to tell the truth.

  I took a deep breath. Peered up at the camera in the corner of the room and released everything. The tears, the guilt, the shame, all of it came pouring out at once.

  “I’m a drug addict. I’ve always been a drug addict. I went to rehab in 2009 and fooled everyone into thinking I was fine, that I was healed. But I wasn’t, I was never fine. I was so terrified of disappointing my family and…Eliot.” My eyes fell to the floor. Eliot was watching.

  “Eliot was so wonderful, the nicest guy I’d ever met, and when we got together I had been clean. I thought that his profession would be enough to keep me clean. I thought that his love was all I needed, but I was wrong. My addiction snuck in and tricked me into thinking I could manage it, but I couldn’t. It was too strong, and things got out of hand so fast….” My voice trailed off as I sobbed and Deputy Sherlin stood up without saying a word and exited the room. I followed her with my eyes and when the door swung open I saw the crowd gathered around the interrogation room viewing the camera feed.

  She returned with a box of tissues and another cigarette and I could see that her expression had softened. I’m still not sure if this was a tactic used to make me feel comfortable and open up or whether it was her genuinely realizing I had a problem. Either way I continued speaking, because the more I said out loud, the freer I began to feel.

  “Some asshole from my past was threatening to release an inappropriate video of me if I didn’t pay him the money I owed him—”

  “Who is he?” she said.

  “I’d…I’d rather not say.”

  “Well, I need you to tell me. If there is any chance of us showing that you were being threatened, I need his information.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I did it. I owed him the money. I made the tape. I put myself in these situations. I am going to take responsibility for it and move on with my life.”

  “Okay, we can revisit that later. So you were being ‘threatened,’ and then what?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know. It was like, I knew that I was on a downward spiral, so nothing mattered anymore. I didn’t care. I just wanted to stay high, try to get myself out of the hole I’d dug, and hopefully overdose in the process. I wanted to die, and the only reason I didn’t is because I didn’t want Eliot to have to come home and find my brains splattered on the headboard. If it wasn’t for that I’d be long gone.”

  “I need you to tell me about the guns. The longer that they are out there in the hands of the wrong person, the more danger people are in. You put an assault rifle in the hands of a ruthless drug dealer and we need to find them.”

  I paused for a moment and slowly nodded. “I don’t want to get him in trouble. He will kill me.”

  “We already know who he is. We have your phone records; we have deputy witnesses stating that they saw Eliot’s vehicle parked in front of a known dealer’s house. I just need you to confirm what happened so that we can safely get the guns back into Eliot’s possession. So please, tell me the truth,” she said.

  “When I took the things from Eliot’s parents’ house, it was as if I reached a new low. The guilt was worse than it usually was and I’m not sure if it’s because it didn’t feel as wrong taking things from my own house or what, but I couldn’t handle the negative feelings, the way it made me feel. I needed to numb them, to get high, but I needed money to do that.”

  I paused for a moment and took a drag of my cigarette and looked up at the camera once more, wondering how Eliot was going to react to this next part.

  “I needed to take the money out of his wallet, and in order to shift the blame from myself I…I staged a burglary in our home.”

  “How?”

  “I broke the back door, to make it look like someone forced their way inside. I took the entire wallet, but it wasn’t until I was in the car driving to Lazarus’s that I realized his wallet had his IDs and credit cards and…his badge.”

  I could see the muscles in her jaw clench.

  “I…I didn’t want him to have to replace all that stuff, I felt bad…”

  She scoffed, and I paused briefly. “You felt bad. Okay, continue.”

  I could feel my walls going back up from her reaction. I was afraid that the more I told her, the angrier she would become.

  “I turned my car around and hopped out to tuck the wallet under some leaves by a tree at the end of the yard. I wanted the detectives to find it, so they could return his credit cards and license to him. I made sure that he got his things back. Somehow that made me feel like less of an asshole. I just…I needed the money,” I said as my face flushed with embarrassment.

  “And what did you use the money for?” she asked, although I had a feeling she already
knew the answer.

  “Drugs. I needed to not be sick, because I had less than twenty-four hours to come up with a thousand dollars. While I was getting the drugs, I asked my guy—”

  “Lazarus Bishop,” she interjected.

  “I asked Lazarus if he knew how I could get money. He said no at first, but as I was leaving he asked if I had any way to get a gun. I was desperate. I thought I could sell him the gun and then buy it back once I was sure that guy was off my back. I didn’t…I didn’t think it all the way through.”

  “Clearly.”

  I ignored her patronizing comment and continued. “I rushed home, threw a blanket on the floor, and laid a few guns on top of it. As soon as I collected the ones I didn’t think he would miss, I rolled up the blanket and loaded it in the truck. Lazarus picked the ones he wanted and in exchange gave me the money I needed to pay that asshole off. I paid him yesterday. You guys woke me up out of bed today. It’s ironic, actually. I fought so hard to keep Eliot from finding out and my very first day of being relieved of the burden of owing the money, you guys show up and bring me here.”

  Detective Sherlin didn’t say a word. She stared at me for a moment, as if trying to process everything I’d just said. I could tell she was struggling to find the words. What I had done was shocking, it was personal, it happened to someone she knew.

  Just then a man dressed in full SWAT uniform burst through the door of the interrogation room and grabbed one of the empty chairs at the table. I watched Detective Sherlin exit as he slid it over to where I was and sat down, leaning forward until his face was uncomfortably close to mine.

  “Are you shooting these things?” he asked menacingly.

  “I’ve shot the AK before, but I don’t think I’ve shot the other two—”

  “Not the guns, you fucking retard. The pills, are you shooting the pills?”

  “Oh. Yes. I am,” I admitted.

  “You do realize that you probably gave my buddy out there a disease; he’s currently getting a test to check and see if your selfish ass gave him Hep C.”

  The man’s words made me feel filthy, like a mangy dog that nobody wanted. “I didn’t give him anything, okay? I haven’t been shooting up for that long and I was always careful.”

  “Well, you better hope so. That’s all I have to say about that.” He slammed the chair into the table and left the room, revealing that most of the spectators outside the door had left. I was alone in this room, all of my secrets had been released into the universe, and I was no longer in control.

  I’d failed.

  I lay on the floor in a broken heap. Useless skin and bones, a mistake. I lay there for an hour before anyone entered the room again.

  “Okay, let’s go,” a deputy I hadn’t seen before said, motioning for me to stand up. He was careful to avoid eye contact.

  “What happens now?” I asked quietly.

  “Now…you go to jail,” he said, as three uniformed officers walked into the room with shackles.

  * * *

  —

  “And that was it.” I exhaled, bringing my eyes up to Kelly. She wasn’t laughing this time; instead, tears streamed down her face and I watched as her chin began to quiver.

  She closed her eyes and began to slowly shake her head. “Wow, Tiffany. Wow,” she said, standing up to sit next to me.

  “I am so sorry. I’m sorry for you, for Eliot, for his family….I’m just so sorry.” She reached out to hug me, and the moment I rested my chin on her shoulder the tears escaped from my eyes. As I drew in a deep breath, it somehow felt as if I’d finally closed a book that I had been forced to read over and over, every day, for over six months.

  Just as I had that day in the interrogation room, after speaking the truth to another person, I felt…free.

  Now that I had emptied the two-ton suitcase of shame I’d been carrying with me all these years, it was time for me to move on and figure out why I chose to pick up the suitcase to begin with. My brain was fucked up, there’s no question about that; now I needed to figure out how to fix it.

  49

  The day I finished telling my story to Kelly was a pivotal time in my journey. The moment I stepped out of her office and into the fresh air, I was met by a cool breeze. I closed my eyes and felt the wind dance across my skin and I couldn’t help but think that it was the universe’s way of giving me a hug and letting me know that everything was going to be okay.

  I spent four more months at Horizons. Those months were filled with joy, defeat, happiness, frustration. Moments of wanting to run through the door, and moments of sheer bliss. There was laughter, and many, many tears. I made a few mistakes, but I never gave up.

  My time at the rehab had changed me as a person. I was able to look inward and spend time examining the real issues, without the distraction of the outside world. I knew that the time was going to pass anyway, so I chose to make every single moment count and get the most out of the program while I was there. I acquired a sponsor, and she helped walk me through the twelve steps. Those steps saved my life, allowed me to understand why I did all the things that I did, and gave me other coping mechanisms and tools to use instead of turning to drugs each time I felt uncomfortable.

  I attended every class—and listened intently as the instructor educated me on what I needed to do to stay clean. I focused on doing the right thing, every chance I got—even when no one was looking. I practiced honesty, and patience, both of which had been completely foreign to me before.

  Each day that passed where I didn’t stick a needle in my arm, I felt more alive. Like I was a part of the world, instead of just floating through it. Like I had purpose. There were times when I wanted to give up, when I wanted to say Fuck this and run out the doors; instead, I stayed. Because once I had a taste of recovery, once I belly-laughed in a room full of women, once I laid my head on my pillow at night completely at peace with myself, I knew that even my best day high would pale in comparison to my worst day clean.

  I emerged from Horizons as a new creation, but my journey wasn’t over just yet.

  50

  The clunk of my high-heeled shoes hitting the wooden floors echoed through the hallway as I headed toward the front desk. I smiled at a woman wearing a name badge and rocking an infant as I passed her in the corridor. Sorry, I mouthed quietly, walking on my tiptoes to keep from waking the baby.

  “It’s okay, you’re fine,” she whispered, giving me a friendly smile.

  A young woman with glasses and bouncy curls smiled sweetly as I approached the front desk.

  “Hello, I’m Tiffany, I’m here to see the girls,” I said, glancing around the office.

  “Sure, just sign in here,” she said, handing me a clipboard. I quickly scribbled my name and set it on the counter before heading to a seat in the waiting room.

  Before I could sit, a woman emerged from the double doors to my right and held her hand out to shake mine. “Hi, you must be Tiffany,” she said.

  “Yes, hi,” I said.

  “Come on back, we are ready for you,” she said, waving me toward the door. The clunk of my heels was drowned out only by the sound of my heart banging around in my chest. I had done this so many times, but it never got easier on my nerves.

  As I entered the room, the squeals and cries continued, but all conversation among the women ceased, and they all turned to face me. I smiled nervously as I passed them and headed to the empty chair at the front of the room. Once I was seated, the women lazily sauntered over to fill the empty seats that were facing me. The women were at all different stages of their pregnancy; some had small bumps while others looked like they were ready to explode at any second. Each of them looked exhausted, and they seemed annoyed by my presence.

  Once everyone was seated and the room fell silent, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the small pink worry stone my father had given me before he
passed away last year. He had fought long and hard, and unlike when my mother passed, I was able to be there for him and the family as we said goodbye. My father and I had gotten sober fifteen days apart, and two months after leaving rehab, we got to walk up onstage together to collect our one-year medallions. It was one of the happiest moments of my life.

  “Hello everyone, my name is Tiffany, and I’m an addict,” I said.

  “Hi, Tiffany,” the women chorused.

  “I know you guys are exhausted, and the last thing you probably want to do is sit in these shitty plastic chairs and listen to some weird lady lecture you.” A few women chuckled, giving me a renewed sense of confidence.

  “But if you will give me thirty minutes of your time, I’ll never bother you again,” I said. I looked around at their tired faces and realized they would rather be changing a dirty diaper than be here with me, but that was okay, I wasn’t only here for them, I was here for me.

  “I spent over ten years of my life doing drugs. I lied, cheated, stole, manipulated, and deceived everyone I’d ever known. I destroyed my life and the lives of those around me. I wanted to die—I tried to die, but for some reason, I couldn’t even do that right.”

  I rubbed the stone as I cleared my throat, before continuing. “Now before I go any further, I just want to take a second and tell each and every one of you—how fucking proud I am of you.” I paused for a moment to swallow back the sobs as the tears began filling my eyes.

  “You all could be anywhere in the world, an alley, a trap house, the streets. But you’re here, you’re here in a treatment facility getting help for yourselves, and giving the babies in those rooms and inside your bellies a shot at life, man, and that’s a fucking miracle. So give yourselves a quick round of applause because you deserve it.”

  Applause rang out through the building and the women turned to each other and smiled proudly while others wiped tears from their eyes.