Chapter Forty-Five #2
"It's not a bad lesson. But mix that with my feelings of abandonment, and I really hated the opposite sex for a long time, thought they couldn't be trusted.
Then, you know, hormones took over. And I went right ahead and dated all the wrong kinds of guys, only reinforcing that belief.
So, in short, daddy issues can really fuck with you until you see them for what they are. But anyway, back to the point..."
"What was the point again?" I asked, completely lost. But not exactly in a bad way.
"That after all of that, after he retired, we finally started to rebuild.
He isn't exactly soft, but he doesn't cut when you get too close anymore.
And he has sort of been looking back at his life, at his regrets.
He blames work for a lot of those regrets.
So he doesn't look fondly on a lot that has to do with that aspect of his life.
He would have a stroke if he thought I was following in his footsteps, that I might lose a lot of important parts of my life to the job, that maybe I would get hard and rough, would neglect people I care about, cut those who tried to get too close. "
"But you thought it would be better just to spring it on him?"
"The way I saw it, he had less time to obsess over it, to lecture me about it. If it was all said and done, he would still be pissed or disappointed or whatever, but he would have to accept it faster since it was already my reality."
Alright, that made sense, I guess. It was a lot of trouble to go through, but I could understand not wanting to rock the boat, to upset people you had just recently started to repair things with.
I had a tempestuous relationship with my own brother.
We butted heads. We rubbed each other the wrong way.
But at the end of the day, we were family.
We were always there for each other if we needed it.
And especially now that he was with Riya, that they had started their own family, I didn't want to fuck things up there either.
"What happened at the academy?" I asked, watching her wince, knowing this was the part that she hadn't wanted to share with me.
"Everything was good, damnit," she squeaked, running her hand through her hair. "I passed all the prerequisite tests. Reading, writing, the physical agility test. I had martial arts training, had a clean record, went to college for criminal justice. Everything was good. I loved it there."
"Yet?" I asked, knowing people who loved the academy didn't just quit.
I knew the statistics were something like each class lost twenty-five percent of its students due to failing this or that or a change of mind.
Or something else. It didn't sound like Clarke was the failing sort.
If anything, she struck me as someone who leaned on the side of stubborness.
Which, in my opinion, was an asset instead of a flaw like most believed. At least it had been so far in my life.
"One of the officers there working as an instructor just..
. hated me. He fucking hated me. I don't know why.
If it was a woman thing. If it was that I was too good at the challenges put before me thing.
I don't know. But he just despised me. Everything I did was criticized.
And I'm not whining here. We all took a lot of abuse from the senior officers.
They were there to toughen us up, to weed out the weak.
It was part of the training. Like boot camp.
But this was different. I swear he was trying to make me leave, trying to make me miserable enough to drop out. "
"But you're too stubborn for that." It wasn't a judgment. And, luckily, she didn't seem to take it as one either.
"Exactly. I didn't care if my body screamed. If my head hurt from the hollering. I was going to stick it out. I was going to prove to him that he couldn't break me."
"What happened then?"
"I think he saw that I wasn't going to shatter.
Or snap. Believe me, I wanted to. But I clamped my lips shut, clenched my teeth until my jaw hurt.
And I endured. Because this was my dream.
And I would be damned if he was going to take it from me.
Then one day, I got called in. And dismissed.
For insubordination. There was a whole report about how I flew off the handle at him, threatened him.
He even somehow got two of my fellow recruits to corroborate the story.
I don't know how. Or why. It's my mission in life to figure it out one day.
But there was no arguing with it. If you were a cop, there was a chain of command, and you respected it; you didn't snap back.
They couldn't let me finish the course if I refused to comply.
Even if it was an outright lie. I was done.
Had to pack my things and leave. I think you've noticed by now that I am a bit impulsive.
Sometimes my emotions can get the better of me.
And I have never been more livid than I was when I walked out of that building.
And that motherfucker was standing there smirking at me.
I could have killed him. I really could have. "
"But you didn't," I reminded her. A lot of people thought they were capable or straight-up homicide in the right circumstances. But most people were wrong. She couldn't have killed him. Not unless further provoked.
"I didn't," she agreed, sighing. "Sorry I snapped at you. I hate this story. I really, really hate failing."
"I really wouldn't consider this a failure. It's not your fault someone had it out for you. Someone lied about you. You didn't fail. You were fucked over."
"But from the outside, it looks like a failure, y'know? Getting kicked out of the police academy. I was never so glad that I didn't share with anyone that I was going in."
"I don't think friends and family hold failure against you."
"Everyone holds failure against everyone."
"That's cynical," I told her. Usually, I was the cynic.
It was almost refreshing to somehow be the optimist in a situation.
"Everyone fails, Clarke. In big and small ways.
I fail on cases. So does my brother. No one is perfect.
And sometimes those failures serve as good motivators.
Make you hungrier to get it right the next time. "
"That's true. My screw-ups have always been what spurred me forward the next time.
I've never been much of a cuddle up in a ball and eat ice cream kind of person.
I mean, don't get me wrong. I am an ice cream eating kind of person.
But not because I fell on my ass. I always get up, brush off, and get back at it until I succeed.
Maybe it was my martial arts classes, always being told to get up, fight harder.
Most people would call it a bit of a flaw, being a bad loser. "
"You're only a bad loser if you throw a fit about it. I think bad losers are those who curl up in a ball and give up. Those are bad losers. You're a good winner."
"A good winner," she mused, lips curving upward, making her golden eyes warm up even more. "I like that."
"I have one more question," I started, knowing I had her in a good mood, that it was now or never.
"Shoot."
She seemed to instantly regret that comment when the next words came out of my mouth.
"What are you doing tangled up with the Turkish mob?"