Issues // H.S. // A.U.

Chapter Thirty-Three

DANI

"Hey, you good?" I asked Mickie as she fidgeted next to me in the police station.

"Yeah, just a bit nervous." She tells me, flashing me a tight-lipped smile.

I reach over and grab her hand, "I'm nervous too, Mick."

She breathes out deeply, "I just- What happens if they don't press charges?"

I pause before saying, "We look after each other."

Sitting at the police station for the last thirty minutes felt like torture. Neither of us had any clue what we were about to be told. Maybe this meeting was all about how there wasn't enough evidence, and the DA decided not to prosecute Clint. Or maybe - and this was the more frightening reality - they were going to file charges against him.

I had been conditioned into expecting the least from those who held power. No one had done anything for me before, so why would this be different. That's why it was more frightening that something might actually be done, that Clint would have to pay the consequences for his actions. It was the unknown.

But Mickie was right to be nervous. Clint knew that we had reported him. He has spoken to the police, and soon would be fully interrogated. Everything was out in the open, so he had nothing to hide behind. He could retaliate, and then we might be dealing something much worse.

That was one of the things about the justice system. We had to wait until something happened to get justice, but when the system is already broken and untrustworthy it creates a culture of unwillingness to come forward. So instead of the abuse stopping with me, it spread to Mickie, and quite possibly many more. That trust had never been there between me, a kid in the foster system who had known nothing but abuse and abandonment, and those in charge. They had failed me, and countless others, by allowing the system to be what it is in the first place.

I had dealt a lot with the guilt I felt for never speaking up. I still somewhat believed that this was all partly my fault. I could've been braver, louder, but I had been trained to stay quiet and accept my fate. Once that had been instilled in me by my parents it had been reinforced at every home I was placed in. The case workers and people who worked for child services tried, I know they did, but when the state failed them, how could they possibly help us?

It always starts at the top. If those in power are rotten, then it will fester to the ground level. In all reality, law makers do not care about the average person. Most are career politicians, and those who do enter the job trying to change the way things are done - help the people - they themselves tend to lose sight in why they ran for the position in the first place.

Greed, power, ego. They go hand in hand in hand, and unfortunately our society was built on it. The framework of America itself is based on those three things. It might have started with decent intentions - minus a few glaring oversights - but even the best intentions could turn rotten.

So how could I have stopped any of this when nothing, and I mean nothing, had given me the tools to do so? And even someone like Mickie, who had done everything right, came from a good family, was upper middle class, worked hard and got good grades, was failed by the system.

I could help where I could. I could provide a safe place for kids, teenagers, and young adults to talk about what they've been through. I know firsthand how hard it is to trust that person, but I also know how much it helped me. Therapy had saved my life. It was the first place I felt like I could speak, that what I had to say mattered. That I mattered. Which led me to trust Darla and the others. I wanted to provide that for kids who were in my position, and maybe I could change the outcome for individuals. So instead of becoming a statistic, they could overcome the system, because it didn't look like the system was changing anytime soon.