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 Gemma’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?”