He gave me a soda. I wanted to puke.

Sitting in the back room of the musty thrift store, piles of unwanted clothes, toys and books around me, I was only half listening to that month's sales meeting. Yesterday, the Hungry Hungry Hippos game sitting on a nearby counter transported me back to my childhood; today it mocked me. It was time to act like an adult, time to become the journalist I was training to be, time to ask the tough question.

The store manager was sitting kitty-corner to me, wrapping up a meeting with the store's directors. He stood up and offered to buy me a soda. I refused, but he disappeared and returned with a bottle anyway. As I took it in my hand, I forced myself to not let his kindness fool me.

Did he do it? Did he rape a little girl?

I giggled at the bad jokes slung during the meeting and smiled thanks as the store's directors left, a poor attempt to fool myself into lighter times. Then we were alone.

I had zipped into the parking lot a half-hour earlier, nervous but determined, scraping the bottom of my car as I pulled in too fast.. The plan was set. I would walk in, sweep past the gray-haired cashiers guarding the glass case of oxidized costume jewelry, ask to speak to him in private and lay it all out.

I know your secret.

I didn't expect him to be in a meeting with his bosses.

Every minute, second, that went by drained courage from my body.

It was the end of a long work day, and the 49-year-old man was running in and out of the swinging doors wrapping things up. The story about him was initially to be a cute, easy feature. But what I found in a routine background check quickly changed that. When the time came to confront him about his secret, I stalled. I hoped my teammate Libby, who came along for moral support, would do the deed for me. She didn't, wouldn't. When I looked at her with wide, panicked eyes, she pushed me with each lift of her brow. The unopened soda was sweating in my hands, the droplets my version of water torture. It was closing time, almost time for us to leave. But there was one last question. I stood up, cornering him against the wall.

"Do you have a pending case against you?"

Behind his frameless glasses, his eyes dropped to the floor, partially covered in the shadow of his blue baseball cap. His normal toothy smile vanished, his jovial laugh transformed into an icy inquiry.

"Now why'd you have to go and bring that up?"

Good question. That same sentiment had been running through my head for the past two days. As I pulled the court records, when I spoke to my editors, during the sleepless nights. Who the hell did I think I was? This man had done nothing but let me into his life and I was getting ready to ruin it.

What initially attracted me to journalism was my love for a good story, one that transports you, captivates you, puts you in someone else's shoes, gives you a new perspective. All I wanted was to tell his story, but this was an unexpected plot twist.

His story was one of redemption, a convicted crack cocaine user and dealer who was paying for his sins by serving the community. Through his job as manager of the store, he become a mentor to those working off community service hours, a savior to the poor in need of clothing and a friend to the store's volunteers. He worked with teens, the elderly, the homeless.

Most knew about his seedy past, even if just vaguely. He used to have a temper. He used to do drugs. But no one knew that he also might have molested a child.

I have always had an abstract idea of the true power of journalism. The ability to effect change, to give voice to the voiceless, to fight social injustice. But I was about to harness this power in a very real way. It's less glamorous than it sounds. During my short journalism career I had been hiding behind my notebook, somehow separating who I was as a person from who I was as a reporter. That wall came crashing down when I confronted him. He was accused of molesting a child 25 years ago, and I had just outed him.

The human in me believed in second chances. The reporter in me knew his had expired.

It was well after closing time when he clammed up and asked us to leave.

"It's confidential right? What I told you is confidential?"

I shook my head no, and hurried out of the back room past the dingy coffee cups and dishes, the cassette tapes and vinyl records and into the blasting late afternoon heat. The sweaty soda found a new home in the cup holder of my car and later in the belly of my roommate. I didn't tell him it was poisoned with guilt. He was still the new kid at the time.

I called him the next day to talk about the conversation we had the evening before. It wasn't any easier. One ring, two, three.

Don't pick up, don't pick up, don't pick up.

Shit. He answered.

"I don't understand what this has to do with the story. You told me it was about the good things I was doing."

It was, before I found out about the sexual battery charges against him, before I realized he kept it a secret from his bosses, before my instincts as a journalist took over and I knew what I had to do.

I gave him six hours to call his boss. He didn't. After speaking to her, hearing how betrayed she felt, learning of other inconsistencies in his story, I didn't feel guilty anymore. He was a wolf hiding among the sheep, at the very worst a child molester, at the very best a liar.

Though the guilt was gone, unease about my role remained, reminiscent of the way my stomach feels after a night with too many drinks. With the unease came a sense of power, an almost Jedi-like connection to the universe. I will likely face these feelings again and again during my career.

In the end my roommate only drank half of the lime-green soda. Apparently it left a bad taste in his mouth, too. The bottle is still in the fridge at the dorms, a glowing ghost that reminds me each time I open the door about the burden of what I do.

As my time here at Poynter comes to an end, as I begin to pack up my things and throw away the junk I managed to accumulate in the past six weeks, I will eventually have to confront that soda bottle again.

I used to want to throw it away, but I think I should keep it and give it a place on whatever desk I have in whatever newsroom I eventually end up. It might look nice with flowers in it.

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