And twenty minutes later, we were seated in a small diner out of the way, ordering eggs and coffee.
I kept picking at the edge of my napkin until it turned into wet shreds.
He took a sip of coffee and looked at me straight. “How you holding up after that?”
I shrugged, but it came out jerky. “I don’t know. Mike’s story… it’s in my head on repeat.”
“Yeah. It’ll do that.” He set the mug down. “You don’t have to pretend you’re fine, Asher. Everybody in that room already knows you’re not. Hell, half the board knows it too.”
I swallowed hard. My voice came out small. “I don’t even recognize myself anymore. The guy I’ve been since Emma died… that’s not me. I look in the mirror and I hate who’s looking back.”
Robert nodded like he’d heard it a thousand times and it still mattered. “Then stop protecting him. That guy you hate? He stays in charge as long as you keep lying for him.”
I rubbed my face. My eyes still felt raw. “I don’t know how to stop.”
“Start with one honest conversation,” he said. “Pick somebody who wasn’t around for the old version of you that existed before Emma. Somebody who has zero stake in the old story. Tell them the truth—the blackouts, the mornings you couldn’t remember, the nights you prayed you wouldn’t wake up. All of it. Say it out loud to one person who can’t weaponize it. That’s the only way the bottle ever loses its power.”
My stomach flipped again, harder this time. Veda’s face popped into my head clear as day.
She didn’t know the golden boy I used to be. She only knew the wreck who showed up half-drunk to the office and snapped at everyone.
Saying any of this to her felt impossible and necessary at the same time.
Robert watched me think it through. “Scary?”
“Terrifying,” I admitted.
“Good. Means it’s the right thing.”
He waved the waitress over for the check, already pulling out cash. “Call me if the walls start closing in tonight. Or tomorrow. Or next week. Doesn’t matter the hour. You call.”
I opened my mouth to argue about the bill and he just gave me that look—the one that said don’t waste both our time—so I shut up.
He dropped the money, stood, and squeezed my shoulder once. “You did the hard part tonight. Don’t undo it before breakfast.”
Then he was gone, door swinging shut behind him, leaving me alone with cold coffee and the first real breath I’d taken in months.
I sat there and ate the cold eggs and toast before going home. It was the only way I could manage the shaking hands, knowing I still needed more help than Robert was able to give.
And when I finally got home, the first thing I did was walk straight to the bottle of whiskey I had stashed, and I opened it up and poured it down the drain.
The smell was so intoxicating, I almost drank some.
The demon inside me fought for it, craved it, almost licked the whole sink out just to taste a drop of it, but I won the instant I turned on the water and rinsed the sink and the bottle.
Then I turned to my phone, still muted after the meeting, and felt ready to call Veda to confess everything to her. But she'd already sent me a message.
Veda 8:17PM: Just making sure you got home alright, Mr. Locke. Here if you need me…
Her words felt like the light at the end of a very long tunnel.
Veda Porter was my magic elixir. She'd come into my life ready to learn from me, and I was the one learning from her.
That life was more than just my suffering, and that I could and would move on if I took the right steps.
I typed up a huge response, a "truth" that Robert told me to share with someone, but I deleted it all without responding.
Some things were better said in person, and that was how I wanted to share my truth with her.
