The Last Honest Drink

The bear came out of the treeline at dusk, shuffling through the pine needles like it owned the place. Maybe it did. We were the intruders here, two middle-aged men sitting on a dock with a bottle of whiskey between us, pretending we weren't running from something.

"You look like shit," Miller said, pouring me another drink. "Like one of those zombies from the movies, but worse. At least they're dead. You're just choosing to act like it."

I laughed, bitter and short. "Coming from the guy who's been a glorified spy for twenty years? Following executives, taking pictures of them cheating on their wives, calling it 'corporate intelligence' like it's not just sordid bullshit?"

"The money's good."

"Is it?" I watched my reflection in the water—dark, distorted, barely recognizable. "I met someone. Last week. She asked what I do. Couldn't even say it. Just mumbled something about consulting and felt like a liar. Which I guess I am."

The bear dipped its head in the lake, drinking with the unhurried grace of something that belonged. I envied it.

"I don't think I can do it anymore," I said finally. "The watching. The pretending. It's eating me alive."

Miller was quiet for a long time. When he spoke, his voice was gentler than I'd ever heard it. "You know what I learned in twenty years of watching people? We're all just scared. The CEOs, the cheating husbands, the people they're cheating with—all of us, trying not to drown."

He poured the rest of the whiskey into the lake. An offering, maybe. To the bear, to whatever gods watched over broken men.

"So stop," he said. "Whatever you think you have to bear—you don't. Quit. Take the hit. Figure out the rest after."

The bear lifted its head, water dripping from its muzzle, and looked straight at us. Then it turned back toward the trees, as if we were barely worth noticing.

"You're a good friend," I said, meaning it. "Even if you are a professional creep."

Miller grinned, something like relief breaking through his carefully neutral expression. "There's worse things to be. And worse places to be than here, with a bear and a bottle and someone who knows exactly how fucked you are."

We watched the water until it was too dark to see anything at all.