“Jesus,” I said again. Repeating it like I knew I’d need the son of God in the days ahead. “What a mess.”

“You’re not alone.”

We released hands and sat up. Insecure men consider emotion a weakness. Men who have faced their demons and survived think different. “So, where’s Cassie?” I asked for the third time. “I need to know she’s safe.”

“She’s safe,” Al said. “Just needs some distance right now. Time and space to think.”

I nodded. “What the fuck am I going to do, Al? How do I make this right?”

This conversation would have been easier in the dark, in the shadows. The morning sunlight streaming through the window made me feel vulnerable and exposed.

“Same way you got sober, Jess. Be honest, have faith, and take it one day at a time. This ain’t going away overnight.” I realized I’d have to trash my sobriety chip; I was back to day one.

Physically, I felt horrible. But that paled compared to the pain of knowing I had made things harder for Cassie. I couldn’t accept complete responsibility, though. Yes, I was complicit to a degree. Technically, no one had forced me to take those drinks. But I was also a victim in some elaborate scheme that I still couldn’t comprehend. And the person behind this needed to be caught and punished. I hope that happens before he comes for you.

“Someone’s out there doing this shit. Planned this whole thing, starting back before Saturday night. That girl in those pictures?” Who had taken those pictures? How had they gotten on my phone? “I told her to fuck off back at the bar. Those pictures don’t show what was actually going on. Later? Man, I don’t even know. I was in the black, man. All the way gone, you know?”

He nodded. That he did know. Al had gone from being a partner in a commercial building firm that designed and constructed luxury resorts to homeless in record time. Like sleeping in underpasses homeless. Eating out of trashcans. Al, the most trustworthy man I know, had, at one time, robbed colleagues, customers, and family members for coke money. Al, the smartest man I’ve ever met, had been mugged multiple times while buying crack from shady dealers. These were two men sharing the same meat suit: one living in the light of sobriety, the other lost in the black. For Al, there had been no final straw, no bottom. Just one perpetual free fall in a dark void until he stumbled upon a book that popped his parachute open. The Book, actually, by Alan Watts, which he had found on a park bench like some totem of divine intervention. Strange that a book had saved him, while a book was destroying me.

I noticed he had yet to suggest alerting the cops. “You don’t believe me,” I said.