The Lost Truth Read Online Free

on. Lowering the bottle back into the freezer, I closed the lid and headed into the living room to sit down.
    Turning on the television, I folded my hands together on my stomach and my eyelids began to feel heavy. As the whiskey ran its course, I felt my body relax, and the constant pain in my leg faded along with the memories of that day.
     

     
    “He’ll be here in ten,” Janice said, waking me from my nap.
    I sat up and gathered my thoughts as I looked over to the clock on the separating wall between the kitchen and living room. “It’s already four?”
    “Yep. You stink. Go brush your teeth or something,” she demanded.
    “I’d like it if you treated me with a bit more respect,” I replied as I grabbed at the arm rest and helped myself up to my feet.
    “I’d like it if you didn’t drink, but that doesn’t matter, does it?”
    “I had two little sips.”
    “Half a bottle in two drinks?” she asked. “I saw the bottle this morning when I got chicken out to thaw. It was full.”
    Shaking my head, I made my way down the hallway to the bathroom without a response. She doesn’t get it. As I came into the bathroom, I caught my reflection in the mirror. I hated mirrors. There wasn’t a more dreaded thing I had to do in life than to look into a mirror.
    When I caught my reflection in a mirror, I saw through all the layers and walls I had built up. My perspective wasn’t what others saw. While they might see an older gentleman who drinks a little too much, lost his wife and happened to be in a motorcycle accident, that wasn’t what I saw. Instead, I saw the truth.
    The truth that I was lost on a path and didn’t know how to get back to where I had come from.
    The truth that I longed for love like what I used to have with my wife.
    The truth that I wasn’t more than a mere shell of a man who once was somebody that mattered.
    And the absolute most painful truth I saw when I looked into a mirror was the man who messed up in that trailer park.
    I could have done it differently.
    Tried harder to save her.
    Said fewer words.
    Something.
    Anything.
    After brushing my teeth and rinsing out the whiskey smell as best that I could, I headed back out to the living room. Walking down the hallway, I could hear Paul in the living room, already going on and on about the latest fishing competition he was in last weekend. Rolling my eyes right before I rounded the corner, I took a deep breath in and forced out a smile.
    “Clay,” he said, stopping the conversation with Janice and rising to his feet as I walked in. He extended a hand.
    “Paul,” I replied, shooting my hand into his to shake. Paul was one of those guys who tried to squeeze too early on a shake, and you end up feeling incompetent in some strange way while your hand is almost folded like a burrito between the other guy’s grip.
    “How you been holding up?” he asked as he sat back down on the couch next to Janice.
    Sitting down on the recliner, I tilted my head back and forth slightly and pushed out, “Fine.” Hesitating, I decided to not ask how he was in the hopes to avoid a conversation about fishing.
    He didn’t feel the need for me to ask before he told me. “I’ve been doing great. Just went up to Diamond Lake last weekend for a fishing competition.”
    Keeping a fake smile on my face, I nodded as I reluctantly encouraged him to continue. As he began describing the fish he caught, I stole a glance over at Janice as she hung from every word he spoke. She didn’t care about fishing, but she was crazy about Paul. The guy had even gone as far as buying us both fishing poles for Christmas last winter. They, of course, were still sitting in the shed off the back porch, yet to be used. Mine never left the house at Christmas because I didn’t care enough to go, and Janice always had a reason why she couldn’t go whenever Paul tried to invite her.
    “What do you think?” he asked.
    I nodded.
    “Great!” he replied with an excited tone to his