Chapter 272: Asher
It’s warm today. Not hot just the kind of spring warmth that carries a breeze with it, soft and kind, adding the trees like a quiet song. The sky is so blue it looks painted, too vivid to be real. A few birds are darting back and forth, atdiging like they’ve got secrets to tell. There’s the occasional buzz of a bee in the nearby flower beds, and somewhere to dy left, i can hear the distant crunch of footsteps on gravel, someone else wandering the rows.
But where I am here
–
it’s still.
Still and golden, like time paused just long enough to let me breathe,
I run a hand through my hair and lean forward, elbows on my knees. The bench creaks beneath me, but I don’t mind. It’s familiar now. I’ve been coming here every few months. Sometimes with Penny. Sometimes not. Sometimes I talk.
Sometimes I just sit.
But today… today I talk.
“Hey, Night.”
My voice is low. Not quiet, exactly, just grounded. Like I’m trying not to shake the air too much.
“I brought your favorites.”
A small gesture to the bottle of root beer I placed beside the headstone. It’s already sweating from the warmth.
“I don’t know if you’re still into that whole ‘pretend it’s beer but make it Mormon–friendly‘ thing, but figured I’d keep the
tradition alive.”
A beat of silence. The kind that feels more like someone listening than someone gone.
“I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately.”
I drag a hand down my face. “Shit. That sounds like a breakup letter.”
A bitter laugh catches in my throat, but it dies just as fast as it came.
“I think you’d like the new job,” I say finally. “Well… maybe not the paperwork. You always said any man who could make
it through BUD/S only to get crushed under a stack of admin reports was a sucker. But the rest? I think it would’ve made
you proud.”
I glance toward the grave.
“I made some changes, Pushed for mandatory evaluations after deployment. Not just one, but several. Spaced out, consistent, detailed. You always said it was the little things that went unnoticed. Like…”
I smile, dry and tired.
“Remember when you said Rooster and I should probably see a psychologist because cranberry juice reminded us too much
of blood?”
A short laugh escapes me. “You called it ‘liquid trauma in a plastic cup.“”
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Chapter 272: Asher
I shake my head.
Thought it was one of your weird observations that didn’t mean much.” My jaw
“I thought you were being draething.”
clenches. “But you were onto
I pause, eyes drifting across the rows of white marble that stretch like frozen waves across the hills.
“It’s never the big things. Not at first. It’s not the explosions, or the firefights, or the blood not always. Sometimes it’s the taste of metal in your mouth after biting your lip too hard. Sometimes it’s the way your boots sound in an empty hallway. Sometimes it’s cranberry juice.”
I glance back down at Night’s name etched into stone. The letters are sharp, unwavering.
“You were always the first to notice when one of us started drifting. You noticed Rooster chewing the skin off his knuckles before anyone else did. You caught Boomer going silent after that op in Libya. You noticed me when I couldn’t sleep for five days straight but kept saying I was fine.”
My throat tightens.
“I wish I’d noticed you sooner.”
The silence that follows is sharp enough to carve.
“I wish I’d done something. Anything. Asked harder questions. Stuck around after mission briefs. I don’t know, man. Something. Four years, and I’ve come to terms with what happened on that mission. I’ve accepted it – because I had to. But I sure as hell don’t want it happening to anyone else. Not on my watch.”
The wind stirs again. A bird lands on a nearby branch. Its head tilts toward me like it’s listening.
“I’ve made it part of training now,” I go on. “Every team has to go through scenario–based emotional response checks. It’s not just about physical reaction time anymore. It’s about heart rate. Eye dilation. Cortisol levels. We’re tracking it all. You’d probably call it overkill.”
I smile faintly. “But I call it protecting my people.”
Another pause.
“I wish you were here. You’d tear the new kids apart in drills but then hand them a protein bar after and make them think you were the nicest guy in the world. You had a way of making us feel like we weren’t going crazy. Like it was okay to carry shit, as long as we didn’t carry it alone.”
I lean back against the bench. My hands drop into my lap.
“And then there’s Penny.”
A different smile now. One with weight behind it. With heat.
“She’s…” I shake my head. “She’s everything, Night.”
“She’s light. Not in that empty way. Not like something bright and easy to forget. She’s… warm, Gentle, Strong. That kind of softness that makes you feel like maybe the world isn’t always trying to burn itself down.”
I glance up at the sky.
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Chapter 272: Asher
“For the longest time, I thought she was too good for me. Hell, sometimes I still do. I thought that if I got too close, l’a break her. Smother her with all the shit I carry. The ghosts: The guilt. The anger.*
I breathe out slow.
“But she never flinched. She never looked away. She held it all. All of
I look back at the tombstone.
me.”
“She’s the reason I kept going. After you. After everything.”
A pause.
“I think I was what she needed too. At least… I hope I was. Am.”
I press my palms together, elbows still resting on my knees.
“She doesn’t know I came here today. I didn’t want her to worry. But I needed to see you. To talk. I know it’s just stone and grass, but…”
I shrug.
“You were always the best listener.”
The sun is starting to shift, the shadows longer now.
I glance at my watch.
“Alright, old man,” I say with a breath. “I should go home. She’ll be waiting. Probably barefoot in the kitchen, pretending she’s not sore even though I know damn well she’s gonna be icing that knee later.”
I stand slowly, stretch my back, and pick up the now–warm bottle of root beer.
“I’ll come again soon.”
I brush my knuckles gently against the edge of the stone.
“And hey… wherever you are, I hope there’s no cranberry juice.”
Then I turn.
And I walk away, toward the car, toward home, toward the only kind of peace that ever made sense to me after war.
Her.
