Page 243 of The Sweetest Return

“He told me he went to see you after I left. Back then.”

I stared at her.

“Tee let him in,” she said quietly. “He said you were sitting on the floor by your bed. That the apartment was dark. That you had been drinking.”

My throat closed.

“Mani.”

“I didn’t know.” Her eyes came back to mine, shiny and aching. “All this time, I thought you let me leave because some part of you had already made peace with it. Because football was coming and the draft was coming and maybe losing me was just one more thing you had decided you could survive.”

I could barely breathe around the memory.

That room.

That bottle.

That draft hat on the floor.

The future sitting in front of me like a blessing I did not know how to want without her.

“I didn’t make peace with it,” I said.

“I know that now.”

Silence settled between us, but this time it did not feel like distance. It felt like the two of us standing on opposite sides of the same old wound, finally seeing how deep it had gone.

“I should have told you,” I said.

“You were twenty-two.”

“That don’t excuse it.”

“No,” she whispered. “But I understand more than I did.”

I dragged a hand over my jaw and looked toward the fire before my face gave away too much.

“It won’t be simple, Mani,” I said. “If I take this job, the hours are ugly. Road games. Facility days. Film. Practice. Times football takes more than either of us likes. And your work is growing too. Malibu wasn’t a one-time thing. The Nocturne, Laila, whatever comes next for Saint Aurelia. You’re going to be everywhere you’re supposed to be.”

“I know.”

“I’m proud of that.”

“I know that too.”

“But it scares me.”

Her lips parted.

I rubbed both hands over my thighs, then made myself look at her. “Last time our lives got big at the same time, you left.”

Pain moved across her face.

I hated putting it there.

Still said it.

“I know why now. I know you had to choose yourself. I know I was proud and quiet and young, and I made letting you go look like I had less to lose than I did.” My voice dropped. “But I lost you, Mani. I don’t know if I can let football take parts of my life again and not be scared that one day you’ll decide loving me costs too much.”