Page 235 of The Sweetest Return

I sucked in a breath. “Dre was drinking?”

“Yeah.”

“He barely drank back then.”

“I know.”

“He pretty much never drank when he was training.”

“I know, Mani.”

The light changed, but the car behind me had to tap its horn before I moved.

Jabari waited until I was driving again.

“He was messed up,” he said. “Not drunk showing out. Not angry. Just hurt. Close to tears and fighting it like that would make him less broken. I went there ready to put hands on him, or at least talk crazy enough to make myself feel useful. But when I saw him, I couldn’t.”

My eyes burned.

“What did he say?”

“I’m not giving you every word. Some of it belonged to him. But I’ll tell you this. That man would have done anything to keep you if he thought you wouldn’t resent him for it.”

A sound left me before I could catch it.

“He said that?”

“In his way.”

I blinked hard.

“He loved you,” Jabari said. “Enough to let you go because he believed asking you to stay would make you choose smaller than you were built for. I didn’t agree with how y’all handled it. I still don’t. Both of you were too proud, too quiet, and too dramatic for no reason.”

“Jabari.”

“But he let you go because he loved you, Imani.”

My chest hurt.

“And he loves you still.”

The road blurred for a second.

I reached for the control to lower the air because suddenly the car felt too warm.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You weren’t ready to hear it.”

“That wasn’t your decision.”

“It was my observation.”

“Jabari.”

“You were trying to survive losing him. If I had told you he was falling apart too, you either would have run back before you were ready or hated him for making you feel guilty. And it wasn’t my story to hand you when neither one of you knew what to do with it.”

I hated how much sense that made.