Page 7 of The Sweetest Return

“Make tonight ugly.”

“I’m not making it anything. I’m trying to understand why you came over here knowing this and didn’t tell me.”

“I wanted tonight.”

“For what?”

“For us.” My voice cracked. “I wanted us before everything became New York and the draft and whatever happens after graduation.”

“But that was already here, Mani. You just didn’t tell me.”

I got out of bed and pulled the sheet around myself because sitting naked in front of him suddenly felt too exposed.

“My whole life is changing too.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

“I think everybody forgets.”

His brow pulled together.

“Everybody talks about what happens next like there’s one future we’re waiting on, and it’s yours. The draft. Teams. Contracts. Where you might live. My friends joke about me being a WAG. Your family talks about visiting us wherever you land. My parents ask which NFL cities have good marketing opportunities.”

Dre stared at me.

“Nobody is trying to hurt me,” I said. “They love us. But somewhere along the way, everybody started acting like your future was the plan and mine was something we’d fit around it.”

“I never told you to do that.”

“I know.”

“Then why does it feel like I’m the one on trial?”

That quieted me.

Because he was right.

The sheet tightened in my hands.

“You’re not.”

“It damn sure sounds like it.”

“I’m scared.”

The anger in his face shifted.

I took a breath, but it shook before I could steady it. “Because I could do it, Dre. That’s what scares me. I love you enough that I could follow you wherever somebody sends you and keep telling myself I’ll figure my life out when we get there.”

His face changed.

“And maybe I would. Maybe I’d find a job and make friends and be happy. But what if I wake up one day and everything people know about me starts with you? What if I become your girl and forget I was supposed to be something else too?”

His jaw tightened. “You think that’s how I see you?”

“No.”

The answer came quickly because it was true.