Something about that tug on my sleeve allowed me to open up and be honest with him, the way it was the first year we were together, the spring of 1999. The words all rushed out of me. So did the questions.

He had a few things he had to answer for. The cocaine, for one.

“With the drugs, I was always on, always going. Go, go go. I needed more. I needed to keep going. And I was scared that if I didn’t, it would all fall apart.”

And he told me how how mad he was, for years. “Not at you, not at anything that happened in Miami. But I didn’t take care of myself, and it showed.”

He told me how he grew so surly, so hostile as he got older, how he thought it was a manifestation of his shyness. Instead, it was a manifestation of the drugs he had...

Please subscribe to keep reading.