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Danielle nodded, her face covered with worry. “I don’t know how to feel about it, you know? I think about it at the most random times, and then I can’t get it out of my head.” She frowned and stared at the table.
Bakari studied her, realizing he had made a mistake. Nyleah wasn’t his in with Danielle. She had been his friend, and he had his own feelings about it that he hadn’t dealt with yet. It hadn’t hit him until right at that moment.
“I know what you mean,” he said. “My pops is always in my ear about moving past it, but it’s like…how do you just move past something like that?”
Danielle nodded and went to speak, but the waiter returned at that moment, a plate of mozzarella sticks in hand. They waited for him to leave, and then the two nibbled in silence for several minutes. Bakari was uncomfortable at first, searching for something to say, but nothing seemed fitting for the moment.
“I’m not past it,” she said. “And then I get to thinking about who would have had a problem with her, and it doesn’t seem like anybody disliked her enough to…do that. Know what I mean?”
Bakari dipped a mozzarella stick in ketchup and ate it thoughtfully. “Yeah. I almost feel like it had to be a stranger. Like maybe somebody snuck in through a side door or something.”
“I’ve had nightmares.”
Bakari hesitated and took a deep breath, exhaling as he said the words. “Me too.”
“You know something, Bakari?”
“What?”
“You’re one of the few guys I know who actually feels things.”
He thought that through and came up empty. “What does that mean?”
“You’re soulful, and you don’t run away from it. It’s a very good quality to have, especially for a guy.”
That was a new one. “Thank you.”
“Mm-hm. It’s not something you’d expect from an athlete. But I can tell there’s a lot more to you than just football.”
“Well damn. I feel like you’re telling me my fortune right now. Are you psychic?”
Danielle giggled. “No, just observant. I see things in people.”
Bakari leaned closer and stared right into her eyes. “What else do you see?”
She smiled knowingly, as if she was preparing to let him in on a big secret. “I get the sense that you’re gonna do something great. There’s a fire in you, Bakari. Like, a deep passion for something. You just haven’t tapped into it yet.”
“You should talk to my pops. He thinks all I care about is football.”And girls.“And that I’m lazy.”
“He obviously doesn’t see what I see.”
“If we’re being real,Idon’t even see what you see.”
She shrugged. “Most people can’t see themselves clearly.” She paused as the waiter set her cheeseburger on the table in front of her. Bakari watched as she took a bite, completely enthralled. She chewed slowly and swallowed, and it was the cutest chew and swallow he had ever seen. And then she spoke again, softly. “I don’t know you well, but I can tell you this: whatever that thing is, you need to nurture it. Don’t ever let anybody talk you out of your destiny.”
“What if I don’t know what that is?”
She raised an eyebrow. “I had a feeling it wasn’t football.”
Bakari sighed. “It’s notjustfootball.”
“Take your time and it’ll come to you. And when it does, you can’t be scared of it. It’s in you already, Bakari, I promise you.”
The booth’s worn red leather creaked under the weight of his body as he settled against it. “That’s…deep.”
Danielle shrugged and sipped her soda.
“Alright, I have a question for you. How would you feel if I asked you on a date? Arealdate.”
