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His dad had called him that morning while he was still at Amanda’s, and then again later when Bakari was in class and couldn’t answer. He listened to the voicemail during lunch.“I’m sorry, son. Not that I was wrong. Putting you out was the right thing to do, but I shouldn’t have ignored you when you tried to come to me like a man. That’s what I’ve taught you to do, and then I turned you away. You apologized to your mama, and that’s really all I was after. You can come back tonight. If you want.”
Bakari did go home that evening after practice, and everybody just acted like nothing had happened. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it’s what people do when they’re exhausted.
The pictures on the gray and white bulletin board caught his attention. There was his Danielle—he was already starting think of her as his— with a big group of girls, standing in the middle looking like prime Janet Jackson with the Poetic Justice braids. And there she was in a bikini—damn, he thought—on a beach somewhere. And then there was little Danielle with some other little kids, mean-mugging the camera with a melting ice cream cone in her hand.
Big Danielle smiled and held her little sisters’ hands in the fourth picture, this time wearing a yellow sundress and rocking a Caesar cut. They were just teenagers, but it seemed to Bakari that Danielle had been a whole lotta different people in her young life. There’s being trendy and different, and then there’s—whatever this was Danielle was doing. He was intrigued.
He noticed another picture behind that one, its edges just barely visible. His curiosity got the better of him, and he pulled it out. It was Danielle sitting next to Nyleah. They looked to be in a car.
Bakari frowned and wondered why Danielle would hide the picture. It came to him that maybe it hurt her too much to look at it. Hell, at that moment, it hurthimto look at it. He quickly placed it back in its home and tried not to think about Nyleah.
His interview with the police was coming up soon. He knew what he was supposed to say, but what about the things hecouldn’tsay? He supposed he would have to take those to the grave.
Not even Danielle knew, but then he didn’t really know Danielle well enough to confide in her like that. She projected an image of this free-spirited, mystically-inclined person, and those types are usually wide open, but Danielle was closed off. Bakari realized he was also guarding parts of himself with her. Maybe he was doing that in response to her guard being up. Or maybe it was instinct.
He sat down on the edge of her bed and remembered that he had just let her inside the private sanctuary of his mind. She was twenty feet away, reading something he considered to be a look into his innermost thoughts. The last person who took a look decided she wanted more. And while he had enjoyed it the first few times, it got too heavy and began to suffocate him. Amanda was dangerous, and he no longer felt like he waschoosingto be with her. He felt chosen, and then chased, and finally, compelled. And that made him uncomfortable.
Amanda had to go. Permanently this time.
Because here, where he was right this second? He felt right at home. He knew Danielle’s father was out of town, and her mother was most likely at work. Her sisters were God only knew where, but it didn’t matter, because nothing was going to happen today. The slow burn was new to him, and he wanted to enjoy it.
He glanced at his cell and frowned. It had been twelve minutes. He decided to give her five more, but then he heard her footsteps coming down the hall. She appeared in the doorway like an angel, smiling sweetly in her pink romper. “Bakari. I don’t even know what to say.”
“Don’t know what to say good, or don’t know what to say bad?”
She hugged the story against her and shook her head. “You’re an amazing writer. I mean…no offense, but I can’t believe you wrote this.”
“Ouch.”
“No! You know what I mean.”
“I really don’t.”
She sat next to him on the bed and turned so her body faced his. “You don’t talk like a person who would write like this. I mean, obviously you’re smart, but you’re also kinda…private, I guess. And with this,” she held up the story, “it was like you poured your soul onto these pages.”
He smiled into the butterfly rug beneath his feet. Danielle touched his face and turned it toward her. “Hey. That’s not a bad thing. Just surprising.”
He nodded. “So what was your favorite part?”
“That’s a hard one. Let me think…" She tapped her chin. "Probably when the boy finally got a chance to talk to his mother in the dream after all those times he woke up right before he could. I can’t explain it, but the way you built up the anticipation and the heartbreak throughout, and you’re thinking he must have something really important to say, and it turns out he just wanted to tell her he loved her one more time. I legit teared up at that part.”
He nodded. “I teared up writing it.”Shit! Why did I tell her that?
“Was that about someone in real life?”
“Nope. Just a metaphor.”
Danielle looked deep into his eyes. “It was beautiful, Bakari.”
“So are you.”
He expected her to giggle or look away in embarrassment. Instead, she did something that truly surprised him: she leaned over and pressed her lips against his. It took him a few seconds to realize what was happening before he kissed her back. Softly, at first, until he got his bearings, and then he took back the reins and pressed his lips hard onto hers. Neither noticed the story as it fell from Danielle’s lap and drifted onto the floor, too engrossed were they in each other.
His arms wrapped around her waist, her hands found their way to his shoulders, and their tongues met. Bakari couldn’t remember a time when he’d ever felt so exquisitely spellbound by a girl. He lost all notion of time and space, and only came up for air when he felt her pulling (or was it pushing?) his body backward onto the bed.
“Danielle, hold up.”
“What?” she asked, looking genuinely confused. She’d probably never had a boy pull the plug on her.
