She’s holding back on me. Her face just changed. A tiny furrow in her brow. A slight downturn of her mouth. She was just open. She warmed right up when I mentioned her fruity teas, and she tore up the salmon I ordered for her.
It felt like old times.
Until I started talking about the Starting Five and how they’ve sustained me this past season.
Shit.
I made it sound like I moved on so easily. Like I pushed her to the side and kept it pushing.
No lie. That’s exactly what I did.
My mouth opens to start telling her about our last meet-up, but I close it, watching her instead, taking in the shift in her energy when I brought them up.
She blinks at me. I stay quiet, letting the silence sit, hoping the tension eases
“How are your friends? Charisse and Porsche. I know Charisse had her babies, and Porsche and Drummond got married a few months ago.”
She perks up a bit. My body relaxes.
“They’re good. Porsche and Drummond are on another vacation.” She smiles.
“Those two are something else,” I say, laughing.
“They really are.” The way her eyes light up pulls me in.
“Charisse is overwhelmed with two toddlers, but she won’t admit it. You can’t get her on the phone without a child taking the phone or needing her attention.”
A flash of sadness comes and goes in her eyes.
“Is that hard on you?”
She shrugs. “I want to say no because what kind of friend takes you growing your family or getting married hard? But nothing’s the same. No one is as accessible. I get kind of lonely.”
If I hadn’t ditched her that day, she might have had me to keep her company so she wouldn’t be lonely.
I want to reach out and hold her hand, but I respect her boundaries. That’s not where we are right now.
“You’re allowed to feel how you feel,” I tell her. “Regardless of what everyone else is going through, you are allowed to have feelings.”
She giggles. “That’s what my therapist said too.”
I sit back. “Look at me, almost a therapist.”
She shakes her head and laughs. “What would you do if you weren’t playing basketball?”
I suck my teeth. “I don’t know. At all. That’s all I could focus on growing up, because that’s all I had. That’s all my parents focused on. They put a lot into me playing basketball, and it paid off. But after this, I have no idea.”
“You didn’t have any other interests?” she asks.
I shake my head. “Sadly, no. We all had a one-track mind. It led us to where we are. It led me to where I am. My parents to whatever the hell they’re doing now, but... I never had any intentions for anything except being in the NBA.”
“Damn. Wow,” she says. “That’s interesting. You always wanted to be an artist, right? But you felt like you had to go in a direction that other people would think is real.”
She nods, a smile on her face.
“You remember that?”
“Of course I do,” I tell her. “You were the most interesting person I’ve ever met. I remember what you tell me.”
