“By the way, how’s everything with your family? With the drama I mean.”
“Well…” Kyree sighed. How indeed was the family? “I can’t really say.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.” She touched his arm, just briefly, but even through their layers he could feel the warmth.
“No, it’s not that,” he said quickly, as he noticed a group of children dragging sleds toward a modest slope. “To be honest, I don’t really know what happened. But I think it has something to do with Michelle’s stepdaughter and a boy she met at college.”
“Oh heavens, not a college boy.” Her tone was clearly sarcastic. “How old is she?”
“Twenty, but her dad’s really protective, and I don’t think he’s handling the idea of his little girl becoming a woman very well.”
“I’m not surprised.” A wry look crossed Zuri’s face. “My older brother came to visit me at college the end of my freshman year. We went to this house party, and he lost his full mind when he caught me upstairs making out with a cadet from the coast guard academy. From the way he carried on, you’d have thought I’d committed a felony.”
“See, that’s exactly why I never let my little sister visit me at Princeton. I wasn’t about to play chaperone all weekend, and trust me, she would have needed one.”
“You went to Princeton?” Her eyes popped, filled with fresh curiosity.
Kyree nodded.
“Wow… Impressive.”
“Thanks.” He didn’t know what else to say. It certainly wasn’t going to be that he’d lived at home the first two years, making the hour-plus commute from Philly until his scholarship increased to include room and board. Or about the extra shifts he’d worked at a hardware store on weekends, the loans he’d taken out, the weight of being the first in his family to attend college, and the constant need to prove his worth at an Ivy League school with classmates who couldn’t understand his reality.
“Where did you go?” he asked, desperate to adjust the spotlight.
“Conn College.”
Of course. A top private liberal arts college, and one of New England’s “Little Ivies”. He didn’t doubt that she was brilliant enough to get in, but he was sure she hadn’t needed to depend on a scholarship to go there.
“How old is your sister?” Zuri asked.
“Aaliyah’s twenty-two now. And my brother Dequan just turned seventeen.”
“Oh, so there’re three of you?”
“Yeah…” Kyree gave her a puzzled look. “Why?”
“Nothing, I just––” Zuri stopped in her tracks and glanced upward into the twisted branches of an oak tree. Sunlight filtered through, casting patterns across her face. “I’d just assumed… Well, I thought, maybe you didn’t have any immediate family.”
“Huh. Interesting…” Kyree could have done without his brother’s antics and his sister’s hot-headedness growing up, but he wouldn’t have wanted to be an only child. “What made you think that?”
“Well…” She met his eyes. “I guess because you said you’re here to see your cousin. I just couldn’t imagine being away from my family for Christmas.”
“Ahhh.” Kyree chuckled, embarrassment warming his face. “Yeah, about that…”
“Do you all not get along or something?”
“No, we do—very well. Really, it’s my own fault that I’m not with them this year.” He glanced warily at Zuri, and then at Princess standing attentively at her feet, head tilted, ears cocked––both looking at him as if to say, Well, come on. Out with it. He groaned. “Okay, you want the truth?”
“I’ll always want the truth, Kyree.”
Always? Is she saying we have a chance? The sincerity and steadiness in her eyes seemed to say just that. Kyree looked beyond her to the bridge spanning the park’s pond. Sunlight glinted off the steel railings, and the bare branches of the weeping willow near the edge swayed gently, teasing the surface of the frozen water with their delicate tips. “The truth is, I’m afraid of flying,” he confessed, finally meeting her gaze.
“Wait.” Zuri blinked. “For real?”
“For real.” He tugged Princess’ leash, and they followed the path around the pond. “When I was ten, my family took a trip to Disney World. On the flight down, we hit some horrible turbulence—some of the overhead cabins opened and bags fell out, a flight attendant hit her head and started bleeding.”
“Oh my gosh…” Zuri pressed her hand to her chest.
