A snowball.
I just took a snowball straight to the face.
I scrub it off with my gloved hands, blink a few times to clear my vision, and glance around Fletcher.
A young girl, maybe eight, maybe ten, with brown skin and big brown eyes, all wrapped up in a pink coat and matching snow pants, is hovering behind an evergreen bush beside the sidewalk.
“She has bad aim,” a boy not much older says on the other side of the sidewalk. He has the same eyes and an identical coat-snow pants suit, except his is black. “She was trying to hit me.”
They’re both bundled up in matching stocking hats too, their breaths little puffs in the morning air.
“Shouldn’t you be in school?” I blurt.
“We’re homeschooled,” the kid answers. He points to one of the apartment buildings across from the park. “We don’t start yet.”
“I didn’t mean to,” the girl whispers again.
Fletcher’s rigid body relaxes. He glances back at me, then turns to the girl. “You need help learning to aim? My sister was awful at it too.”
Gone is Mr.I Will Destroy You, and instead, there’s a quiet, patient man slowly approaching the young girl.
She eyes him warily, then looks at the older boy, whom I assume is her brother.
“I keep trying to show her, and it doesn’t work,” he says.
Fletcher squats to the ground about an arm and a half’s length from her, packs a snowball, and stretches to hand it to her. “Look where you’re throwing. Take your arm straight back—no, like this—there you go—and wait until your hand is right here to throw it. But keep it straight. Don’t twist your wrist. Make sense?”
She looks at her brother again.
He nods.
She nods.
And then she throws a snowball, aiming for the other kid, and instead sends it flying sideways in the opposite direction from where her last throw landed.
“Don’t go for force yet,” Fletcher says. “Accuracy first. Speed after you have accuracy. Here. Toss this one like it only has to go a meter. Foot. Only has to go a foot. Arm straight. Don’t twist your wrist. There you go. Nice.”
The snow is melting off my face, but something bigger, deeper, and far more terrifying is melting in my heart.
Fletcher helps the girl for a few more minutes while her brother covertly makes a pile of snowballs on his side of the sidewalk. Under normal circumstances, I’d scoot over to his side and help plan an all-out assault for once his sister has her throw down, but I can’t move.
Not with the thoughts racing through my head.
He’s a good man.
He’s so much more than he lets anyone see.
I want so badly to hug him right now.
How did I ever think he was ugly?
Did his dad do this with him?
Will he be okay?
I love him.
Can he love me back?
