There are lies that you’ll tell. That night, in your room, you sketch a thousand different versions of a flying fox. That morning you read gravity and physics. You go through the trunk of your grandfather’s things looking for gadgets or signs. You scope low on the balcony, pursuing breaks in the walls, narrow channels, passable distances, chances. You go back into your room and close the door and practice your posture with arrows. When you arrive at the park, he’s there, sitting in a crook, a pyramid of dirty snowballs on the ground beneath him, snug against the base of the tree. His feet dangle in their too-big sneaks. He’s got a cup of something steaming in one hand. “You’re a little late,” he says. Is it a jab? Is it friendly? You don’t know; how could you know? He shrugs. Swings his legs, loose and long, knocking the dirty hem of his trench coat and exhaling hard, cold, white breaths. He looks like he’s been here all night, guarding the linden, angling for practice, getting bored and blaming you.
