“Sean, stop!”

“What?”

“Just…walk your bike down.”

“Kate, I’m not a baby. I can take that hill!”

“Probably. Just do it for me, please?”

“It’s just a little snow. I’ve done it a hundred times! Plus…I was SO hoping for the opportunity to show off for you.”

Kate smiled, but Sean could see in her eyes that her worry hadn’t abated.

“Oh, fine.” He dismounted. “Happy?”

She nodded, but her hazel eyes held the same worry.

He made the descent much slower than it had to be, the sarcastic teenager that he was. When he was almost to the bottom and with every intention of giving her one of his looks, his foot slipped on an invisible patch of ice under snow. He fell flat on his behind.

Kate skittered down the hill, worried about her friend.
“Sean, are you alright?”

She was expecting him to laugh, but he didn’t. He only looked up at her, wide-eyed with mouth agape.

“That was weird,” he said. “It was like you knew it was there! You couldn’t have seen it…could you?”