"Listen," he said, sitting down next to her, "when I was about ten, me, my cousin Daniel, and my best friend at the time, JP, were in the back yard just playing around with a nerf football. Anyway, in the course of playing around, the ball kept getting caught in this tree we had back there.
"The first few times it got caught, me and JP took turns climbing the tree to go get it. Finally, Danny kicked it into the tree, and me and JP decided that it was Danny's turn to go get it.
"Danny was a little wuss, though. Still is, really. or was... Anyway, he refused to climb that tree. He always had, but me and JP had had enough and decided that Danny was gonna go get that ball, so we bullied him into finally going up that tree.
"We went up there with him to make sure he didn't chicken out, which he almost did. So we shoved him out onto the branch. I had climbed that tree a thousand times with no problem, so had JP. But we also knew what branches could hold us up, and we knew how to fall so we wouldn't get hurt. Danny didn't know any of that.
"He got most of the way out there, and was doing fine, until he slipped a little, tried to grab a branch to steady himself, but it snapped, he ended up losing his grip and dropped a good... must've been about twelve or so feet. He fractured his ankle when he hit the ground.
"I got grounded for a month for that. I was pissed about that too. Danny kicked the ball up there, and he said he'd go get it. Not my fault he fell. But looking back on it, they were right to have grounded me.
"I should've known better. I did know better. Whenever people do anything for the first time, they're going to make mistakes. I knew how dangerous that was, and I knew he could get hurt doing that, but I made him do it anyway, without any kind of a safety net.
"I know you were trying to help Komali, but you did was a little thoughtless. You should've known he would mess up the first few times he tried to fly, you're too smart not to know that. He did break his leg, and he could've hurt himself a lot worse if he fell straight down since there'd be nothing to break his fall but concrete."
no subject
"The first few times it got caught, me and JP took turns climbing the tree to go get it. Finally, Danny kicked it into the tree, and me and JP decided that it was Danny's turn to go get it.
"Danny was a little wuss, though. Still is, really. or was... Anyway, he refused to climb that tree. He always had, but me and JP had had enough and decided that Danny was gonna go get that ball, so we bullied him into finally going up that tree.
"We went up there with him to make sure he didn't chicken out, which he almost did. So we shoved him out onto the branch. I had climbed that tree a thousand times with no problem, so had JP. But we also knew what branches could hold us up, and we knew how to fall so we wouldn't get hurt. Danny didn't know any of that.
"He got most of the way out there, and was doing fine, until he slipped a little, tried to grab a branch to steady himself, but it snapped, he ended up losing his grip and dropped a good... must've been about twelve or so feet. He fractured his ankle when he hit the ground.
"I got grounded for a month for that. I was pissed about that too. Danny kicked the ball up there, and he said he'd go get it. Not my fault he fell. But looking back on it, they were right to have grounded me.
"I should've known better. I did know better. Whenever people do anything for the first time, they're going to make mistakes. I knew how dangerous that was, and I knew he could get hurt doing that, but I made him do it anyway, without any kind of a safety net.
"I know you were trying to help Komali, but you did was a little thoughtless. You should've known he would mess up the first few times he tried to fly, you're too smart not to know that. He did break his leg, and he could've hurt himself a lot worse if he fell straight down since there'd be nothing to break his fall but concrete."