Snowstorm

Roselle and Vicente sat in the garden giggling with one another, completely wasted. They were probably drinking for an hour, and Roselle kept on doing her best to ramble nonsense sentences in spanish.

"¡Mi nombre es Roselle y me gusta el tequila [My name is Roselle and I like tequila]!" she said, smiling like a goofy idiot.

Vicente applauded. "Muy bien [very good]. I think you're forming sentences much better than before."

She hiccuped. "But still, there's so much I can't do, like roll my r's." She pouted.

"Let me hear you try to roll your r's."

In an attempt to roll her r's, Roselle's mouth was making all kinds of crazy sounds. She blew out of her mouth, she made weird 'L' noises, she said "brrr" with her lips, and all other kinds of ridiculous stuff. No matter what, she just couldn't seem to get that desired 'r' trill.

The prince roared with laughter.

"Well I'm glad you think it's funny!"

"Here, watch me do it," he said. "Rrrr."

She intently looked at the positioning of his tongue and his lips as he made the noise and tried to duplicate it. Only a huff of broken air came out.

"Don't put your tongue on the roof of your mouth, keep it in the middle," he instructed.

"THHHH!" Roselle's mouth said. "Ugh! Why can't I do it?"

"Because you don't know how to use your tongue. For this to work, you need to be the master of your tongue." He took one of the cherry stems from the drinks they had and handed it to her. "Put this in your mouth and tie it into a knot."

"Pssh." Roselle stuck the stem in her mouth and spit it out five seconds later, and it was indeed in a tight knot. "Boy, I AM the master of my tongue," she said, tossing him the stem.

He gaped his mouth, then broke out in a huge smile. "Wow, I'm impressed." He stroked his chin. "Well, I have another suggestion for you to learn how to roll your r's."

"How?"

He moved his face close to hers. "Put your tongue in my mouth while I roll mine so you can see how it's done."

She smirked. "Vicente?"

"Yes?"

"THAT'S THE STUPIDEST THING I'VE EVER HEARD! HOW DUMB DO YOU THINK I AM?!"

He sighed and laid back in the chair. "What? It could work. And even if it doesn't, at least we'll have some fun, no?"

Roselle rolled her eyes and got up. "The nice moment is gone. Well, thanks for everything, but gotta go home now."

He followed her. "Let me take you there. You're drunk."

"I'll call my sister. Leave me alone. Bye." She walked away, and although she did her best to walk normal, she clumsily stumbled in her drunken steps.

Veronica, who appeared to be even drunker than Roselle was, grabbed her shoulder. "Hey, yooooou!" she said, swinging around. "Vicente is going home with ME, okay?"

"Okay? You can have him. Bye." Roselle tried to walk away, but Veronica kept her grasp.

"So that's it? You're not even gonna fight me for him?�� She laughed so hard that she snorted. "Wow, you're so pathetic."

"You're even more pathetic for being so desperate."

"Ugh!" Veronica tried to throw a punch, but she was so drunk that all Roselle had to do to win the fight was dodge, and Veronica was on the ground unconscious.

Passerbyers caught wind of what was going on and cheered.

Roselle ran away from the scene even though the world appeared that it was running in circles as well.

* * *

After a few days, Celio returned to Washington D.C. His mother was fine, and he was ready to continue the tutoring sessions with Roselle.

"HE BROUGHT YOU TO A FRAT PARTY?!" Celio asked, practically blowing up. "I'm gonna kill him. He knows those can be dangerous!" He held his hand over his eye for a moment--the one with the bangs over it.

"Yeah . . ." Roselle told Celio about the party, but not about the part where they danced, got drunk, and when Vicente tried to kiss her. That was too embarrassing.

"Roselle, I'm very sorry you wasted a night of studying because of that guy. I'll never ask that guy to tutor you again."

"Well, can I tell you something a little crazy?" She played with the ends of her hair. "I think that . . . going to the party actually kind of helped me learn spanish a little. I mean, yeah, Vicente is a dummy, but he did have a point. I think if I use spanish in real life with real instances, it would help me more than only using flashcards all the time."

This was both true, and would help Roselle's mission, which had been at the back of her mind all this time: to help Celio be more social and get over his fear of women. It would be good for BOTH of them to go out every now and then.

Celio hugged himself and looked at the floor. "I . . . I'm sorry . . . I've been a bad teacher . . ."

"What? No you haven't. You've been great. I've learned so much from you."

"You don't need to be nice, Roselle."

She got up and sat down next to him, putting her hand on his shoulder. "Really, you are a good teacher. You're probably the best spanish teacher I've ever had. You're dedicated, patient, kind, and you actually care about me. You're exactly what I needed all this time."

He smiled, though he still couldn't face her. "Well, if you want, maybe we can go somewhere where you can practice your skills more, like . . . a spanish movie. In the theatre."

Bingo. "Yeah, that sounds great!"

"Well, do you want to go today?"

"I'd love to."

The wind howled from the outside of the dorm. Roselle looked out the window, and snow was rampant and flying everywhere. It didn't look safe to go outside.

"I just got a notification on my phone," Celio said. "There's going to be a huge snowstorm. It would probably be better if we stayed inside for a while."

"Oh . . . Yeah . . ." Drat.

"We can still try to do immersion from inside the room."

"How?"

"Well . . . don't use flashcards or try to say certain sentences. Just talk to me."

"About what?"

"Hmm . . . You can go around the room describing things you see, feel, smell, and hear."

"Okay, I'll try it out."

* * *

Roselle did the exercise where she went around describing things, but there were only so many things to describe in a tiny dorm room. She was out of content within half an hour.

"Okay, I think I'm all burnt out," she said, throwing herself in a chair. "I don't even know what else to talk about."

"I think you've become better at describing objects, but can you describe people?" Celio asked.

"Let me try right now." She studied him, sizing him up.

Celio was frozen in his seat. "Wait . . . That's not what I . . ."

"Te veo, el tesorero [I see you, the treasurer]," she said. She got up and sat next to him, observing him closer.

Celio tensed up a little. "I . . ."

"Escucho Celio hablar."

"The grammar should be 'Escucho hablar a Celio [I hear Celio speak]," he corrected, though it was in a hushed tone.

Roselle studied him more for a second, and ran her fingers through his hair. "Why do you always cover one of your eyes with your bangs?" she asked.

"Wait, don't--"

Too late. She moved his bangs to the side revealing a scar on Celio's eye. She put it back and gasped. "Oh, I'm sorry!"

"It's okay, you didn't know."

"But, what happened to you there?"

Celio took a deep breath. "I told you that I was bullied by pretty girls when I was in college, but I never told you the whole story."

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"I want to." He placed his hand over his eye. "When I was young and I was attending this college, there were these girls in my class that were jealous because I always got better grades than them. They picked on me every day. One day, they invited me to a frat party, and I was so desperate to fit in that I went."

Roselle watched him intently as he kept on speaking, her heart throbbing.

"When I arrived, the girls told me to go to the living room, so I did, and . . ." He clenched his fist. "They beat me with a bat and laughed. The boys told them to stop, but they didn't. They hit me so hard that I was blinded in my right eye." He glanced at the floor. "And I've been uncomfortable around women ever since."

She touched his shoulder. "I'm so sorry. That sounds awful."

"I know not all girls are like that, but even still, the memory is so painful. Even the girls in my class that I thought were nice beat me at the party too . . ."

"Celio, you've helped me, so I want to help you now too. I want to help you get over your fear of women."

"I don't know if you can . . ."

"I'll try."

"How?"

Roselle wrapped her arms around him and held him in a warm embrace. He was stiff, but slowly, he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her back. "I don't know yet, but I promise I will," she whispered, and meant it.