The Fall Risk

by Abby Jimenez

I always thought of the famous quote: “Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.”

“You know what they say about that store, right? You don’t let a man take you to IKEA unless you’re serious because it makes you imagine a life together.”

“Sometimes the start of something good begins during something bad,” he said. “We don’t get to pick when these things happen.”

“Redwoods,” he said. I wiped under my eyes. “The oldest trees in the world.” “Yes. They get that way by supporting each other. They intertwine their roots with the roots of other redwoods and it gives them stability. A redwood tree alone would fall.”

They say it’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. I wasn’t sure I agreed. Something told me I’d never get over the loss of this.