The Fall Risk

by Abby Jimenez

For all the women who choose the bear and all the men who do the work to understand why. May the forest be a little less scary one day.

“Listen to me,” he said, going on unfazed. “Do not, and I cannot stress this enough, spend the whole time talking to her about trees.” “I’m not going to talk to her about trees.” “Okay. Because you do that when you’re nervous. It’s all jacarandas and dId YoU kNoW mOsT tReEs aRe mALe.”

“Women solve entire murders on their podcasts, you think I can’t find out all I need to know about some rando I met on the lawn?”

“If you swing a baseball bat at someone, they sometimes try to take it from you. So if you have a sock on there, the sock slides off when they grab the bat, it puts them off balance, and you get a second swing to break their skull.” She sipped innocently on her drink. “You are slightly terrifying,” I said. “Am I?” She grinned. “Thank you.”

He shook his head. “I’m not gonna run. Why would I run? I like that you need something, it gives me something to do for you.” He looked at her earnestly. “I like doing things for you.”

I felt him look at me. “You are too, you know.” “What?” “Worth waiting for.”