The Fall Risk: A Short Story

Seth had excused himself to take a call with Gabe, and I’d used that as my cue to escape. I slipped into my apartment, bolted the lock and drew the chain across, and put my back to the door.

The whole last twenty minutes had been a roller coaster of . . . a lot of things.

I actually thought for a split second that the stairs had been George. I was probably giving him too much credit. He was very good at finding me. He was excellent at terrorizing me. But removing a whole flight of stairs in half an hour? It was industrious, even for him.

I let out a breath and called Izzy.

“Never do that to me again,” she said, picking up on the first ring.

“I’m sorry,” I said, sliding down to the floor.

“Of all the fucking days when I’m not picking you up for target practice—”

“I know. It was unfortunate timing. I got overwhelmed and I didn’t think to call you.”

She scoffed. “Overwhelmed is right. I’m here thinking you’re being murdered, and instead, you’re in a tree house with a hot botanist.”

“Is he?”

“Is he what? Hot? You have eyes, don’t you?”

“No,” I said. “Is he a botanist.”

“Yeah. He works for the city of Burbank doing tree shit. An arborist with a bachelor’s in botany from Cal State.”

Huh. I knew he was an arborist, he’d told me. I guess I just didn’t realize it was more than landscaping?

“He has no record, by the way,” she said. “And his socials are clean.”

“Good Lord, it’s only been five minutes—”

“I only needed two.”

I rolled my eyes.

My best friend was a private investigator. Like, actually. And a very good one. I hired her two years ago when all this started. She was also a firearms instructor who taught self-defense classes. She knew mixed martial arts and had a touch of unbridled rage that needed an outlet the way working dogs needed jobs to make them tired.

She always said it should have been her that George got fixated on. She could have handled it. She would have looked forward to it, a reason to kill a man, her favorite thing.

If only stalkers were transferable.

We sat in silence for a moment.

“You know what’s just absolutely wild?” I said. “The second I realized the stairs were gone, it was the safest I’ve felt in a year.”

“Yeah, I could see that,” she said, softer now.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

“This is not what I thought today was going to be like,” I said tiredly.

“What did you think it was going to be like?”

“I don’t know. I thought there’d be stairs?”

She scoffed.

“I guess I’m missing Valentine’s Day on Sunday,” I mumbled.

“Eh, it’s stupid anyway.”

“Not stupid to me.”

The only times I felt truly safe going out these days were when I was with Izzy’s friend group. A posse of female ex-military, active police who liked to go to brunch. “I wanted a mimosa,” I moaned.

No. What I wanted was to feel normal again.

I wanted to wander a Target, walk alone on the beach. Go on dates.

The isolation was the worst part. Well, the second worst part. The first was the afraid for my life at all times thing. But I used to be social. I used to work in an office with coworkers, and we’d go out for drinks, and I’d go on vacations and have lunches with people.

Now I didn’t. Now I worked from home. It was safer. Less risk than having a parking garage to walk through to get to an office, a place of business that anyone could go into at any time, a routine that could be tracked and followed.

Now, there were weeks that I didn’t even leave the house. Entire periods of time where it was just me in the four walls of my apartment, alone, because going to a bar or a restaurant or even the nail salon was too much exposure.

I never felt safe.

I never slept well.

This one sick, twisted human had changed every aspect of my life.

Sometimes it felt like he had already killed me. A part of me.

And he made me weird.

He made me the kind of person who carried around bear spray, so when I did meet a cute guy, he’d be like, “Wow, bear spray, huh?” And then I’d bring up my gun.

God.

“I think I’m going to run for a bit,” I said, looking forlornly at my treadmill. Maybe some weights after. Working out was one of the many things I did now to prepare myself for the potential fight for my life I might have to make one day. That and the self-defense classes I took with Izzy. I’d never been in better shape. My ass looked great—and nobody to see it.

“Why don’t you go hang out with the tree guy?” she said.

“Why would I do that?”

“Why wouldn’t you do that? What else do you have to do? You’ve got the urban equivalent of a lumberjack across the hall. And he’s single.”

“How do you know?”

“Bitch, I know. His friend is single too.”

“What? You didn’t even get his last name.”

“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?”

She had a point.

What was most disturbing was that, given all her detective skills, she still couldn’t locate the one person we needed her to be able to locate. Two months ago, George had violated his probation by failing to report to his officer. When they went to his house, he had moved. To where, nobody knew.

This wasn’t good. It was the same thing he did before he showed up at my last apartment, having a complete psychotic break, peering into my windows from the bushes at 2:00 a.m.

He’d had duct tape.

He got a slap on the wrist for violating my restraining order, because of course he did. One week in jail that I’d used to move, again, and then probation. He should have been locked up. But they never do anything until it’s too late.

“Seriously, go over there,” she said.

“He’s probably busy.”

“He’s probably not. He’s on temporary disability for the ankle thing, he posted about it on his Instagram a few days ago. He doesn’t work from home, and he can’t leave. You have a bored, captive audience.”

“My favorite kind,” I mumbled.

“Get UP. Go make a fucking friend. Knowing your neighbors makes you safer.”

She wasn’t wrong.

“Fine,” I grumbled. “He did say he needed coffee.”

“Perfect. And fix your damn hair. You look feral.”

I rolled my eyes. “Goodbye.”

I hung up with her and went to look in the mirror.

I did look feral. And tired. And pale.

He was cute, and I looked like someone who didn’t live in a country with sun.

I’d tried to make my pathetic little balcony nice enough to sit out there, but it was full sun facing and way too hot. My whole apartment was pretty awful, actually, which was sad considering how much time I spent here. I’d considered hanging things and painting, but again, what was the point? All that work and a lost security deposit for holes in the walls just to have to move again when George inevitably found me.

I’d read that stalkers usually stopped once they fixated on someone else. At least if he was still obsessed with me, he wasn’t doing this to another woman. Some other girl who would never be the same.

If I thought about it like that, it gave me a little peace. Like my sacrifice was saving someone.

Really, it was the only silver lining. That and I now had excellent marksmanship. I could put five rounds, rapid fire, into center mass from ten yards away while chewing gum and listening to an audiobook.

I splashed water on my face and took my hair out of the ponytail it was in. It was kinky, so I tried to brush it, and I succeeded in making it frizzy and kinky, so I got in the shower.

I didn’t want him to think I was making some drastic effort on his behalf. He knew I wasn’t going anywhere, so anything I did was for him, so when I got out, I threw my hair in a wet braid, tossed on some shorts and a T-shirt, flip-flops, and lip gloss. No mascara.

I grabbed a bottle of iced coffee from the fridge and left.

It was just the two of us on this floor. Our doors faced each other with a decent-size breezeway between them at what used to be the top of the stairs.

I had seen him a few times on my video doorbell.

He never had girls over. He never had anyone over except for that Gabe guy.

I remembered the first time Seth came hobbling home on crutches a week ago. I actually felt a little sorry for him. He’d been struggling to get his door open while he carried a bag of groceries and I’d almost popped out to help. Then I remembered that’s how Ted Bundy had lured his victims, and I changed my mind.

I felt bad about that now. He seemed nice.

I knocked. A moment later, he opened the door.

“Hi,” I said, smiling like I wasn’t practically a wild animal at this point.

“Hello.”

“I was wondering if you wanted to have some coffee?” I held up the bottle.

His grin got bigger. “Sure,” he said, opening his door and standing back to let me in.

I froze.

Of course he’d invite me inside, it was polite. He was doing exactly what I should have expected him to do upon accepting my offer. Only, I didn’t want to go in there.

I didn’t know him. Zero criminal history did not mean he was safe. George didn’t have a criminal history either—until he did.

I also didn’t want him in my apartment for the exact same reasons.

What if Seth was bad too?

What if I was safe from my stalker at the moment only to be trapped up here with another mentally unstable man who—

“Why don’t we set up some chairs on the landing,” he said, studying me.

“Huh?” I said, snapping out of my spiral.

“The view’s great,” he said. “It’s covered. I’ve got a few beach chairs, we could hang out there?”

He picked up on what I was feeling.

I don’t know how, but he did, and he was giving me an out.

I was beyond grateful.

I looked over at the area between our apartments. It was a great space. Now that the stairs were gone, it was sort of a covered balcony. And he wasn’t wrong about the view. You could see palm trees over the top of the carport. It was nice.

It was outside.

It was a neutral space that felt very nonthreatening.

“Okay,” I said.

I waited while he hobbled in on his boot and procured two blue-and-orange-striped beach chairs. He set them far back enough to keep me from being nervous about the ledge.

The white bucket John had delivered was sitting by Seth’s door. He flipped it over and set it between the chairs as a makeshift table. Then he limped back inside and came out a minute later with two glasses of ice with plastic straws in them.

He handed me one.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Thanks for the coffee.”

We sat in our chairs, pouring our drinks. He brought the straw to his lips and took a sip and closed his eyes. “This is nice.”

I smiled. It was nice. Izzy had good ideas.

“So, how do you like the building so far?” he asked, looking at me.

“I liked it more when I could leave.”

He snorted. When I didn’t say anything else, he cocked his head. “Did you know that we have terrible allergies because most trees in urban settings are male?”

I drew my brows down. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, it’s—” He stopped himself. “You know what? Never mind. So what do you do for a living?” he said, changing the subject.

“No, I want to hear about this tree thing.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, you can’t just drop some random piece of tree trivia on me and then bail.”

He laughed a little. “It’s just . . . Gabe told me I’d do this.”

“Do what?”

“Talk about trees. I do it when I’m nervous.”

“You’re nervous? Why?”

“You’re heavily armed.” He gestured to the bear spray, which I still had.

“Sorry, it’s my emotional support bear spray,” I said, putting out my lower lip.

He laughed.

“So tell me, male trees.”

“No, it’s stupid,” he said.

“It’s not stupid, I want to hear it. My allergies are terrible.”

The corner of his lip twitched. “Okay.” He sat back in his chair dramatically. “Every street in this city is a carefully cultivated allergen corridor.”

I nodded. “A hooking start, I’m listening.”

“Female trees produce fruit. Fruit falls, it makes messes, it attracts vermin. So most trees planted in urban areas are male. They put out pollen with no female trees to absorb it, so it ends up in the air instead.”

I gaped at him.

“It’s true.”

“That is botanical sexism,” I breathed. “Also, that would make a great band name.”

He chuckled.

“What else?” I asked.

He eyed me. “Are you just asking me to be nice? We don’t have to talk about trees.”

“No, I’m serious, what else?”

He thought about it. “Eucalyptus trees are highly flammable. It’s the oil.”

“Bummer, they smell so good.”

“I know. But they’re terrible in wildfires. California has the world’s tallest tree, the coast redwood. They can live for thousands of years, and they repel insects.”

“Really . . .”

“Yeah. And they have fire-resistant bark.”

“Wow. Thousands of years. Imagine living that long. All the things you’d see.” I looked at him. “How old are you. How long have you lived?”

“I’m twenty-nine. How old are you?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“A blink of an eye to a redwood.”

I smiled.

I gazed back out at the palm trees.

“Gotta love Southern California weather,” he said.

It really was perfect outside. Most of the US was covered in snow, and here, it was seventy degrees and sunny.

I mourned the loss of Valentine’s Day on a warm patio again.

“So you have a fish?” I asked.

“Yeah. A betta fish.”

“Oh. Does he have a name?”

“He does. Swim Shady.”

I barked out a laugh.

“Is he the real Swim Shady or . . .”

“All the other Swim Shadys are just imitating,” he said, totally serious.

He was funny.

“He was dying in a pet store,” he said. “You know how they sell them in those little cups?”

“Yeah.”

“Totally inhumane. A betta needs at least a five-gallon tank. Almost all his color was gone, he was listless. So I bought him and nursed him back to health.”

“Wow,” I said, impressed. “How’d you learn how to do that?”

“It’s easy. You join betta fish Reddit, ask an innocent question, and wait to get bullied.”

“Ha! That is the quintessential Reddit experience.”

“A time-honored tradition, really.”

“And look at you, refusing to abandon him to a hotel room with an exit. That is admirable.”

“Couldn’t leave him behind to starve. He needs to eat twice a day,” he said.

“You could have put him in a smaller tank and taken him with you.”

“I promised him he’d never live in a cup again. I keep my promises.”

I smiled. I liked that.

“To promises.” I held up my coffee.

“Promises.”

We clinked glasses.