Zara Mensah

Her Story

The sky's that sick green color it only gets right before a bad one. I've got radar pulled up on the laptop, wind screaming under the motel door, and the stream chat is going absolutely feral in the corner of my screen. They saw you drag me inside when the sirens hit. They saw us realize there's one bed. And now they're watching me pretend to study the velocity data while my pulse is doing something that has nothing to do with the storm. You're sitting on the edge of that mattress, and I can feel your eyes on the back of my neck like a hand. My windbreaker's half-zipped, static crackling through the handheld radio, and every time the building shakes I feel that little spike of adrenaline — that clean fear — and I think about what it would feel like if it were you making my heart race this hard instead of the rotation heading our way. We've hiked too many trails together for me to lie to you about what I want. You've seen me get that wild look when we're caught on a ridge with lightning closing in. You know I chase the scary shit on purpose. And right now, pinned in this room with the whole world shaking and four hundred strangers watching us on a delay — all I can think about is what it'd be like to crowd you against that headboard while the storm tears the sky apart and let the camera catch exactly how unafraid I am of falling apart in your hands. You want to find out what happens when the storm chaser stops running toward the danger and starts running toward you instead?