Page 35 of Fight Or Flight

Ethan tapped his phone attached to the dash. They were about ten minutes from the first waterfall on his list, so he filled her in. Told her everything from the beginning, when they started dating, to three months later when he broke up with her. By the end, she was astonished.

“Let me get this straight,” she said. “You caught her cheating on you, during one of your baseball games, in the back seat of this truck, with Derek, who is also your teammate, and you just . . . walked away?”

Ethan nodded.

She kept her summary going, this time louder and more indignant. “Then you broke up with her, without telling her you knew about the cheating, and didn’t tell anyone else, and then she brought the guy she cheated on you with to your sister’s wedding?”

Again, he nodded.

“And you kept this truck?!”

“Well, yeah. I just paid it off.”

Her face was a mask of shock. If she were a cartoon, this is the part where her head would split in two with a little explosion.

“Do you always make such rational decisions?”

“I strive to, yes.”

“You never just do what feels good?”

“I tried that. And we all know how that turned out.”

“No. We don’tallknow, do we?” she muttered, looking away out the window.

Ethan tried to block her out, but her reaction was too forceful and brought the debate back up in his mind. He’d thought this thing to death on his research trip, going back and forth. Ultimately, he concluded he made the best decision that he could under the circumstances.

What he needed now was to ignore it, let it blow over, and move on. Then, he needed to find someone who was right for him. He knew he was ready for a serious relationship, and he vowed to himself that he would be more rational in his attempt this time around. No more women who didn’t check any of his boxes, regardless of how pretty they were.

They drove in silence for a few minutes before Ethan took a right off the main road into a long gravel driveway. “We’re here. Devil’s Punchbowl.”

He pulled the truck into a parking spot, turned it off, and hopped out. Natalie fell in step beside him. From the parking lot, it was only a fifty metre walk along a paved trail overhung by deciduous trees to the top of the waterfall.

When the waterfall came into view, she sped up and made a beeline straight for the lookout. She leaned over the low wood fence that ran along the edge of the cliff , and stared at the huge semicircle cut-out of land striped with orange, green, and red rock.

“Wow. It’s actually a bowl! Look at the colours.”

Ethan stepped closer to her, looked over. He’d seen the waterfall dozens of times in his life, but he tried to look at it as if he were seeing it for the first time. It was impressive. The water fell for seven metres, in a long ribbon past multicoloured layers of rock.

“It’s beautiful,” she said. “I need a picture. Will you?”

Handing him her phone, she propped herself up on the fence, legs crossed, and pulled her long hair forward, making it fall softly over her shoulders down her chest.

He was thankful to be doing a job where she expected him to look at her, because he didn’t think he could peel his eyes off her. He felt bad for anyone who only got to see the photo. It didn’t do the real thing justice.

He clicked the button a few times, then handed the phone back without a word.

“Thanks,” she said, hopping off the fence. She took the phone and slipped it into her purse without looking at it.

They spent a few more minutes walking around the falls, looking at it from different angles. Ethan told her about where the water flowed from and where it went to, and told her what creatures were living around there. He started telling her about the vernal pools nearby, blathering on and on before he realized he was just talking out of nervousness and forced himself to wrap it up.

They went back to the truck, where she put the day song on again, and continued on toward Niagara Falls, stopping at three more waterfalls along the way, collecting pictures. Each time they got back into the truck, she put on the day song. For lunch, they stopped at a farmer’s market that Natalie said had good reviews along the lake. They both had the “holiday poutine,” made of sweet potato fries, topped with turkey, cranberry sauce, and gravy.

It was delicious.

While they ate at a picnic table overlooking the huge expanse of blue water of Lake Ontario, she asked him about his research trip. He told her about the whale watching tour they went on one day where they saw belugas. He asked her about her travels and was shocked to hear she’d been to ninety-nine countries and six continents. When he found out that she’d been to the Galápagos Islands on tour eight times, he was in awe. He inundated her with questions, but she didn’t seem to mind. She spoke passionately about the crystal-clear water and the tortoises, and Ethan made mental notes in the Natalie file he’d started in his head.

Before they left, they bought a box of butter tarts at Natalie’s insistence and ate them on the way to the Falls. They wereso good, he almost forgot he was listening to the millionth replaying of Michael Bublé. She booked tickets on the way for the Hornblower cruise, a boat tour that went under the falls.

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