To the beach

"Come on, Betty, it's only a little bit further until we get to the beach!"

Betty looked up to her brother, Josh, and nodded her head before looking back down at her feet. The log in front of her was fairly wide, and it had looked stable enough when Josh crossed it, but it still made her nervous. Her balance was certainly not the best, and she was more conscious about that fact then she tended to let on. She was deathly afraid of heights, partially because of just how bad her balance was, and even though the creek that this log served as a bridge for was only a few feet below, seeing that gap in the air between the two made her uneasy.

"Come on, Betty, don't look at your feet. You know that only makes it worse. Look up at me, come towards me."

Betty slowly lifted her head and looked at her brother, his arms outstretched towards her. She tried her best to focus on him, but her eyes kept flitting back towards the log. Slowly, gingerly, she placed her left foot out on to the log. It didn't move underneath her, and she let out a sigh of relief. But that was only the beginning. She lifted her right foot and moved it forward, shaking ever so slightly as she moved fully on to the log. It held easily, not making so much as a creak. Slowly she began to cross.

Josh smiled at her and called out encouragingly. "See?" he said. "It's not so bad, is it? You just gotta have faith in yourself, sis. You can do this."

Betty looked up at Josh again, her eyes having glanced down at her feet again as she walked, and smiled. Just then, however, her foot slipped on a damp part of the log, and she felt her balance faltering. A gasp escaped her lips, and she closed her eyes, as she felt herself careening towards the side, where there was nothing but air.

But the falling sensation lasted only for a moment. In the distance, behind the sound of her beating heart and the air rushing around her, came the sound of hard footsteps. She left a hand grip her arm roughly, and her momentum came to an abrupt stop. She breathed hard, her eyes held firmly shut, unwilling to open them. She didn't want to see that this feeling was wrong. She didn't want to se that she was still falling.

"It's ok," came her brother's voice. "It's ok, Betty. Deep breaths. Josh's got you. I'm not gonna let you get hurt."

Slowly she opened her eyes, and saw her brother Josh up on the log with her, hand wrapped tight around her arm, body leaned over the log in the opposite direction, counter balancing her fall to keep her on the log. Her one foot had slipped off, and was dangling in the air, but the other had caught on a branch of the log and was firmly in place. After a moment his words broke through to her, and she took a long, deep breath.

"Thatta girl," Josh called out softly. "You trust me, don't you?" Betty nodded silently. "Good. Grab on to my arm." Josh reached out his other hand, and his sister did as she was commanded. "On three, I want you to pull, and we're both going to stand up right. One... Two... Three!"

Betty pulled like her life depended on it, and she found herself colliding into her brother as they both came upright. As she hit him, his arm wrapped quickly around her waist, letting go of the arm he had been holding on to.

"That's it, sis, deep breaths. Everything's alright now." Carefully, Josh walked backwards, leading Betty off of the log and on to the far side where they had been headed. "Look, sis. You made it. No more bridges to cross. It's just past a few trees, and we'll be at the beach."

Betty looked up at her brother, and gave him a small smile. "Yeah," she said. "Let's go to the beach."