I sat down beside her, said hello, offered to buy her a drink... and then natural selection reared its ugly head.

The evening began like any other at The Dive Bar, a dimly lit corner joint where the neon Budweiser sign flickered like a dying star. The air smelled of stale beer and cigarette smoke, even though smoking had been banned years ago. I settled onto the wobbly barstool beside her, catching the faint scent of her perfume—something floral but with an undercurrent of something sharper, like jasmine and gasoline.

She turned to me slowly, a half-smile playing on her lips, her eyes glinting in the artificial light. "Hey," she said, her voice smooth but guarded. I nodded, returning the greeting without thinking, already rehearsing the words in my head. Offer to buy her a drink. State your name. Ask a question. Something simple. Rational.

"I'm Jake," I said, extending a hand. She looked at it for a moment before shaking it, her grip firm. "Lena," she replied.

"Can I get you another?" I gestured to her nearly empty glass, a muddy-looking cocktail with a skewered cherry sinking in the middle.

She hesitated, then shrugged. "Sure. Why not." A bartender lingered nearby, and before I could even speak, he slid two fresh drinks our way—some unspoken code between regulars, maybe. Lena smirked, lifting the new glass. "You must have charm to go with that confidence." I laughed, but it felt forced.

For a few minutes, we made small talk—her job (something vague about tech), my own half-hearted career in freelance writing, the usual ping-pong of harmless details. Then she asked where I was from, and I began to answer.

And then natural selection reared its ugly head.

There’s something unspeakable about the moment your jaw locks mid-sentence, your tongue swelling incrementally in the confines of your mouth, your lungs suddenly unwilling to cooperate with the simple act of breathing. My vision blurred, but not from tears—not yet. No, this was something more primal. My body was betraying me, shutting down its systems one by one, as if it had finally decided I wasn’t worth the effort.

Lena’s eyes widened. She grabbed for my arm as I slid off the stool, my limbs growing heavy, my thoughts splintering into fragments. The last thing I remember was the shocked expressions of the bartenders, a shouted call for someone to get help, and the hideous, inescapable truth that my own physiology had just condemned me.

Anaphylaxis. Peanuts. The cherry in her drink.

Later, lying in a hospital bed with an IV drip steadying my pulse, I heard Lena’s voice through the haze of meds. "You okay?" she asked, hovering in the doorway. I managed a weak nod. She held up a takeout coffee. "Figured you might need caffeine after nearly dying in front of me."

I laughed weakly. "Next time, lead with nutritional information?"

She grinned, but there was something else in her eyes—pity, maybe. Or worse, the realization that survival could be so arbitrary.

I was alive. That was the only thing that mattered.

But natural selection had spoken. And this time, it had spared me. Maybe next time, it wouldn’t be so generous.