Page 1 of Monster Diner

1

LIZZY

Lizzy was going to jail today. She was going to kill her good-for-nothing boyfriend, Steven. She kicked the pile of Steven’s delivery boxes sitting in the hall outside their apartment, toppling them over and out of the way of the door. They were likely purchased with her credit card, which was infuriating in itself. As was his lack of steady work in months.

She jammed her key into the door, hands shaking, as she glared at the landlord special paint job on her millennial gray door and the fly beneath a glob of paint.

Murder wasn’t on the agenda, because of money—or lack thereof. The job she hated had fired her today. The company was replacing human telephone operators with a convoluted artificial intelligence phone tree. Two years of her life, countless hours of overtime, all to be replaced by a robot.

It was the fact that as she approached her front door, she’d been struck by a wave of lust. Steven was in the mood, and her vagina felt as dry as the Sahara. But her repulsion had quickly turned to rage, however, when she’d sensed a second person’s lust. Steven wasn’t alone. He was cheating on her, and she was ready to commit homicide.

She burst into the apartment. The door banged against the wall and knocked loose the one painting she’d nagged Steven for months to hang. It crashed onto the floor next to the half dozen other thrift store finds he hadn’t hung, glass shattering. Steven and his lover’s impassioned moans continued uninterrupted, which was somehow even more infuriating. She hated conflict. It was hard to stay angry when the other person’s anger was amplified inside you, overshadowing your own emotions. But she was blinded by rage.

Her hands shook as she yanked open the bedroom door. A curvy redhead straddled Steven, who lay on the bed she was financing with his arms folded behind his head. Of course he was making her do all the work. His eyes flew open, and the redhead stopped flopping on top of him long enough to look back at her.

“Lizzy, what the fuck?” he shouted.

“That’s what I should be saying!” she shouted back.

The redhead jumped off him and grabbed a blanket to cover herself. Her shock rolled off her in waves, but Lizzy’s attention was focused on her boyfriend, who hadn’t moved or covered up. The only feeling she sensed from him was annoyance. Not even an ounce of shame.

“You’re supposed to be at work,” he said, slouching.

“In what world does that make cheating acceptable?”

“You’re not poly?” the redhead interjected.

“We are⁠—”

“We are not!” Lizzy shouted over him.

The girl assessed Lizzy, and the swirl of her confusion and their mutual anger thrummed through Lizzy. Rage pumping through her veins, Lizzy turned and marched into the kitchen. The dishes she’d asked him to put into the dishwasher this morning were crusting over in the sink and the kitchen knife she’d cut up fruit for her smoothie, sat at the edge of the cutting board on the counter. Steven’s anger was rising, and the redhead was confused, and it all buzzed inside Lizzy, mixing with her own rage, ready to burst from her like a swarm of bees.

Lizzy reached for the knife, but as she did, there was a snap, or maybe a pop.

And silence.

For the first time in her life, she felt absolutely nothing. Not their feelings, not hers. She was as cold as stone.

“Lizzy, can we talk?” Steven asked, stepping into the kitchen, his eyes darting between her and the knife she’d almost picked up. He was still naked, his mediocre dick swinging in the wind. It was as if she were watching the scene from a distance. Even her murderous rage had dulled to nothing, replaced by cold, calculated rationality. If she killed him, she’d end up in jail, with a high chance of being sent to a privatized prison, which was enough to walk back her murder plans.

Steven took her silence as permission to speak. “Look, I was going to talk to you about this. You’re never in the mood, and I have needs…”

She let the words linger without response.

“I figured we could open things up…”

Steven was pitching an open relationship after getting caught cheating. How typical of him, she thought distantly. But wasn’t this the same slippery slope they’d gone down time after time? She’d caught him stealing her credit card. He didn’t ask permission, but begged forgiveness and then it became permission. He’d quit his job because he hated it, and she’d agreed that they both deserved to do what they loved.

It wasn’t just Steven either. She had a pattern of doing this. Letting others’ emotions eclipse her own. She never thought for herself; she let others’ wants and desires dictate hers.

The redhead slipped out of the bedroom, dressed in some slinky black dress that looked expensive. Maybe he’d charged it to Lizzy’s card and gifted it to this woman. Or maybe she was his next sugar mama. Lizzy realized she didn’t really care. She was seeing him clearly for the first time, her mind no longer clouded by his emotions. Steven was a mediocre leech who she’d wasted years of her life on because he was a weasel shifter and the first magic person she’d met since moving from Pumpkin Hollow. She’d stayed with him for the same reason she’d stayed in a dead-end job she hated. Because it felt easier.

“Lizzy, are you going to say something?” Steven asked.

“I’ll come back with a truck later for my stuff.”

She’d collected a vast array of vintage furniture and memorabilia. Steven hated her collection, said it smelled musty and gross. But she loved it. She wouldn’t stay with him or in this shithole apartment. He could have it, but she wasn’t going to lose her stuff.