by Jessica June Rowe

She haunts the shitty diners they once explored together on weekend nights, play-acting as foodies on the hunt for hidden gems. Looking back, it was all an excuse to eat junk food and still feel superior. They were tourists in the small-hour grime, mocking strangers, feeding on disdain, picking apart passerbys so they wouldn’t pick apart each other. Love could only take them so far.

Now that she’s alone, she just wants the grease—no side of pretense. She lingers all night, devouring every disgusting, dripping, griddled, burned, over-fried bite they bring her, scraping the plate with her bare hands. Strangers mock her, the grimy ghost-girl in the corner booth, and she can’t bring herself to care. There’s a hole in her gut, all cold edges and hollowness, a wound that remains unhealed. Better to stuff your face than pluck out your own eyes. Better to wipe sauce off your chin than reach for the knives.

The staff, at least, are kind. Or perhaps they just know better. No one wants to sweep up broken glass night after night. They can’t touch her, but they leave out leftovers to keep her sated, keep themselves safe. When she bites into a burger the ketchup bursts like blood. She moans, the lights flicker, but little kindnesses—and a full mouth—make it easier not to shriek.

Jessica June Rowe is a writer, playwright, perpetual daydreamer, and the Flash Editor of Exposition Review. Her own fiction has appeared in Best Microfiction 2022, Flash Frog, Okay Donkey Magazine, the Micro podcast, Gigantic Sequins, and Atlas and Alice, among others, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the Best of the Net. One of her poems is stamped into a sidewalk in her hometown in California. She also really loves chai lattes.