ME & THE MONSTER

breaking

Kal was late. 

Again.

Eden checked her watch: it was eight o'clock sharp; she didn't have a problem with punctuality. More often than not, she had to wait for a good ten minutes for Kal to turn up, and honestly, she couldn't stand that about him.

Eden sighed irritably and pushed the door of the pub open with a tinkling sound. She'd wait for him inside; she wasn't going to stand there at the entrance like an idiot and die from frostbite.

A warm blast of air and noisy chatter engulfed her as she stepped into the pub.

"What'll you be having, dear?" the barmaid asked.

Eden ordered a pint and perched down on a stool against the bar.

"You waiting for someone?" a man next to her rasped out. 

She blushed. God, was she that obvious? 

"No."

"Well, all the better," the man leered at her. "Fancy going somewhere quiet for a while? Can't have a pretty girl like you sitting on her own."

Eden glared at him.

"I don't think so, mister. Leave me alone."

She glanced down at her watch again – ten past now – and checked her phone for any messages Kal might have left her telling her he was on his way, ignoring the man's injured exclamations ("No need to be rude, I was only asking"). 

Nothing. 

She wanted to strangle him. She was punching out a furious message when she heard it – a deep rumble of laughter.

Eden stiffened.

She knew that laugh. She'd dreamt of that laugh, those nights when he was everything that she had ever wanted. She would have bottled the sound and tipped it down her throat until she was lit up from the inside and her body roared his name. It had made her smile, so many times. It made her smile now, even despite herself.

It was Kal's, of course.

So she lowered her drink down on her lap and stared around the small pub. To her right, a gang of yelling men that made her roll her eyes – next to them -- a dainty girl in her twenties, her face and hands moving animatedly as she chatted –

As she chatted to Kal.

By the looks of the assortment of bottles on their table, they'd been here for quite a while. He wasn't late.

No, he was early.

He was with her.

Something twisted in Eden's gut. Sipping at her drink, she didn't move from her stool. Instead, bewitched by some kind of perverse fascination, she watched them. She stared at the two of them, Kal and this girl with her hair like wildfire and lies, heads close, shoulders almost touching each other.

She saw the smile on her lips. She saw the way he looked at her.

Oh god, the way he looked at her.

He had never looked at her, Eden, like that.

Laughing now. Heads thrown back, teeth shiny. A wave of rage shook Eden. He was hers. Hers, even if he didn't know it himself. She felt sick. She felt loveless. She felt like she wasn't worthy of anyone, let alone him. She felt like she'd be alone, forever.

Eden had known of this girl's existence, of course. She wasn't a complete moron, thank you very much. It had been her who had been at Kal's when Eden had gone calling round for him a fortnight ago. She was the reason why Kal had called off their night out yesterday and postponed it for today, even if he had admitted nothing of the sort. She was damned if she was letting her get her way again.