Dating After the End of the World

by Jeneva Rose

“What if it never ends, Dad? Then what? We just wasted all this time prepping for nothing.” He scratches at his beard. “Well, I really hope it doesn’t . . . but it’s going to because everything eventually ends, and that includes the world.”

I stopped believing in Santa when I was nine years old, and I feel like I’m gonna stop believing in my dad one day too. Maybe I already have.

“What?” I shrug. “He’s a rotten, terrible, stupid boy.” “I know, but just because he’s terrible doesn’t mean you need to be.”

A thought creeps into the back of my mind, one that I try to suppress immediately, but it won’t stop clawing at me, scratching and scratching relentlessly. He was right about everything.

A shitty tattoo with blown-out lines is inked across his forehead. It looks like 27he gave it to himself. It reads Satin in all caps, but I think he intended for it to say Satan.

“Never let someone bigger than you pin you to the ground. The longer you’re pinned, the more strength you give up. Act quickly and violently. Strike their most vulnerable places. Eyes. Nose. Throat. Groin. Give ’em hell, girl.” I will, Dad.

I knew he wasn’t cut out for an apocalypse.

home is exactly where I’m headed. Turns out it only took an apocalypse to bring me back.

I can’t watch you love someone else. It’d be like watching the world end all over again, and I don’t think I’d survive a second doomsday,”