Just My Type

by Lucy Bexley

for all the ghouls who like ghouls

Three men with graying beards and glasses. Even their striped ties match. They remind me of a three-headed gatekeeper. Cerberus.

Do they text each other every morning to decide on the patterns of their ties or is that a happy coincidence?

“No hospital. I, um, don’t have insurance.” Or a pulse, but that wouldn’t stop them from trying to bankrupt me.

Maybe I should hit her over the head and leave?

A person shouldn’t be alive with blood like that. I had almost suggested she could give me a sample right then, but how does one word, “Hey, your nose is bleeding in a way that makes me want to swab it and stare at it under a microscope for hours” without making another person think you’re a serial killer?

Maybe we’re past the threatening lawsuits phase of our relationship?

“Yeah, sort of like an arrow you shoot,” she says slowly, and I know she must have heard it a million times, but for some reason, her tone makes me feel like she thinks I’m very clever. “But spelled like the goddess of love and sex.” If a sentence could wink, that one would have.

I am holding this food item wrong, I can tell because it’s crumbling in my hand and spilling through my fingers like dirt into an open grave. It’s so strange when food doesn’t have bones. It just feels wrong. But for whatever reason, this muffin doesn’t have any, not even ribs or a tendon.

Do dogs move out when they don’t need you anymore?

I search: How to tell if a girl you like is a werewolf? But all of the results are shifter fanfics.

Feelings can be fixed, arteries can’t, as the saying goes.

She barks a laugh. “Oh, Annie. You’re so cute. I’m not anywhere near as exciting as all of that. I’m just a vampire.”

“You can’t just go around believing people who tell you not to be afraid of them, Annie.”

White is all colors on the visible light spectrum. She is all colors, all things at once.

“Does your therapist know you’re a vampire?” “She’s one, too.”