Edit: Writer’s note: my melatonin started kicking in about halfway through this so I’m deeply sorry it makes no sense. I can assure you I’m not mad. Just sedated.

“You know what? This was a bad idea.” He huffed, his hand lowering the fork back to his plate. Glancing around, almost desperate, as if on the hunt for backup. Eye contact with the waiter. A scribbling hand gesture. He was serious.

“It was just a dumb question. I shouldn’t have asked. I’m sorry.” Now it was Cheryl’s turn to be desperate. He’d snapped at her a thousand times before but this felt different. Serious. She glanced down at her fresh manicure and carefully selected jewellery.

His neatly trimmed eyebrows were furrowed. Cheryl wasn’t unused to this expression. That of a gravely disappointed father.

Her boyfriend’s face said more in this one look than his curt text messages ever would. It was the look of someone who wanted her to be more. To be better than this. Whatever ‘this’ was.

It was a scowl-down-the-nose with a deep sadness and a pinch of embarrassment that told her she was supposed to be someone else. Further in life, perhaps. More mature, probably.

“We’ll go home, crack open a wine, and spend the rest of the night on the couch.” He muttered, arms folding on the table.

“No.” Someone said. A voice she pinned down as her own only after it erupted from within.

“I’m sorry?” He retorted, somehow only half as taken aback as she was at the sound that had made its way into the open air.

With one syllable it was as if a spell had broken. No longer was the man opposite her a handsome realtor she had only hours before been wishing for a proposal from. He was a jackass. A snob who couldn’t hold a fun dinner conversation if he was in a thumb war with one.

“No. I don’t think I will.” She paused to allow this new version of herself to learn to speak. An infant taking her first steps into the world. “I’ll go back to my place, I think it’s best you went back to your parents’.” The perks of being the only name on your lease.

She stopped mindlessly picking at the edges of her new nails and looked up. Something else bubbled inside her. Up and up and- oh god was she going to barf?

Her hand clasped to her mouth as stifled… a laugh.

His face had fallen from disappointment and shame to broken child. He looked like a baby in a fish bowl. A cat in a three piece suit. So out of place you can’t help but laugh at the sheer absurdity of it.

No one had ever told him no. Yet alone his well trained partner of ten years. He stuttered. Stumbling, looking for the words for a retort.

The two of them, lost in an almost unbelievable topsy turvy world where Cheryl had a voice and an opinion, failed to notice the waiter making his way to the table. An gaggle of waitresses and other staff members following him diligently.

They took a breath together, placed the cake on the table between the two, and began to sing.

Cheryl blew out the flame and said goodbye to the man she had thought she’d end up with.

Though the trek home without a car was tough, it wasn’t impossible. A bus or two later and she was crashing through her own apartment door. Greeted by the furry face of her daughter Elsie, a Scottish Short Hair.

“Why hello, Princess! I bet you’re wondering where that awful man is! Well. I’m not.” She snuggled her face into Elsie’s cream coloured fur and tossed her keys in their usual bowl. The sound quieter than she was used to. Fewer keys.

She knew exactly what she was going to do for the rest of her big day. “The big three-oh, Else. Who’d have thought we’d end up like this?” She popped open her finest wine. If ever there was an occasion to drink the good stuff it was today.

“You know, Else, I really thought he’d propose today.” Cheryl recapped the wine, taking her glass to the couch and slumping into it. Elise jumping, purring, into her lap.

If the cat could talk, she’d laugh. Anyone privy to that level of insight into the couple’s relationship would have. She’d probably snort something akin to “you silly bitch, you’re sharing a wine with your cat in a dead end job. Do you really think you’re in any position to be married off to some douche?”

The cat had a point. Not that Cheryl could understand the true meaning of her purrs. And not that she’d appreciate the point if she could. But Cheryl was more than delusional to believe her 30th birthday would end in a proposal.

Or was she?

A knock at the door shook the small flat. A photo of Elise now crooked on the wall in the entryway. The booming fist against the wood of the door startled the two girls. Cheryl almost spilling her wine and Elise running to the relative safety of the bedroom.

The initial shock over, Cheryl sighed. She’d never been angry with him for this long before. He was probably deserving of at least being heard out.

Placing down the wine and hauling her suddenly incredibly heavy limbs from the couch, Cheryl’s shuffled towards the door.

Another bang bang bang. Fist against wood. It wasn’t angry – she hoped – but certainly urgent. Yet again a laugh bubbled inside her threatening to ruin her stoic calm. 30-year-old Cheryl is stronger than laughing at her boyfriend’s desperate knocks. She’s her own damn woman and doesn’t make silly jokes at dinner or talks to her cat. She’s ready to settle down and lead a calm life with the realtor she met in college.

Unlocking the latch and twisting the knob she steadied her cool and channeled her inner grown up “you ready for a night in, baby?”

He burst in, pushing her aside. She was a little taken aback but appreciated the enthusiasm. “Oh. Okay. Straight to the bedroom I guess. But no skimping on the foreplay!” She may have said that a bit too loud considering the door was still open a crack. She reset the latch and made her way to the bed. What sort of man is this affectionate after she tells him to suck it over birthday dinner? Cheryl wondered if he should bring that up with a professional.

Grabbing her wine from the coffee table and swinging open the bedroom door she found not her realtor boyfriend but a perculiar man. “Oh shi-“ she exclaimed, already running towards the kitchen.

Armed with what she believed was a Gordon Ramsay pink edition knife, Cheryl inched towards her bedroom. “Who even are you?” She yelled from a little down the corridor.

The man poked his head around the doorframe. Cheryl jumped.

“Terribly sorry.” He said. “I was looking for someone. An inter dimensional criminal.”

“A fucking what?” Cheryl replied. Infuriated the man had not only not answered her question but left her with about a billion more. Chiefly: ‘can you get the hell out now?’

“Oh yes. Inter dimensional law breakers. You guys have laws here, right? I can never remember. Anyway,” he dropped back into her room and emerged with Elise. “I think we’ve found the bugger.”

Mom-mode activated, the knife flung to the side and in an instant Cheryl was holding Elise again. The man stood there bemused as to how that just happened, arms still outstretched as if the cat hadn’t moved.

“I’m going to give you thirty fucking seconds to explain yourself, asshole, before I call my army police husband!” Who doesn’t exist.

His hands shot up as if Cheryl was wielding a rifle and not a fuzzy bundle of joy.

“Well.” He began “it seems I’ve made an oopsie.”

Yeah. No shit. “This tiny hairy thing is not the wanted one here.” You think?! “It’s you. You’re the heir. And you’re under arrest.”

Say what?