Bittersweet

Laura’s arms wrapped around her torso as if they were the only things preventing her insides from spilling out onto the pristine white tiles that covered her mother’s kitchen. Ingredients for cupcakes covered the stone counter island above her, seemingly forgotten as she leaned her head forward onto her knees. The nausea would pass, you knew, but the time it took before it passed was hell on her. She had finally gotten her breathing back under control; hugging herself usually helped her steady her breaths.

If you were in a different place, at a different time, your hugs also would help. But you knew that touching her in her family’s house would only serve to ramp up her anxiety, not calm it.

Letting out a deep breath, Laura sat back up and let her arms fall to her sides. She looked down at her toes. The second one was longer than the first one, which made her feel self-conscious being barefoot around other people, even you. She tucked her toes underneath herself, removing them from her vision as well as yours.

“How are you feeling?” you asked, venturing from your position leaning against the counter to join her, legs crisscrossed against the cold floor.

“Fine,” she said, standing up as you slid to the ground. You were left staring at her calves rather than her face.

She gulped down what was left of her now-warm Diet Coke before tossing the can into the trash at the foot of the island. Clapping her hands together in front of her, she turned to the task at hand.

“Alright,” she muttered. “Cupcakes.”

Laura had begged for your help in baking two dozen cupcakes for a fundraiser for the local library. She didn’t need the help, and even if she did, you would probably be one of the last people she turned to. But you had a sneaking suspicion that she was looking for an excuse to be in the same room with you—even if it meant you burning or otherwise ruining the desserts she had promised the struggling library.

Laura’s apartment only had a stove and no oven, and your oven could fit half a dozen cookies or cupcakes at a time at most. So, you went to her parents’ house across town to borrow their kitchen.

Her parents were home, despite Laura’s belief otherwise. When she referred to you as her “friend” rather than her “girlfriend” in front of them, despite telling you months back she had told them the truth, you had fallen silent. When they left the kitchen, the two of you had a hushed argument.

“You said you told them!” you whispered, the moment her parents were out of earshot. “You said they loved that I was your girlfriend, and that they couldn’t wait to have us over for dinner!”

“I know,” she said. “I meant to, really, I did! I just—I couldn’t.”

“What were you planning on doing when we showed up tonight? Why did you even invite me?”

Evidently, she hadn’t expected her parents to be home or to return at any point in the evening. “They told me they were going to a dinner party to celebrate their friend’s promotion.”

At that point, you said something along the lines of being tired of feeling like a dirty secret and wanting to be with someone who was proud to call you their girlfriend and partner.

You hadn’t exactly told her that you wanted to break up. Clearly, though, she filled in the blanks, because she immediately slipped down to the ground, her breathing panicked.

Now, you didn’t speak as you began making the cupcakes.

While she focused on whisking the dry ingredients together, you focused on mixing the wet ingredients together in a separate bowl. Cracking the eggs was always your favorite part—you loved the feel of the fragile eggshell crumbling in your hands after the egg slicked out into the bowl.

Once the batter was mixed thoroughly, Laura poured about half the bag of bittersweet chocolate chunks into the mixture. Some of the larger pieces began to sink like rocks in molasses, but some of them still needed some encouragement. Using a wooden spoon, she slowly mixed the pieces in until the chunks seemed to be distributed evenly, looking like freckles dotting pale skin.

While one batch cooked, you made the batter for the next batch. The timer dinged, and you switched the pans out, the entire time refusing to be the first to speak.

Wordlessly, Laura handed you the shaker of assorted sprinkles, and you began shaking tiny pink and blue butterflies onto the frosted cupcakes after careful consideration.

“You have to understand,” Laura said quietly without looking over at you. “I have no idea how they’ll react. I’m just trying to find the right moment.”

You focused your attention on a stray butterfly that had fallen into a blob of forgotten frosting on the counter. Half of its pink body was submerged in a chocolate sludge. Only one wing and antenna were visible. You fought the urge to point out she had had over a year of opportunities, over a year of moments throughout your relationship.

You wanted to point out your past experience with this, help her to understand how this had happened before. You had been burned by this particular fire, and you weren’t interested in receiving another scar from it.

Reaching out, Laura slid her fingers over your hand. You wiggled your fingers in response, allowing her to weave her fingers through. You stood like that for several moments, fingers interlocked, slathering cupcakes in frosting and showering them in crystal sprinkles and butterflies. In those moments, you dared to hope. You dared to hope that maybe you would survive this, that maybe you would make it beyond Laura’s fear and shame.

Her parents burst back into the kitchen, exclaiming, “Something sure smells good!”

Laura retracted her hand so quickly that her nails scratched your skin.

You tried to ignore the tears that pricked your eyes as Laura laughed and offered a cupcake to each of her parents. Without looking over at her, you stuck your finger out and pushed the butterfly completely into the blob of frosting, submerging it and hiding it from view.

Kennedy Essmiller is a queer writer who earned her MFA in Creative Writing at Oklahoma State University. Her short story, “Mountains” won second place in the University of Western Alabama’s 2017 Sucarnochee Review Fiction contest.Her work is published in Frontier Mosaic and The Good Life Review. You can follow her on Instagram at @kennedywogan.