I.

When your ex-boyfriend asks you to bake his wedding cake, say yes. It’s not about the money, although he will offer you a heaping mound of cash. He will spot you through the frosted storefront windows. Don’t make eye contact until you hear the door open. Pretend not to see him even though he clearly sees you. At worst, you can carry the facade until he removes his scarf. You cannot under any circumstances think about the red flush spreading on his cheeks, whether it’s from the cold or not. Smile when he says it’s been too long; offer him your house specialty, a lemon-lavender cupcake with cream cheese filling. When he bites into it, it tastes like falling in love; it tastes like ecstasy. You knead feelings into all of your batter. It’s what makes your work so successful. 

Meet his bride the next morning and do not dwell on the fact that her cheeks dimple just like yours. Her hair is strawberry blonde like yours, too, tickling his cheek as they nestle tighter together. She will ask you what kinds of desserts you specialize in; tell her the truth. You are baking her a wish. You are baking her a promise. I don’t quite understand, she’ll say, laughing and looking askance at her partner. It’s okay. She’ll be appeased if you say you make a brilliant buttercream raspberry, but she’ll ask for something simpler. This is a non-traditional wedding, whatever that means. Strawberry shortcake, perhaps? 

You have made it once before. It was for your grandfather. His arteries were clogged with grief after Grammy passed, the doctors said; you baked and baked for weeks on end. Fearing for his heart, you whipped his pain into heavy cream and let it melt sweetly onto his tongue. He closed his eyes for a long, long time after each bite. The spongecake soaked up every memory you had of Grammy. Though you can’t remember her face or voice now, the sting of her death no longer plagues your grandfather. She washes through me like sunlight, he said afterward. Like a cold glass of milk. 

Make this shortcake your last. 

II.

When your ex calls again later, asking if you have time to talk, hang up the phone. There will be an edge in his voice that you know well by now. This is the next step in the recipe: you’re supposed to fling yourself at him for the millionth time, showing up at his door in the dead of winter in nothing but your second-best coat. You’re supposed to ruin this tenuous stab at friendship, ruin whichever relationship he’s waltzed into this time–and who could blame him? Here you are at last, again, the one who got away, at least that’s what he tells himself. 

But.

 This new girl has a ring and a dimple on her cheek.

And. 

If you fall for it, for him, you’ll get 3-4 business weeks until he disappears again to “work on himself” for a couple years. You’ll stress-bake brownies well into the night after he finally gets bored of you. Nothing upsets your stomach more than chocolate-flavored rage. Been there. Done that. 

Say you’re headed to bed. Better yet, lie and say you don’t love him anymore.

He won’t believe either excuse. You will have to force yourself to end the call and dry-heave into the kitchen sink. 

III.

Make his bride the best strawberry shortcake she will ever eat. Like always, you can’t decide what your base is going to be. Passion? Lust? Yearning? Try to get inspired: go to a new cafe, watch The Love Witch again, or run until your lungs are sandpaper. After a few days, if you still can’t decide what kind of wish you want to bake into this cake, pull out that box of his things and burn it. Don’t pay attention to the smoke alarm. Just open the windows and exorcise yourself. Burn the first five shortcakes you make. Let him die and blacken in the bottom of the pan. Let him wash through you like a cold glass of milk. 

Then, and only then, can you bake that woman the wedding cake she deserves. You pour all that love for him into the batter; you whisk and sing and scream until it’s gone. Crack a few eggs and wish her the very best, the happiest marriage you can imagine, because that is all you can do. Wash the fruit and wash your hands of them both. When you finish, there is one leftover strawberry, a runty rotten little thing customers would turn their noses at. 

Eat it, leaves and all.

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MJ Brown is a queer, neurodivergent writer from Huntsville, Alabama. They are also a second-year creative writing student at Emory University. Their work is forthcoming in both The Kudzu Review and Door is a Jar.