Back to Reality

It had been five weeks, four electricity bills, three bounced checks, and one aggressive rat sighting since I slept with the devil in a tux.

Not that I was counting.

(Okay. I was counting. But only in the quiet moments. The moments where sleep wouldn’t come and my brain helpfully replayed every second of that night on a loop, like a broken rom-com reel with way too much skin.)

I’d shoved the memory into a mental box labeled DO NOT OPEN and buried it somewhere between childhood trauma and the time I accidentally moaned during yoga in a room full of strangers.

He hadn’t bothered to look for me.

I hadn’t done the same.

Perfect. Mutual. Radio silence.

That was how it was supposed to go, right? One mistake, one night, and then...poof.

Life resumes.

You pretend you don’t feel his hands when you close your eyes. Pretend you don’t hear his voice when you walk past expensive cars or catch a whiff of woodsmoke in the air.

It was as if the whole thing hadn’t happened...

If you ignored the insomnia.

If you ignored the racing thoughts.

If you ignored the very, very occasional flashback whenever someone said “fondant” or wore a black suit with their sleeves rolled up just so.

I threw myself into the bakery because what else could I do?

Work was safe.

Work was familiar.

Work didn’t kiss you breathless and leave you with nothing but regret and a sugar hangover.

But the bakery?

It was drowning.

Bills piled up like they were breeding behind my back. Electricity. Gas. Supplies. My oven rattled so loudly when I turned it on that I swore it was developing its own personality, somewhere between overworked and actively suicidal. Rent was this game of chicken I kept playing with my landlord, and every time someone ordered a cookie instead of a cake, I imagined my bank account flipping me off and filing for bankruptcy.

“Brielle! The mixer’s smoking again!” Rosa shouted from the back. Her voice was that mix of panic and resignation I’d heard far too often lately.

“Unplug it before it explodes!” I yelled back, my forehead pressed against the cool glass of the display case. I hadn’t slept. Not really. I’d been up since three, frosting cupcakes for a wedding that got postponed without notice. I’d downed three espressos, skipped breakfast, and the tremor in my hands hadn’t stopped since.

The shop smelled like vanilla and cinnamon and something else, something bitter. Desperation, maybe. Or burnt hope.

I wiped the sweat from my upper lip, my fingers sticky with icing. The chalkboard menu on the wall still announced last week’s specials in smudged, half-erased letters. I hadn’t had time to change it. Or energy. Or the will to pretend I had new ideas when I barely had enough flour for tomorrow’s orders.

My stomach grumbled.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten something that wasn’t a sample or a leftover or a crust of bread swiped off a cooling rack in a moment of weakness.

But I was fine.

Totally fine.

Absolutely

Then it hit.

At first, it was small. A tiny shift, like the floor had tilted a fraction of an inch. A strange warmth bloomed behind my eyes, turning everything a little too bright, a little too loud. I blinked, tried to focus, grabbed the cupcake tray...

And the second wave crashed over me.

Harder. Meaner.

My stomach flipped like a carnival ride gone rogue. The sweet scent of buttercream turned on me, thick and cloying. My mouth watered, not the good kind. The kind that came right before disaster.

I barely made it to the sink before I gagged.

Once. Twice. The kind of heave that left your ribs aching and your pride bruised.

“Brielle?” Rosa’s voice was closer now, soft and worried. “Are you okay?”

I wiped my mouth on a napkin, straightened, and forced what I hoped was a reassuring smile. My heart was pounding like I’d just run a marathon.

“Yup. Just...uh, buttercream overdose. Occupational hazard.”

Rosa didn’t look convinced.

“That’s the third time this week.”

“Maybe I’m allergic to stability,” I quipped, though the joke fell flat. My voice was too shaky. My hands wouldn’t stop trembling.

She didn’t laugh.

I didn’t blame her.

I caught sight of myself in the steel of the fridge door and winced.

Pale. Eyes shadowed. Cheeks hollow.

I looked like the human embodiment of bad decisions and worse follow-through.

I popped a mint and went back to boxing pastries like I hadn’t just contemplated dying dramatically over a sink full of dirty spoons.

Focus. Move. Pretend.

It had to be stress.

That was all.

Stress. Exhaustion. Too much caffeine, not enough food. The universe giving me a good shake because clearly, I wasn’t suffering enough.

But still

A flicker.

A whisper.

A little voice in the back of my head I tried very hard to ignore.

A maybe.

I shut it down.

Nope.

Not now.

Not with everything else.

Not when one more problem might just be the thing that breaks me.

I didn’t have time for nausea that came with questions.

I didn’t have time for maybes.

So I boxed another tray of cookies, blinking through the nausea, when the bell above the door jingled.

A customer.

Of course. Right when my stomach decided it was auditioning for a disaster movie.

I turned and wiped my hands on my apron just as the door swung shut behind a guy in a gray suit and wire-rimmed glasses. He looked around like he wasn’t sure if he’d walked into a bakery or a fever dream.

“Hey,” I said, putting on my best I am not slowly unraveling smile. “What can I get you?”

He wandered up to the counter like a man on a quest.

“My girlfriend’s mad at me,” he blurted.

I blinked. “Uh… we’ve got brownies for that.”

He cracked a smile. “Do they come with a side of forgiveness?”

“Only if you buy two,” I deadpanned, already reaching for the tongs.

He laughed, an easy, tired sound, and pointed to the fudge brownie with walnuts. “That one. And, uh… the red velvet cupcakes. She likes those.”

I boxed them up with shaking hands and handed him the bag.

“She’ll forgive you,” I said, then lowered my voice. “Unless it was about her dog. Or if you ate the last fries. In that case… good luck.”

He grinned, slid cash across the counter, and nodded. “Thanks. For the sugar and the honesty.”

I watched him leave, the bell chiming again behind him.

And just like that, the bakery was empty.

Again.

I leaned against the counter, pulse still a little too fast. My body still a little too off.

But that night, when the shop was finally closed and the last tray was scrubbed clean, I collapsed onto my tiny, secondhand couch like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

The world outside was quiet. My body wasn’t.

I curled up in a blanket that smelled faintly of flour and cinnamon, clutching a box of saltines like it was a life raft. My head throbbed behind my eyes, deep and rhythmic, like it was trying to knock some sense into me.

I hadn’t turned the lights on. I couldn’t. Something about the dark made it easier to pretend everything wasn’t unraveling.

The whisper returned.

Soft at first. Like a breeze through a crack in the wall.

Then louder.

I tried to ignore it, tried to focus on the cheap TV playing reruns in the background, on the taste of bland crackers, on the ache in my feet, but none of it drowned out the truth I didn’t want to face.

I stared up at the ceiling, its paint cracked in one corner like it, too, had grown tired of holding itself together.

And that’s when it hit me.

This wasn’t just exhaustion. This wasn’t just stress. My body felt like it didn’t belong to me anymore. Like it was moving to a rhythm I hadn’t agreed to. Like it was... keeping secrets.

Small things I’d brushed off over the last few days came rushing back all at once. The mood swings. The weird craving for lemon chips. The way coffee my one true love, suddenly tasted like metal.

And despite every ounce of denial I clung to like a shield, one terrifying, impossible thought slid through the cracks and wrapped itself around my spine.

What if I’m pregnant?