Page 2 of Desserts for Stressed People

She shrugs. “Maybe. Does it matter?”

I guess it doesn’t. “I can’t believe I trusted him over you,” I mumble as I twirl a lock of hair around my finger. “It’s just...when I confronted him about it, he said she was a colleague. That the hotel will become their client soon, and they were there for a meeting. And I believed him.”

“It’s not your fault, H. He’s your boyfriend. You’ve been together for five years,” she comforts me as she lightly pats the back of my hand.

“But you told me. You told me that they were more than friendly with each other. That he had his arm around her shoulder and—”

“I know,” she cuts me off as she scoops up some tomato sauce with her spoon, then brings it to her lips. “Sometimes it’s easier to believe a lie than it is the truth.”

Maybe. But I should have trusted her sixth sense—she’s always had a good one.

“Tell me you’ll break up with him,” Emma warns. It really is a warning, as proven by the furrows in her forehead, by the hostile look in her sweet eyes.

“Of course I will.”

When a few people from sales walk by our table, she lets out a puff of air. Then, her worried gaze is on me, as if she’s not entirely sure I will. But she’s wrong. Ihaveto break up with him. There’s no other possible course of action. What am I supposed to do? Forget I know? Ask him? Alex didn’t confess to his cheating. He doesn’t deserve a chance to explain.

With a new wave of queasiness, I dry the sweat off my forehead. “I’ll do it after work. I’ll just go home and...” I’ll go home and break up with my boyfriend. The man I thought I’d marry one day. The man I love—or I thought I loved, because though shock is freezing me and there’s a certain disappointment over losing my relationship, it’s nothing like the anguish and pain thatshouldsqueeze my chest.

Maybe Idon’tlove him like I thought I did. Surely he doesn’t love me if he’s cheating. Yet it’s not him I’m mourning, but the time I invested in him. The relationship I thought we had, the future I pictured. Nothim.

“All right. You can stay at my place if you need some time.” When my eyes don’t leave the phone, Emma sighs and locks the screen. Now that it’s off, the fingerprints all over it are much clearer, and the familiar, annoying itch at the back of my throat comes in earnest. “H, are you listening to me?”

I am, but I don’t want to stay at her place. Emma is more than messy, and compared to her apartment, mine is as clean as a hospital.

My heart sinks an inch deeper into my chest. The apartment. The beautiful place Alex and I rent together. We signed a lease for it, and it won’t expire for the next four months. “The lease.”

She squints, then nods as if she’s connected the dots. “Nah, don’t worry. He can’t refuse to pay. You’d both be held accountable.”

No, we wouldn’t. The realization falls over me like rain, drenching me in desperation and clenching my stomach so hard I might be giving myself an ulcer.

They’ll holdmeresponsible if we don’t pay rent, because I took the lease. We had no other choice, because when we moved in together, his credit was terrible. “Oh, fuck. Emma, it’s inmyname. Not his.”

Her shoulders sag. “Wha—why?” she asks, and before I can answer, she groans. “Can you afford the rent alone?”

I shake my head. There’s no way I can pay that amount. It’d be eighty percent of my wage, and I have close to no savings. Surely not enough to cover four months of such high rent in the city center. Probably not enough for one month either, courtesy of my school debts and the car lease, also in my name.

Clasping my face between my hands, I hold back tears. It’s not like he’d ever refuse to pay rent, right?He’s the one who cheated onme, and we’re adults. We spent five years together—not five days, fiveyears.

He’ll ruin my credit score out of sheer pettiness, won’t he?

I tuck some loose, wavy strands of hair behind my ears and move my elbows off the table. It’s sticky, covered in fingerprints, scratched. If I had my cleaning products here, I’d make it so much better. Clean, neat. I’d fix it, make it shine. There’s something soothing about bringing order where there’s chaos. On fixating on something so easy to control as cleaning a table, rather than—

“Heaven?”

I know, I know. Looking at our colleagues sitting on adjacent tables, at the line by the cooks, at the groups of people chatting by the coffee stand, I nod. “It’s all right. He won’t refuse to pay. He’s not a bad person, just—” I shrug. “He’s not...evil.”

Emma scoffs, then mumbles a couple of words under her breath as she shoves some more food in her mouth and aggressively chews. “Sure. It’s not like he’s cheap. He always pays for dinner, showers you with gifts. He doesn’t suppress every aspect of your personality he doesn’t enjoy.”

“Em,” I say, taking the hint.

“And he’s so very honest and faithful. Just the kind of guy who’d never do something so petty.”

With a sigh, I slump back in my chair. “You made your point.”

“My point?” she asks, clasping her chest in fake surprise. “Oh, yeah. I guess I was describing the guy youshouldbe with. Not Alex.”

Sometimes I think she has a notepad filled with all the ways in which Alex disappointed me over the years. It’s exhausting, though Emma’s hatred stems from the fact that Alex often objects to me hanging out with her. As if I’d need his approval. She is a free spirit, or as she puts it herself, she’s not “pigeonholed by gender roles or intimidated by societal expectations.” Alex is just not happy with how she conducts herself around men, thinking she’ll somehow influence me to do the same.

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