A week.

As if he thought two orgasms from me and a semblance of effort from him was all it took, and I’d forget about my own needs. Or maybe he didn’t want me to forget. I’d done a lot of thinking, and I’d come to the conclusion that he wanted me to repress those needs. Become like one of those cliché wives on the sitcoms who read romance novels, hid vibrators from their husbands, using them when they weren’t home, and drank a bottle of wine a night to dull the reality that their husband didn’t much care about them being a sexual being who existed outside of their need for pleasure or procreation.

And I’d almost done it too. I’d doubted myself. I’d almost been convinced that was how real relationships were. Fiction was fiction. Sex, passion, desire didn’t have to be everything. Slowly, I’d cut off pieces of myself, switched off the parts I couldn’t cut, and repressed all of those feelings.

I baked relentlessly, ate cookie dough like it was a food group, stayed up until the wee hours of the morning reading steamy romances, pretending I was one of those heroines the heroes worshipped every which way. I drank more wine than I should’ve. I smiled through tears and pretended I wasn’t beginning to hate the man I was supposed to spend forever with.

Until I couldn’t anymore.

Until I knew that if I kept this up, I was going to turn into a bitter, sad and angry woman.

Until I called off the wedding.

Now I ate less cookie dough. I didn’t cut it out completely, though, because what would life be without cookie dough?

Of course, I read romance novels because they were amazing, but I got more sleep. And I still drank wine but didn’t do it to escape reality; I did it to enjoy good food, good company.

And no way was I going to let Nathan grovel his way back.

I pressed ignore on his name as it flashed on the screen of my phone sitting on the counter.

Tina, another one of my longtime employees, looked away from our espresso machine and scowled at my phone.

“Why haven’t you blocked him already?” she asked in her deep, gravelly, no-nonsense tone.

Tina was in her fifties, rode a Harley Davidson, and loved rock n roll, something she made known by her band tees, the silver adorning her body, the tattoos on both of her arms, and her penchant to rock out to Iron Maiden and The Clash when she chose the bakery playlist. Tina, much like Fiona, swore like a sailor and didn’t take bullshit from anyone.

Tina also loved her wife of twenty years, Tiffany. Yeah, Tina and Tiffany.

Tiffany loved everything pink. And leopard print. And faux fur. Her hair was bleached blond, and always hair-sprayed within an inch of its life. I’d never seen her without bright pink lip gloss.

I loved both Tiffany and Tina endlessly. They were kind of like my surrogate parents… or big sisters since Tiffany told me she’d drown me in the Atlantic if I insinuated that she was old enough to be my mother.