I slide another forkful of cake into my mouth, the sugary sweetness dissolving on my tongue. Vanilla, not my favorite but a classic. The buttercream's a little heavy for my taste or maybe it's just that this is the fourth slice I've tried? I stare at the plate between me and Derek, at the half-eaten rainbow of frosting samples, and try to focus on which flavor would make our guests happier. Vanilla bean or lemon lavender?

"I like the lemon better," I decide, glancing up at Derek. His face is tense, his smile forced. There's a dimple between his brows. It's been a frequent visitor over the last week. He hasn't touched his plate since the first bite. My handsome fiancé, tall, tanned, blond, with his broad back and kind dark eyes has been way too quiet lately and it gets to me.

"You okay?" I ask, fighting to keep my voice light but failing to hide the edge of annoyance at his refusal to enjoy what was supposed to be one of those moments couples cherish forever. He nods, eyes darting around the small bakery as if searching for an escape. I briefly wonder if there might have been any bad news. A decline in his dad's fragile health, trouble at the office?

"Yeah, I just..." Derek runs a hand through his hair, the waves springing up from underneath his palm as soon as it has passed, and exhales like he's been holding his breath too long.

"I don't know if we should even be doing this."I blink, completely taken aback by the statement. This appointment has been on our calendar for weeks and now he suddenly questions it? But then he's been weird for a while now.

"Cake tasting?" I ask, wondering what the hell he's trying to tell me.

"No, I mean..." He pauses, dropping the fork with the half eaten bite onto his plate with a soft clink.

"The wedding."

For a moment, my mind can't catch up. I feel like a passenger on a train that's jumping off the tracks. The words hang in the air, slowly sinking into the space between us, or maybe I am sinking into the words like they're a suffocating quicksand. My stomach twists. I set my fork down carefully, not so much afraid I might damage the porcelain plate, more like I myself could shatter if I moved too quickly. He can't be serious, right? Right?

"Derek, what are you saying?" I hear myself ask. He rubs his temples, his jaw clenched. His gaze flickers off my face and to the cake sitting on his plate waiting to be skewered by his fork.

"I have cold feet. This whole thing—it feels rushed. I don't know if I'm ready," Derek says, skewering me instead.

The room feels smaller, closing in around me, the smell of buttercream suddenly sickening, like an onslaught. I can almost feel it crawl into my nostrils. I swallow, trying to push down the rising wave of panic.Rushed? How could this be rushed?

"We've been together for five years. We've planned everything, Derek. *Everything*." My voice wavers, breaking at the end. "Why didn't you say anything before?" A part of me wants to scream, "What the hell, dude!", but I keep my voice under control. Maybe cold feet is all this is, maybe some people just go through this kind of thing for a day or two and wake up reassured the next. But Derek looks lost, not like someone who's strayed off the path for a moment, but like someone whose path has gone and dissolved beneath their feet.

"I didn't want to upset you," he tells me earnestly, his eyes softening with guilt, upsetting me greatly. "I thought I'd feel different once we started planning, but—" He stops, glancing away, as if finishing the sentence might hurt me more than he already has.

"But you don't feel different? You feel like this is all a big mistake?" I say. And it does hurt a lot. A LOT. Still, I try very hard not to point out the insanity of his statement. How could he have thought that letting this go on while he silently checked out was the less hurtful option? How could he sit around and watch me make phone calls and reservations and pick out invitations and stress over seating and--

Derek shakes his head. We stare at each other.

My chest tightens with awful dread, it feels like my rib cage is about to cave in any second. I glance around the bakery, the pastel walls and delicate pastries suddenly feeling absurd, like they're a movie set, like I'm an actor who's been working with the wrong script while everyone else has silently been wondering about my mental state.

"We're supposed to be tasting cakes," I say quietly, as if to remind myself and him of the scene we're in. I can feel the words unraveling inside me, breaking into letters, consonants and vowels, mere sounds I'm making. We were just supposed to be tasting cakes, not questioning everything.

Derek reaches for my hand, but I pull away. I feel like I'm looking at a stranger, an alien whose human disguise has fallen off. Who even are you? I want to scream. How can you spring this on me in public?Instead I ask in a gentle, loving tone meant to remind him that I'm his soulmate - his words, not too long ago -

"Where is this coming from? I mean... you proposed to me, we were about to spend the rest of our lives together, so maybe you could at least let me in on what changed. And maybe why? Why would be good..." I trail off, my voice going small, like I'm a little girl lost in the woods.

"Skye, I—" Derek begins, then stops, as if unsure how to finish the sentence. He runs a hand through his hair again and I can't help but imagine how soft it must feel against his skin. His eyes flit to the floor. "I don't know how to say this without sounding like an asshole."

My pulse quickens with fear and anger. "That pointless preamble already makes you sound like one so just say it."

Derek shifts uncomfortably, rubbing his palm against his jeans. "I've been... I've been feeling unsure. About the wedding. About us for..." He shakes his head, then manages to meet my eyes, confronting me with the chocolate colored depths of them. "... more than a month."

My thoughts buzz around in my mind, frantic and jumbled. More than a month. That's not that long, right? Things were just getting more real and there'd been a lot on our plates. I look at the cakes, literally on plates. So this could just be nerves. "We've been stressed with the planning, and—"

"No," Derek cuts in, shaking his head. "It's not just stress. It's more than that."

I flinch at the razor sharp conviction in his voice, my chest constricting. The word "more" is a pandora's box. I don't want him to keep talking. And yet I know I need to find out.

"More than that? What does that even mean?" But some part of me knows, knows how these stories go.

He looks down at the table, avoiding my eyes. "I don't think I'm in the same place as you anymore. I've been... I've been thinking a lot about us. And... I think I have feelings for someone else."

My heart stutters, and for a moment I can't speak.

"Someone else?" My voice barely works, it's shaky and small, timid even. I suppress the urge to look around, almost expecting this other person to step into the room, now that they have been invoked.

Derek winces, he has the decency to look ashamed. "Yeah. A co-worker. Emily."

I blink, trying to make sense of the name as I mentally flip through a Rolodex of Derek's co-workers I've met or heard him mention. No Emily. That name isn't part of our world so how come it's fallen out of the heavens like a cartoon anvil?

"Who the hell is Emily?" Now I am yelling and the women who run the bakery quickly withdraw back into the kitchen with their next batch of samples.

"She—she works with me," Derek stammers. "She's... she's just really fun. She's laid-back, easy to talk to. I don't know, Skye, it just *happened*.

"Happened? What exactly happened? The urge to scream is not waning.

I stare at him, numbness creeping through my body. I want to ask, but I'm afraid of what he might reply. "Laid-back? *Fun*?" The words sound stupid coming out of my mouth, just as dumb as they'd sounded coming out of his. "Are you kidding me? You've developed feelings for some girl because she's more laid-back?" Was this code for "younger", "hotter", "excitingly new"?

Derek sighs, rubbing the back of his neck beneath the collar of his flannel shirt, clearly uncomfortable. "It's not just that. She's... I don't know, we just *click*, you know? It's easy with her."Click? Like two Lego pieces interlocking? Did that mean they'd already slept together? I think I can feel the cake rotting in my stomach.

"*Easy?*" My voice cracks, the word coming out louder than I intended. One of the kind middle-aged women turns on her heel again and hurries away, pretending not to hear. "Like she easily slept with you and doesn't expect anything because she's not, you know, been with you for half a decade and lives with you and cleans up your dirty socks?"

He flinches, his face flushed with embarrassment. "Shit, Skye, that's-- the way you talk about it-- is exactly what I mean. Lately feel like I'm walking on eggshells around you. Like, you're always stressed or focused on the wedding and the day to day and all those tasks that need to be completed. Everything we do feels like we do it just to check it off a list. And with Emily, it's different. We actually have fun together."

My face flushes with a mix of hurt and humiliation. "I'm sorry I don't feel like *fun* to you. I'm sorry our relationship is such a huge chore. Maybe it's because I've been the one handling most of the wedding planning while you sit back and have your little 'fun' with Emily." I spit the name like it's toxic waste. "Can I just ask, how long have you known her and how old is she?" I have a feeling I might be able to guess.

"Skye, that's not fair," Derek says, his voice lowering, eyes pleading. "It's not like that. I'm not trading you in for someone younger. I care about you. I *loved* you, but—"

"But what?" I interrupt, my voice trembling. The past tense is a knife, cutting up my insides. "You *loved* me, but you'd rather be with her? With some girl you barely know because she's more 'chill' than I am? Is that what you're saying? Why did you keep this stupid chore-like relationship going, making me think you were actually going to marry me?"

Derek presses his lips together, eyes flicking down to the cake again. "Because I thought I was. Because I thought it was just cold feet, because I hoped that my feelings for you would change back to what they were. But it didn't happen. I honestly wanted it to, but it just didn't."

He tells me this as if all this is something that's happening to him, not a choice he's making. I get it, Derek, it's not your fault, nothing ever is.

My chest is in a vise of anxiety, and I push my chair back, the legs scraping the floor with an ugly screech. "I can't believe this," I mutter, standing up abruptly. My heart pounds in my ears as I grab my bag, blinking back the sting of tears. I'm the past, that's what he's telling me.

"Skye, wait, can we just—"

"No, we can't just," I snap, cutting him off. "You should've told me this before we sat here tasting wedding cakes like idiots."I don't wait for his response. I walk briskly out of the bakery, the warmth of the sun hitting me like a slap in the face as I step outside. I silently wish for someone to yell "cut!", for the opportunity to do another, different take, but the world just moves on, indifferent to my story.