Page 77 of Puck Wild


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I creamed butter and sugar until the mixture was light and fluffy. The ritual was soothing. Measuring, mixing, and following steps that led to a predictable outcome. For twenty minutes, I could pretend that everything else was as simple. That life came with clear instructions and guaranteed results.

The first batch went into the oven, and I set the twelve-minute timer. Perfect cookies required precise timing. I'd learned that the hard way, through countless batches that were either underdone and gooey or overdone and brittle.

While they baked, I started cleaning up. Bowls in the dishwasher, measuring cups rinsed and dried, counter wiped down until it gleamed under the overhead lights. Order restored, chaos contained.

The timer chimed.

I opened the oven door and immediately knew something was wrong. The cookies were too brown around the edges, darker than they should have been. Not burned, but close. Too close.

I pulled out the tray and set it on the cooling rack, staring at the imperfect circles of golden-brown dough. They smelled right—butter, vanilla, and melted chocolate—but they looked wrong.

I'd been making them for years. I knew the recipe by heart and could execute it flawlessly even when I was tired or distracted or nursing bruised ribs and a wounded ego.

I never messed up the timing.

The second batch went in, and I adjusted the temperature, checking the timer twice, making sure everything was right. Twelve minutes. No more, no less.

I sat at the kitchen island and stared at the first batch, trying to figure out what had gone wrong. The oven temperature was correct. The timer had worked properly. The ingredients were fresh and measured accurately.

The only variable was me.

Eleven minutes into the second batch, I opened the oven door. The cookies were already browning, edges setting faster than they should have.

I turned off the oven and pulled them out, watching twelve more imperfect cookies cool on the rack.

It took me another ten minutes to determine what I'd done wrong.

I'd set the oven temperature to 375 instead of 350. Twenty-five degrees too hot, enough to rush the baking process and leave the cookies overdone despite perfect timing.

I'd been baking cookies every week since Jake moved in and never messed up the temperature. It was automatic, as natural as breathing.

Tonight, my muscle memory had failed me. Tonight, even the one thing I could always count on had betrayed me.

I stared at the two dozen imperfect cookies cooling on my counter, and something inside me finally broke.

The sound that came out of my throat wasn't quite a sob or a scream. It was something rawer than that.

I grabbed the nearest cookie sheet—still warm from the oven—and threw it into the sink. It hit the bottom with a metallic crash that echoed through the apartment.

Somehow, that felt good. Destructive and wrong—what I needed.

I swept the ruined cookies off the cooling rack, watching them crumble against the sink's edge.

When the counter was clear and the sink was full of debris, I slumped back against the cabinets and slid down until I sat on the kitchen floor.

My ribs ached from the sudden movement, but I didn't care. Everything ached—my body, chest, even the space behind my eyes.

I'd held it together for almost a week, pretending that Jake's absence didn't matter, and I could fill the hole he'd left through sheer force of will and perfectly executed defensive zone coverage.

I was lying to myself about what he'd meant to me.

I stared at the refrigerator door across from me, where Jake's ridiculous notes still clung to the white surface. "Emergency Cookies – Not For Cereal Boy." "Milk Expiry Date: When It Smells Weird." "Leftover Pizza: Property of The Better Roommate."

He'd been here. I didn't know it would feel so empty without him.

Jake had disrupted everything by existing in my space, making me want things I'd convinced myself I didn't need. He looked at my labeled containers and color-coded systems and didn't see neurosis.

He'd seen me.