A trio of sounds go off simultaneously, and Bri’s eyes fly open at the racket of alarms blaring. The question that has haunted her brain, the one screaming in her head every single morning, appears again.
“Are you ready to make the doughnuts?” Bri asks herself.
Still lying in bed, Bri lets out a shriek. She slaps at her skull but can’t knock the words out of her brain. “Shut up, shut up, shut up,” Bri thinks as she thrashes around, annoyed that her mind refuses to work peacefully with her body, ever.
Bri grunts and waves her hand under the cozy covers, bumping up against the phone case. She pulls the screen to her face, tapping to silence her iPhone alarm. Bri then hops out of bed to turn off the pop music playing from the clock radio on her dresser. It’s never quite tuned into an actual station. The music clashes with static and the shrill voice of a radio DJ someplace far away sounding. Sitting next to the clock is a sunrise machine, glowing orange and emitting soft nature sounds.
“I hate you, Andrew,” Bri mutters as she shuffles to the bathroom to pee.
Throughout their six-month relationship, Andrew used to crack a joke about making the doughnuts at least once a week, always in a silly little singsong voice. Getting out ingredients to make dinner? Writing a thank you note for Gammy? Running to Target for cat food? Better go make those doughnuts. For Andrew, the line was a pep talk for anything.
After the first few times, Bri asked Andrew about the significance. As a kid, Andrew’s dad left for work each morning yelling it to the household as he headed out the door, which became an inside joke for them. Kind of a family motto. Andrew thought it came from a jingle or tagline from some old advertisement. Bri did some Googling and found the video on YouTube. The line was from a 1984 Dunkin’ commercial. Not as endearing some of the pop culture catchphrases she recalled from her youth, like that beer commercial with the frogs, or lines from South Park, which Bri used to screech to her own friends and family, but she left those goofy references back in childhood. The doughnut thing obviously still had some staying power for Andrew. And now for Bri.
Bri and Andrew had been broken up since the summer, but a month ago, Bri took a new job in a field she’d never worked before. In food service. Specifically, at a bakery. Bri was literally making doughnuts—along with fritters and long johns and crullers and cinnamon rolls—but mostly doughnuts. So many freaking doughnuts. And on Bri’s first morning of work, which meant waking at 2 a.m. to be at work by three, she gave herself Andrew’s family pep talk, and it stuck. Along with her alarms, putting the act of making doughnuts into words got her out of bed and into the shower, ready to make baked goods for the line of people waiting for the store to open. She’d solved the issue of getting to work insanely early, but now she couldn’t stop thinking of Andrew. It didn’t help that she’d been on at least a dozen terrible dates since they broke up. After meeting an obviously still married man, a dude who lived in his boss’ unfinished basement, and four guys who looked nothing like their photos, Bri kind of missed Andrew.
Bri reflects on this as she pours herself a second cup of coffee. She must leave in 14 minutes to be on the road by 2:47. She’s already showered, packed food for her shift, and set the lunch bag by her keys, folded apron, and water bottle. Chef pants, polo, socks, and non-slip sneakers are ready in her bedroom. Legs tucked underneath her, Bri sits on the couch and gulps her lukewarm coffee, scrolling social to drown out Andrew thoughts, trying to enjoy her last few moments at home. Bri has this conversation with herself every morning, like she can’t shake some lingering guilt for finding Andrew cringe and dumping him. He was a decent guy. She just couldn’t fathom building a life with him—or even spending one more minute in his presence.
In the weeks leading up their breakup, Andrew had become more and more problematic. Aside from saying odd catchphrases and singing random song lyrics instead of answering any serious question she’d ask, Bri realized Andrew didn’t actually know how to functionally talk or have real conversations, he only said the same things over and over: the doughnut thing, lines from retro movies, choruses from heavy metal songs. It was like he was afflicted by lyrics and puns and corporate taglines. If she got depressed about something in the news, he’d reply by singing the chorus from some Metallica song and pretend to riff on an air guitar, cavorting his lanky body. How the hell was Bri supposed to respond to that? She’d usually let out a tight laugh and say, “Okay, well, anyways…” then try to finish her thought. Andrew also seemed to be stuck in some kind of cultural limbo between the mid-1980s and early 90s, before she was even born, so she didn’t understand half the things he was trying to be funny about.
She didn’t mind Andrew’s quirks at first, Bri had some weird qualities herself. Everyone did. Andrew never acted annoyed when she chewed her cuticles or toted around a bottle of water, a Diet Pepsi, and a coffee tumbler wherever she went. And she liked Andrew. He was older than her, so he had a stable job and car. He asked her questions about herself. He took daily showers. He had two friends. There were real sheets on his bed, and he regularly washed them. But if he was already annoying her, what would life be like in a year, in five, in ten? What if they got pregnant and had to parent together? What if one of them got sick, like, really sick? Would he take any of that stuff seriously or make nonstop corny remarks? Or what if they moved in together, and Andrew was in her space, all the time? She couldn’t risk being legally bound to Andrew while slowly going mad from his terrible sense of humor. Any progression of this relationship was not possible. When she found herself avoiding him for days at a time, Bri knew it was time to end it.
The morning of the breakup, she asked Andrew to meet her at a coffee shop they’d never visited, a neutral spot where she hoped to let him down quick and easy. When he showed up, Bri’s heart was pumping fast. She started right in, before he could even try his scone, saying vague things like, “You and I are too different,” and “I don’t want to be tied down,” but Andrew kept pressing her, saying he was crazy about her and didn’t want to part ways.
Bri remembered scanning the cafe, there were several couples enjoying drinks, snuggled close on overstuffed couches, looking at their devices and laughing, happy to be with one another. Bri gathered strength to say what she really meant.
“I think your jokes are ruining—”
“But, Bri, baby,” Andrew interrupted, “you’re the peanut butter to my jelly.” He grabbed her hand, making a spreading motion up her arm as though he was making a sandwich.
Bri felt her face get hot, warmth was spreading from her cheeks to her nose and chin. Her arm, trapped in Andrew’s grip, developed a carpet of tiny goosebumps. She’d been speaking quietly, as to not disturb the other customers, but now she felt nuclear. Why couldn’t he help make this normal? She recalled throwing off his arm, stopping him in mid spread. She put both hands firm on the table and moved her face close to his.
“No. I don’t think you understand. I’m not going to be with you anymore. You say the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard a human say, and I’m over it. I’m not an audience member in your comedy show, I’m not a prop for your improv troupe.”
Bri knew her eyes were large and bulging, and her breathing was shallow. As she unleashed her true feelings onto Andrew, things she’d thought so often but never verbalized, Bri experienced a surge of power that felt very primal. She was a warrior who had just killed her prey. And now she was holding up her catch for Andrew, showing him a bloody organ, all the unspoken feelings out in the open and dripping on the table. It felt amazing. Andrew stood up and quickly gathered his uneaten food.
“I think I should go,” he said.
“You should go! Go find someone your own age who will get all your cheesy ass shit. I’m changing the channel. I’m canceling this performance. I am booing you off the stage, you corny fuck.”
There it was. She hadn’t planned to destroy his entire sense of self, but Bri would never forget the look on his face. Andrew was wrecked, and for once he didn’t try to make another joke or say something off the wall, he slunk out the cafe, got into his vehicle, and drove away.
Bri feels a little short of breath now as she puts on her shoes and grabs her keys, pulling the metal apartment door shut behind her. This is what still bothers her, the physical sensation that takes her right back to that day. Also, Andrew’s dejected face. Did he hate her? It was always so hard for her to balance what she wanted with what other people expected of her. Even at the bakery, she had a hard time with rude or demanding customers, she never stood up for herself, never asked one of her coworkers for help. Breaking up with Andrew was one of the first and only times she actively rejected something she didn’t want in her life.
Bri gets to the garage and sits in her car. The same heat creeps into her face, same as the day of their breakup, but she slams the steering wheel with her hand. “Stop thinking about him,” she tells herself in a firm voice. “Think about you.”
Bri starts the ignition, backing out of the garage and maneuvering through the parking lot and onto the street. The city is barely alive, just a few other vehicles are on the road, a fuel tanker is parked at the convenience store filling the reserves of gas under the pumps, a man pushes a hand truck loaded with plastic racks of bread into the back of a grocery store. People like Bri, getting businesses ready for the day ahead.
Bri flips on some music, and as she drives, she mentally ticks off the different things that will need to be done at work. The owners want to try out some new menu items, maybe offer a dessert buffet on the weekends, and she thinks about options that might interest their customers. Bri wonders if the cinnamon roll couple will stop in today, a little old man and woman who order and then sit at one of the few tables in the bakery. The husband liked to dunk pieces of his cinnamon roll in a paper cup full of hot black coffee, the wife would cut hers with a flimsy plastic knife and fork, taking tiny bits into her wrinkled mouth with shaky hands. They didn’t talk. Bri thought they both ate the rolls so funny, she preferred to unwind her cinnamon roll like a snake, to tear off long sections and eat big mouthfuls, licking the hyper sweet frosting off each one of her fingers in the slowest and most satisfying way. Bri didn’t like to watch the couple because she found their mannerisms unsettling, but she admired how they existed in each other’s orbit, kind of messy, but quietly focused on their own individual task. Sometimes she caught a glimpse of them, slow and uncoordinated and intent on their food, and she would stare as if they were baby animals just learning to eat.
