I’ve been waiting for this all week. Though I’m loathe to admit it, there’s hardly been a moment when you were not on my mind. That’s silly, isn’t it? No. Don’t answer that. I know how I must sound to you. Let’s focus on the present instead, shall we? Here, in the 6AM darkness, if I may be frank, there is only one thing I can feel: my stomach moaning.

I did it for you, my dear.

I reach into the unmarked brown paper bag, careful to find you. Not that one. Certainly not that one. Almost…ah. There you are.

There’s my breakfast.

As always, the sawing of the bread knife scatters tiny bits of your flesh all over the plate. I’m sorry, pet. I tried to be gentle. Deep breaths, hmm? The next part is quite a bit worse.

For you.

I lay you face down in the shiny new toaster oven on the highest possible setting, watching you nearly burn. Didn’t I tell you how I like the bitterness of a slight char? Something needs to balance out your sweetness.

The timer counts down. 3:03…2:57…2:45…as if of their own mind, forgive me, my fingers move through the stray bits that remain on the plate. Coated in you, a finger moves to my tongue, and oh, the way you taste! I chew through your tough crust to luxuriate in your soft interior. I know you blend into an indiscriminate mush of salt and fat and sugar on the way to my stomach, and yet I can swear, swear that all my chewing does nothing. It’s as if you sit intact in my stomach, like a comforting weight, reminding me of how full I am, of how satisfied I am. If I let my mind wander enough, I can even make myself believe that I’ll never need another meal ever again, that a single morsel of you is enough to satiate me for all my years to come. It’s so easy. I wish it were so easy. I lick my lips, desperate for more, just the barest hint. That’s all I need.

1:37…1:36…1:35…maybe I should skip the toasting altogether. 1:34…no, no, you’re right, of course. We’ve already waited for so long. What’s another, say…one minute and eighteen seconds…0:49…

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. Like three gunshots fired, the sound of the timer hitting 0:00 echoes in the empty kitchen.

At last!

I yank the oven door open, ignoring the way my force makes the metal slap against the cold marble countertop. We hardly have the time to worry about that. I burn my fingertips sliding you onto the plate. No time to worry about that, either. Now. The best part.

Reaching into the very back of the fridge, I pull out the weeks-old unopened tub of Philadelphia Reduced Far Cream Cheese. Talk about indulgence. Open wide, my love. With the very knife I used to slice you open, I now slather you in cream cheese. Hush. I’ll worry about closing the fridge door later. Why, you ask? Darling, it’s rather simple!

I just can’t bear to wait for you any longer.

The cream cheese melts instantly, gushing out of the hole in your chest, and just like that, you’re ready, exactly as perfect as I’d imagined you’d be all those times.

I deserve you. You do know that, don’t you? After all, today is cheat day.