I Deserve a Cake on My Birthday

Today was my thirtieth birthday. I specifically ordered a small artisan strawberry shortcake to be delivered to the office.

When the box arrived, my coworker looked at me with wide eyes.

Wait, Sophie, I thought you never celebrated your birthday?

I sliced a piece, handed it to her, and forced a smile. "Yeah, well, I just felt like it this year."

This was the very first time in my five years of marriage to Kyle that I was actually celebrating my birthday. The reason was sickeningly simple. His dead first love, his perfect angel, happened to share my exact birth date.

Every single year on this day, he would sit in the living room staring at her framed photograph, brooding in utter silence until dawn.

Years ago, some friends who knew I loved a good party brought over gifts and a cake. Kyle threw everything straight into the trash. He told me, with ice in his voice, that absolutely no celebrations were allowed on the anniversary of her passing.

For five whole years, he had been wearing mourning clothes for that woman. Even as recently as yesterday, I heard him tell a client he was a widower.

The vanilla frosting on my tongue was supposed to be sweet, but as I swallowed, all I tasted was a bitter, acidic sting.

If his heart was permanently buried in a graveyard with her, then I was done playing the ghost in this lifeless shell of a house. What was the point of a marriage where I couldn't even blow out a candle on my own birthday?

When I finally got home, I put the leftover cake into the fridge.

Kyles exhausted, hollow voice immediately drifted from the living room.

"Did you get the white lilies and the brioche?"

"The lilies have to be fresh, and the brioche needs to be from that downtown bakery. Otherwise, she won't like it."

He didn't even bother to look up. His gaze was entirely glued to Audreys portrait on the mantelpiece. His eyes were red-rimmed, swimming with a sickening amount of tender devotion.

This exact scene had played out on loop for half a decade. Every year on this date, Kyle canceled all his meetings, ignored all his calls, and stayed home to keep his dead college sweetheart company.

When I didn't respond, he reluctantly dragged his eyes away from the photo. He glared at my empty hands, annoyance twisting his handsome features.

"Where are they? Did you not see my texts?"

I saw them. They were just buried at the very bottom of my notifications, pushed down by dozens of birthday wishes from people who actually cared. And honestly, I just couldn't be bothered to open them.

In previous years, I would clock out of work, ride the subway for two hours across the city, stand in the freezing cold before the downtown bakery closed just to get that specific pastry, and then take another train to a specialty florist to buy the most expensive lilies.

Then I would drag my exhausted body back home, cook a full meal for him and a dead girl's photograph, and immediately go tend to his bedridden mother. I would bathe her, massage her atrophied legs, and clean up her messes. By the time I could finally sit down, it would be pushing midnight.

And even after bleeding myself dry for him, I never once got a "Happy Birthday" out of Kyle's mouth.

A groan of pain echoed from his mother's bedroom down the hall.

But this time, I didn't rush in like a well-trained dog. Instead, I opened the fridge, took out my half-eaten cake, set it on the kitchen island, and took a slow, deliberate bite.

"My mom is calling for you. Why are you just standing there?"

He frowned at the hallway, irritated by the noise, and barked the order at me as if it were my God-given duty.

He marched over to the kitchen. I didn't flinch. I looked him dead in the eye and spoke my first words of the night.

"Kyle, I am your wife. Not some free live-in maid your family hired."

He froze. His brain seemed to short-circuit for a second before his eyes darted down to the pink cake on the counter. His face darkened instantly.

"Sophie, didn't I make myself absolutely clear? Today is Audreys memorial. You can celebrate your stupid birthday a day early or a day late. Do you really have to jinx her day and make everyone miserable?"

It was utterly absurd. It was my birthday. Her death anniversary. And somehow, in his twisted mind, I was the curse bringing bad luck into the house.

Right behind him sat Audreys portrait. The womans delicate, innocent smile was shrouded in the flickering shadows of the candles he had lit. It was a blurry, mocking sight.

To his left was the hallway, echoing with the wet coughs and demanding yells of a mother-in-law who verbally abused me on a daily basis, constantly reminding me I wasn't a fraction of the woman Audrey used to be.

And standing right in front of him was me, a woman with absolutely zero presence, zero respect, and zero value in this household.

I looked at the living room he had turned into a literal shrine. I listened to the hacking coughs that used to dictate my life.

I swallowed the last bite of my cake and tossed the paper plate into the trash.

And right along with it, I threw away my five-year marriage to Kyle Pierce.

Ignoring his furious glare, I walked straight toward the master bedroom. Before closing the door, I paused and looked back at him.

"Kyle. If you didn't desperately need someone to wipe your mother's ass five years ago, you never would have married me, would you?"

Asking a question I already knew the answer to was just asking for pain.

Kyle looked completely stunned. Those sharp, analytical eyes that usually processed high-end corporate data went totally blank. It was as if he couldn't even comprehend why I was acting out of line.

One second. Two seconds. Three.

I counted silently in my head, then turned away in disgust.

But just as my fingers wrapped around the brass door handle, his patience snapped.

"Is the limit on the credit card not enough for you?"

"Sophie, if you want a bigger allowance, just use your words. There is absolutely no need to throw a childish tantrum just to get my attention."

I violently twisted the handle and slammed the door shut, locking his arrogant, self-righteous lecture out in the hallway.

My legs gave out. I slid down the hard wood of the door, hit the floor, and covered my mouth to muffle the heavy, broken sobs tearing out of my throat.

In five years of marriage, this was the very first time we had openly clashed like this. Sure, I had voiced my discomfort about the Audrey shrine before, but he always played the martyr.

"She has no family left. No parents, no siblings. If I don't remember her, no one will," he would say, looking at me with gentle disappointment. "Sophie, do you really need to be jealous of a ghost?"

He always sounded so logical. So painfully loyal and romantic. He made it impossible for me to argue without feeling like a heartless monster.

When we first met, everyone told me I had hit the jackpot. They said I came from a totally average background, had an average face, and worked an average teaching job. Snagging a guy like Kyle on a blind date was a miracle. He was incredibly handsome, an Ivy League graduate, and made more in a month than I did in a year.

I thought our first coffee date was just a polite, one-off thing. But a few days later, he asked me out again. Then a third time. A fourth.

By the fifth date, he asked me to marry him.

Back then, I had no clue he was harboring the ghost of a perfect first love. Audrey had been just as brilliant and glowing as him. They were the golden couple on campus until a tragic accident took her life.

She became the bleeding, untreatable wound in his chest. A wound he decided to spend his entire life honoring. A wound so deep he actually set up a memorial shelf in our marital home.

It was so bad that a week before our wedding, he dragged me to her grave, fell to his knees, and sobbed as he apologized to her headstone.

It was so sick that even after we did the obligatory deed as a married couple, he would quietly slip out of bed and go whisper apologies to her framed picture in the dark.

For years, I swallowed the pain. I naively convinced myself that if I just loved him enough, he would eventually let go of the past and actually live a life with me. I brainwashed myself into thinking there was no point competing with a dead girl.

But what did all that enduring get me?

A miserable, exhausting existence. A barren wasteland of a marriage.

I finally realized how pathetic my silent suffering had been. It was so painfully funny that I actually choked on a laugh through my tears, the sound hollow and desperate in the quiet bedroom.

I don't know how long I sat there.

Eventually, I pulled myself together, crawled into bed, and stared numbly at the city lights bleeding through the blinds.

A sudden knock rattled the door.

"Sophie. Are you asleep?"

"Let's talk."

When I unlocked it, Kyle was leaning against the doorframe, his expression a tight, complicated knot. He struggled with his pride for a long moment before finally speaking.

"I was too harsh earlier. Don't take it to heart."

The apology spilled out of him rapidly, as if the words physically burned his tongue. Before I could even register the half-baked sentiment, the real reason for his visit dropped.

"But regardless of the fight, you really shouldn't have brought a cake into the house on her anniversary. It would break her heart."

"Just go out there, light a candle, and tell her you're sorry. Then we can drop this whole thing. Audrey was a sweet girl, I'm sure she won't hold it against you."

His face was still as strikingly handsome as ever, but as he casually ordered me to bow down to a ghost, his features morphed into something utterly repulsive.

For the first time in my life, I looked at my husband and felt pure, unadulterated disgust.

Fighting back the bile rising in my throat, I gripped the edge of the door, my knuckles turning white.

My voice came out raw and raspy.

"Kyle, I want a divorce."

Kyle froze, his eyes narrowing.

"A divorce?"

He chewed on the word, a mocking, condescending smirk pulling at the corner of his lips. It was like I had just told the funniest joke in the world.

"I put three thousand dollars into your account every single month. That's double your pathetic teacher's salary. If you divorce me, how exactly do you plan on surviving?"

I tilted my head back, looking up at this man who felt entirely like a stranger. He was much taller than me, and the height difference only amplified his suffocating arrogance.

For five years, I had constantly looked up to him. I spent so much time craning my neck that I forgot how to stand straight on my own two feet.

"Kyle. Do you have any idea how much your mother's medication costs every month?"

I pulled out my phone, opened my budget tracker, and shoved the screen toward him, reading the lines off one by one.

"Just her prescriptions this month cost over two thousand. Groceries were eight hundred. Water, electricity, HOA fees. Do you think that pays for itself?"

"And then there are the premium candles and imported lilies you make me buy for Audrey every week..."

I stopped, swallowing the hard lump in my throat, and pointed a shaking finger at the total at the bottom of the screen. A number far exceeding his precious three grand.

"The money burned for your dead girlfriend costs more than my personal expenses combined! I haven't taken a single dime from you. In fact, I've been draining my own savings just to keep this miserable house afloat!"

"So tell me, Kyle, what gives you the audacity to think you are providing for me?"

Years of suppressed rage erupted like a pressure cooker. I had never felt so terrifyingly light, so incredibly free.

Kyle stood paralyzed. His eyes were glued to the meticulous, undeniable ledger on my screen. A look of complete bewilderment washed over his face, an expression I had never seen before.

It took him several agonizing seconds to deflate. "Fine. If money is the issue, I'll transfer another three thousand next month."

"It is not about the goddamn money!"

I cut him off cold. I finally spat out the pathetic, humiliating truth that had been rotting inside me.

"We are supposed to be married. All I wanted was for you to love me. Is that really so impossible?"

In five years, that was the first time I had ever said the word "love" to his face. And it would undoubtedly be the last. My bruised, battered heart was already in shreds on the floor.

"I can give you anything else," he said, his voice dropping low, sounding genuinely tortured. "But I promised Audrey. I promised her I would only love her for the rest of my life."

He smelled of stale wax and clinical grief. Standing there, trapped in his self-imposed misery, he looked so pathetic I almost pitied him.

"Oh, drop the act," I scoffed, my voice dripping with venom. "If you really loved Audrey that much, you wouldn't have rushed into a marriage with me six months after she died! There's no audience here, Kyle. Who are you putting on this devoted lover act for?"

I ripped right through his hypocritical disguise, severing whatever lingering affection I had left.

His eyes snapped up, bloodshot and feral. He lunged forward, his heavy hands clamping down hard on my shoulders.

"You have absolutely no right to judge our love!" he snarled, his breath hot against my face. "If she hadn't died, trash like you would never have been allowed to step foot in my house!"

Blinding pain shot through my collarbones. I gritted my teeth and raised my hands to shove him off.

Just then, a sickening thud echoed from the guest room.

It was followed immediately by Mrs. Pierce's agonizing wail.

Kyle flinched, his grip releasing instantly. He spun around and sprinted down the hall.

When he threw the door open, a suffocating, rotting stench rolled out into the hallway. Mrs. Pierce was sprawled awkwardly on the hardwood, covered in her own mess, groaning incoherently.

Kyle gagged, immediately slapping a hand over his nose and mouth. He stood frozen in the doorway, absolutely refusing to take a single step inside.

His mother's breathing hitched, turning into a desperate, rattling wheeze. "Sophie... please... help me..."

I couldn't just stand there and watch a frail woman choke on her own fluids.

So, despite everything, I stayed.

I called 911. I stabilized her. I cleaned the vomit and the filth off her skin. And through it all, Kyle remained glued to the doorframe, as useless as a decorative plant.

It wasn't until the paramedics loaded her into the ambulance and we arrived at the emergency room that he finally snapped out of his trance.

"Thank God you were there," he exhaled, running a hand through his perfectly styled hair. "I honestly wouldn't have known what to do today. Look, whatever you said earlier, I know you were just lashing out. Let's not bring up divorce again, okay?"

I opened my mouth, but before I could utter a single syllable, a nurse called my name to pick up the prescription forms.

When I walked back down the hospital corridor, I caught the tail end of a conversation between Kyle and another patient's family member.

"Hey, that young woman running around doing all the dirty work. Is she a nurse you hired from an agency?" the stranger asked. "Man, she is good. You don't see young people that thorough anymore. Do you think you could ask her if she has time to take on my dad's case?"

Kyle went dead silent for three long seconds.

Then, he gave a slow, barely perceptible nod. "Sure."

The pharmacy bags slipped from my fingers, hitting the linoleum floor with a soft crinkle. I didn't even bend down to pick them up. I just turned around and walked away.

This time, I didn't look back.

Not far from the hospital was an intersection branching off in three different directions. I stood frozen in the middle of the pavement, totally lost, having nowhere to actually go.

Directly across from me was an old clock tower.

It was five minutes to midnight.

And so, in the final five minutes of my thirtieth birthday, I closed my eyes and made a wish. A wish I hadn't dared to make in five years.

I wished for freedom. I wished for a clean break. I wished to never, ever cross paths with Kyle Pierce again.

Over the next few days, I stayed at a cheap boutique hotel near the high school where I taught. I spent my free periods on the phone with a divorce attorney.

My terms were crystal clear. I wanted exactly what was legally mine, including full reimbursement for the massive medical bills I had fronted for his mother. Nothing more, nothing less.

While the lawyer was drafting the paperwork, Kyles texts started flooding in, increasing in panic with every passing hour.

At first, he tried to play it cool.

Where are you? Did you go home first?

I don't know how to deal with the hospital staff. You're off work tomorrow anyway, so get here early.

Then, the tone shifted.

Are you seriously still throwing a tantrum? Come to the hospital right now so we can talk this out face to face.

Give me your new number. I need to call you.

Where exactly is your school? I'm coming to pick you up tonight.

It was darkly hilarious. We had been married for five years, yet my own husband had no idea what my phone number was or what street my school was on. Yet he could recite the exact date Audrey bought a specific brand of lip gloss.

I let out a dry, sarcastic laugh and hit the 'Do Not Disturb' button on his contact.

I truly didn't expect him to actually track down my workplace.

"Sophie. Why the hell are you ignoring my texts?"

He cornered me in the parking lot. He looked rough. His jaw was lined with dark stubble, his clothes were wrinkled, and he reeked of cheap hospital coffee and antiseptic.

I gave him a dead-eyed stare, side-stepped him, and kept walking to my car.

He lunged and grabbed my wrist in a vice grip.

"Listen to me. Every single nurse I hired for my mother quit because she kept screaming at them. So I need you to request a week off work and come back to take care"

Before the sentence even left his mouth, I swung my free hand and slapped him directly across the face. The crack echoed loudly in the quiet lot.

"If you need a nurse, call an agency! Stop harassing me!" I yelled, my voice shaking with pure rage. "Or better yet, go to the cemetery and ask your precious ghost to rise from the dead and play happy family with you!"

Kyle clutched his stinging cheek, staring at me like I had grown a second head.

"Sophie, have you lost your damn mind?" he hissed. "Isn't this little stunt dragging on long enough? Are you really trying to force a divorce and turn yourself into damaged goods that nobody else will ever want?"

I was still shorter than him, but as I looked him in the eyes, I didn't feel small anymore.

"I'd rather be damaged goods than your maid," I said smoothly. "Honestly, Kyle? Out of everything I've done in my entire life, marrying you is the one thing I am most deeply embarrassed by."

He didn't try to contact me after that day. I wasn't sure if his massive ego couldn't handle the slap or if he had actually accepted reality.

Honestly, I couldn't care less.

The day the divorce papers were finally ready, I drove back to the house one last time. Mostly to force a pen into his hand, and partially to pack up my clothes.

But what I never, in my wildest nightmares, expected to see when I pushed open that front door...

Was her.

Standing right there in the living room. Breathing. Smiling.

Looking exactly like the dead woman in the framed picture on the mantel.