There’s a girl—the girl—standing next to her kitchen counter, staring intently at the recipe in front of her. It’s 10 AM, which means we both got about seven hours of sleep after staying up until 3 AM talking and watching stupid YouTube videos in her bed. I’m not entirely sure how she manages to look so awake (and so beautiful. Or maybe I do know that part. Maybe that’s just a side effect of my bigger problem), but her eyes are bright as she turns to me with instructions. We’re trying to make six-layer magic bars, which usually I’d be a big fan of, but now it’s so that we can bring them to her friend’s house, and, call me selfish, but I almost wish we didn’t have to see anyone else in the barely 48 hours I have with her.
Layer 1:
Crushed graham crackers mixed with butter.
Remember how friendship is the best foundation for any romantic relationship?
Her mom calls us cute while we stand over the mixing bowl. Our sides are pressed together, both trying to find the most effective way to smash graham crackers at the same time. The sounds of crunching fill the room, making my ears ring. The dust from the graham crackers rises from the bowl with the intent purpose of choking me, it seems. I breathe in a crumb that’s definitely too big to go down my air pipe and immediately start coughing. It feels like burning, and I shiver at the feeling of her hand on my back. Once I can breathe again, we melt the butter, and the air begins to smell like a mixture of laughter and hope. She says it smells like home. She smiles at me.
Layer 2:
Melted semi-sweet chocolate chips.
Maybe she’d like to be serenaded with ‘Melt With You’ by Modern English.
Maybe that would get the point you want to make across?
She laughs when I yelp because I grabbed the bowl from the microwave without thinking and it’s much too hot to pick up without some sort of barrier. When I glare at her (which, to be honest, is not a very intimidating glare), her gaze turns softer. She asks if I’m okay, and I sigh, making a dramatic show of how hot the bowl is, all while grinning like an idiot and showing her my unburnt hands. Still, she fetches some of the leftover chocolate chips and pours a few out for me—just to make me feel better. At first, they taste like the sweetest treats in the world. They aren’t any different than the ones I have at home, but somehow, these taste better. They taste like love, like care, like being seen. But then the bitterness comes. I spend too much time thinking about all the times no one did something like that for me—all the times I actually needed them to. I wonder if this is the glukupikron—sweetbitter—that Sappho spoke of when writing about love.
Layer 3:
Melted butterscotch chips.
Remember the time your mom told you that you melt when you say her name?
Butterscotch is maybe my favorite flavor of all time, and I freeze when she remembers it. It’s just an offhand comment, and I feel crazy for feeling all warm and fuzzy because of it. She dips a spoon into the bowl before pouring it into the pan on top of the other layers. I’m surprised when she hands me the spoon, telling me that I should get to have some of it since it’s my favorite. It runs down my throat smoothly, coating my insides with warmth. I look at her for a moment. I imagine my gaze holds that same warmth in it. I imagine it’s just as sweet when our eyes meet.
Layer 4:
Chopped pecans and pretzels.
Are you so afraid of the rejection crushing you that you’re never going to say it?
I am put in charge of chopping up the pecans while she breaks the pretzels into tiny pieces. It’s quiet for a moment, her playlist of Lana Del Ray music the only noise in the room. This is the part that scares me most, I think. The way I am so comfortable to just exist in the same space as her. The domesticity of it. I always wanted to feel the ephemeral rush of falling in love with someone, but I never really thought about the choice to stay there afterwards. Once, she told me not to get blisters at a school dance. I think my younger self would be confused by how much it meant to me. The air tastes like it does every other day of the year. There’s a breeze coming in through the window, and it’s not cold or warm. I wonder if this is what it will always be like. Just finding joy in the normalcy of loving her. It wouldn’t be so bad, I think.
Layer 5:
Unsweetened shredded coconut.
Does it ever scare you how attracted to her you are?
How you love every part of her?
“Sweater Weather” by The Neighbourhood starts to play, and I give her a pointed look. Neither of us quite understand why, but this song has become the bisexual anthem, and so we’ve adopted it into all our playlists. She told me once that one of her favorite things about me was how open I was about my sexuality. I never told her, but I cried about that later. I always thought that was a part of me someone would just deal with, not ever fall in love with. So when she starts singing along, pointing at me to do the same, I hold back tears. I gesture to the shredded coconut I’m preoccupied with sprinkling in the pan as an excuse not to dance along to the song with her.
Layer 6:
Sweetened condensed milk.
Are you really not going to tell her you love her?
She makes a mess as she pours the final layer into the pan. Really, only about two-thirds of the condensed milk gets in the pan, the other third splattering onto her kitchen counter. Now all that’s left to do is bake it. As we wait in her living room for the forty-five-minute timer to go off, the smell from the oven wafts towards us. I take it as a welcome distraction from her leg pressed up against mine on the couch. She’s playing her favorite video game, and I rest my head on her shoulder as I watch. The room slowly fills with the smell of homemade dessert, making me let out a contented sigh. I think of all the times I’ve baked with my mom, how it always made our kitchen smell something like this. How I hope one day she can come home with me and bake with my mom and me. How this smells weirdly like coming home, and I don’t think it’s just because of my own memories.
The Magic Bars are done.
Just tell her you love her
Just say it
How much longer can you keep it in?
“I love you,” I say, out of nowhere, as she takes the first bite of the finished product. She doesn’t look even slightly put off, just smiles at me as she swallows. To be fair, I say it pretty often. It doesn’t really mean anything more than friendship without the “am” “in” and “with” filling in the context. I take a bite of the bar, and its sweetness coats my tongue. All of the layers combine to become one delicious whole. I swallow slowly, letting the happiness baked into it wash over me.
“I love you, too.”
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