I was seventeen, which meant six weeks felt like a lifetime. Long enough for the heat of infatuation to blur into something I might have called love. Long enough to meet each other’s families, fuck like animals, and convince myself I’d found God in a boy who didn’t wash his sheets. Long enough to think, despite all evidence otherwise, this might be something real.
Max went to the all-boys seminary prep, which was amusing in a way that only Catholic School irony can be. The boys there, in the halls of Latin Catechism and celibacy, smoked, drank, and chased sexual desire with a special kind of reckless desperation. He fit into this mold perfectly. I couldn’t tell you what brought us together besides proximity and hormones. We bonded over mutual friends and a shared taste in music. Somewhere between punk rock playlists and the thrill of being desired, I convinced myself this was worth holding onto.
My parents weren’t impressed. My dad called his handshake weak, the ultimate insult. My mother made a face when his name came up. They were rarely impressed by the company I kept, though, so I remained steadfast. Really, they saw the inevitable ending long before I did. His father wasn’t in the picture, but his mother was – too much so. She drove us places, not because she wanted to, but because they only had one car, and she needed it. She often made offhand comments about our relationship, profoundly personal and intimate things that left me staring out the window, willing the car ride to end. “You smell like pussy,” his mother said, deadpan, like she was commenting on the weather. Then she turned to me: “You’re not complaining, right? You came, didn’t you?” I wanted to fold myself into the glove compartment and die. Max just laughed. Of course he did.
But at seventeen, you brush things aside for the sake of desire. It was intense, physical, and all-consuming in a way that only teenage liaisons can be. There were too many stolen moments – breathless and urgent, peeling my clothes off in the back of his car so that he could worship my curves and bring me to climax repeatedly. There was an electric thrill of knowing we might be caught. It was reckless, and I knew it, but I also loved the rush. The part of me that wanted to push the limits, that felt exhilaration in the act of being seen, was just beginning to take shape. I just didn’t have the words for it yet.
We carried on this way for weeks, and our relationship existed in fragmented vignettes. There were late-night phone calls, whispered confessions, and the unspoken understanding that physicality could make up for all the things we didn’t have in common. But the more time we spent together, the heavier the weight of it felt. The curse of femininity snuck in—the belief that if I just tried a little harder, I could make this into something real.
So, I softened up, bent myself into something easier to swallow. I dressed in cute things he liked and agreed to plans I didn’t care about. I made myself always available to him, even when it wasn’t what I wanted, because I knew just how important my body was to him. I liked the way he worshipped me, even when I hated myself for needing it. The way he looked at my naked form was like I was the most exalted goddess he’d ever known. It warmed a cold spot inside my soul. Still, no matter how tightly I held onto it, something was always missing – even if I refused to name it.
Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. Maybe it was the magic of it all—the crisp air, the costumes, the sense that for one night, you can be anyone. Or I may have always had a touch of morbidity in my soul. Regardless, I loved it more than any other day of the year.
That year, it fell on a weekend. My little brother’s birthday was the day before, so I spent the afternoon making cupcakes and left some plain because frosting is an insult to good cake. My plans for the night were simple: wandering the peninsula with my friends and attending what could very loosely be referred to as a haunted house. There is a fine line at seventeen as to what is acceptable dress up, and I opted for devil horns, glittering eyelashes, and a pitchfork – somewhere between sexy and sinful but still not a full costume.
Max was supposed to pick me up. I knew my mom would invite him in. For some reason, my little brother thought he was cool, so Max made the obligatory stop to wish him a happy birthday. When I offered him one of my perfect naked cupcakes, he hesitated and tilted his head a bit.
“She doesn’t eat frosting. Isn’t that weird?” my mother exclaimed, always happy to betray me.
“It is weird,” he agreed, “frosting is the best part.”
I rolled my eyes but dug through the pantry for a can of Pillsbury icing, spreading it over a few just to prove a point. Look at what a good sport I am, it said, I can make you happy. He ate the first in a single bite, then a second, and took one for the road. We said our goodbyes and hustled out. We were already running late, which made me anxious, but I bit my tongue. He hated it when I complained.
I immediately felt it when I leaned in to kiss him in the car. A shift. A wall.
“We need to talk,” he said like he was ordering fries.
My stomach knotted. “What’s the matter?” I asked, but I already knew.
He drove a few blocks before pulling over and sharply inhaled, “I don’t think we should do this anymore.”
It was like glass shattering around me. My breath caught in my throat, but my eyes betrayed me first, filling with tears, though I didn’t want him to see me cry.
“Why, though?” I wanted an explanation. Something to tell me what I had done wrong or what he had found elsewhere. I wanted closure. But he gave me nothing.
“I just don’t think it’s working for either of us,” he said as if he had rehearsed it. “And it’s better this way…for both of us.”
“Don’t you dare fucking tell me what is best for me when I have bent over backward to be what you wanted?”
He stared, unfazed, “I’m sorry.”
I was half hysterical, half homicidal.. “Why the fuck did you even come out here? Why pick me up? Why the fuck did you make me frost cupcakes for you? If you knew all along, this was your goddamn plan?” My voice cracked, and my face was hot with anger and humiliation.
“I wanted to tell you in person,” he muttered. “You deserve that.”
“On my favorite fucking holiday?” I yelled. “After I frosted cupcakes for you? You piece of shit.” I reached for the door handle. “Let me out of here.”
“Where are you going?
“To meet up with my friends, you shithead; unlock the car!”
He didn’t unlock the car. Instead, he pulled out of the parking spot. “I’m still going to drive you.”
Every second I spent trapped in that car with him was unbearable. I slung curses at him, demanded answers, and, when none came, told him I hated him. He just kept driving, unmoved except for the occasional muttered apology.
I barely waited for the car to stop before wrenching the door open and running into the diner, my vision blurred with tears. Bridgit knew immediately, and the others caught on within seconds.
“Where is he?” She asked, voice laced with venom.
I pointed to the parking lot, and Bridgit said something to the boys that caused them to disappear out the front door.
Bridgit hugged me while Erin handed me tissues, which were just diner napkins. I ugly cried into them, embarrassed by my ridiculous tears for an undeserving boy. The boys returned a few minutes later. They seemed proud of themselves, though they only yelled at the back of Max’s car.
Tony grinned proudly and said, “I kicked the back tire.”
It was so stupid that I almost laughed. As I wiped my face, I managed to choke out, “He broke up with me, and I don’t even know why. I even frosted his cupcakes.”
I was met with their indignant outrage, but Bridgit cut through the cacophony of cursing. “Wait. You what? You frosted his cupcakes?”
They all froze, and I watched their faces morph from fury to confusion to wide-eyed horror.
“Oh my god,” Erin whispered. “What did he make you do?”
A consensus of murmurs from the rest of our friends alerted me that they assumed this must be a euphemism for some obscene act that he coerced me to perform in the throes of passion. Their hormonal minds on the brink of adulthood had become wildly speculative. And then, between the tears, I started laughing.
“No, they were actual cupcakes,” I explained between gasps. “I opened a whole new can of frosting because I like mine plain, and he wanted some with frosting. Then he ate them and broke up with me.”
Bridgit shook her head, completely deadpan. “That is worse than any weird sex thing he could request.” Then she delicately reached across the table to tenderly peel off my half-detached fake eyelashes, undoing the spell. If I ever fell in love again, it would be with someone who looked at me like she did in that moment. Like I mattered. Like I was real.
Erin sighed dramatically, “And he made you cry your eyelashes off.”
“After you frosted his cupcakes and everything,” Bridgit adds.
And that was it—we all erupted in laughter until our sides hurt. My friends seized the opportunity to talk about how this boy was never good enough for me. The heartbreak didn’t disappear, but I felt something shift. I had been missing this in my “relationship”—the absolute, unwavering certainty that I was in the presence of people who loved me, not the kind of love I chased but the type that held me together even when I fell apart.
We stepped out into the late October air; I lit a cigarette as Bridgit took a sip from her flask because these things ultimately make us look more fabulous than everyone around us.
“Are you actually gonna go into the haunted house with us, you chicken?” I ask her, half-smirking.
“Only if you promise to frost my cupcakes after,” she shot back.
And just like that, it became part of our lore.
J.M. Spinelli is a writer, editor, and artist living in NYC. She founded TrashLight Press as a refuge for the rejected, the feral, the too-weird-to-fit-in. Her work spans dark fiction, raw nonfiction, and the occasional piece of angry poetry. When she's not writing or making art, she's probably digging through the archives of the beautifully broken.