Short Stories

The Pizza

She threw her keys on the counter, but they slid off and landed behind it.
"Fuck this shit," she said, exasperated. It was the last straw. The door shut behind her as she sank to the floor and started crying her eyes out. Today had been the shittiest day of her life. She found out her boyfriend had cheated on her, and she had immediately blocked him on everything.

She took a deep breath, trying to calm down, but there was no holding back the tears that relentlessly streamed down her face. She sat there for a minute before taking off her shoes and throwing them carelessly. She shrugged off her jacket and let it fall to the ground, then grabbed her bag and made her way to the sofa.

Through her apartment window, she saw the night sky, a deep blue with a few clouds that promised rain soon. She stood there for a moment, like a package waiting to be picked up, as the tears fell down her face.

She thought about opening the windows for a moment but figured she didn't want to deal with whatever might crawl in, so she dismissed the idea. She let her bag fall to the ground and heard something break. She ignored it, not having a single nerve left to deal with it.

She swung herself onto the sofa and pulled out her phone. She was ripping her five-year relationship off like an old, dirty band-aid. She opened her gallery and started deleting every single picture of them. He didn't deserve to take up her heart, brain, and phone storage.

Five years of her life were wasted on that asshole. She deleted another video of them at a concert. He wasn't worthy of her favorite artist; in fact, she was upset she didn't gatekeep her favorite artist from him. But no, now he would be listening to all the best songs with his new girl—songs that were hers and hers only.

She saw her favorite picture of herself and her best friend and deleted it as well. Traitor. Friends don't do that to each other, especially not best friends. Her ex-best friend called her. She swiped the call away, not in the mood to hear excuses. The phone rang again. And again. Slowly but surely, she felt her anger rising. Today, all of this shit would end.

She picked up the phone, and immediately her ex-best friend started making excuses:
"It's not like that, I promise. Didn't we say we'd never let a boy come between us?"

"Don't give me that," she said, wiping away her last tears, which had now given way to anger.

"Listen, I can explain," her ex-best friend stammered.

"Oops, you fell on my boyfriend's dick? There's nothing to explain. I don't want to hear it. Don't you ever dare call me again. Don't even dare say my name. I don't want it in your dirty mouth," she spat, and with that, she hung up.

She took a deep breath as she relaxed back into the couch. The anger that had fueled her through the phone call was slowly disappearing, and her eyes felt watery again. She deleted her ex-best friend from her contacts and removed her from all her social media. Staring at her phone, she thought about calling her mom, but she wasn't ready to hear an "I told you so." Her dad was on a business trip, trying to close a massive deal between two companies, and he'd told her to only reach out if something very important came up. She didn't want to distract him with the mess that her boyfriend and best friend had made of her life.

Her stomach grumbled just as the first raindrops started hitting the windows. The sky, now gray, was the only thing that seemed to be there for her. She opened the fridge, but there was nothing in there she felt like eating, and cooking was out of the question.

She pulled out her phone and ordered the biggest, most overloaded pizza. Extra mozzarella? Who could say no to that? She also clicked yes on prosciutto, extra oregano and basil, and, of course, extra salami. Under comments, she added, "Add as much of the extras as you can, please," and then she paid for her family-sized pizza.