| COLD PIZZA Copyright Carol L. Parent June 2001 |
| He is unaware that I am staring at him while we sit at the kitchen table, eating pizza. Actually, he seems oblivious to the fact that I am there at all. I think about punching him as hard as I can in the face, but then realize that something like that will result in an argument, and it is best just to maintain the peace at this point. I can’t live – I simply cannot bear – to reside in a domicile of tension. He raises an eyebrow at the movie he is watching on TV, chuckles softly, then retreats to staring blankly at the large screen in front of his face. And still I stare. He reaches for another slice of pizza, trying to break it apart. He is having trouble so I offer to get him a knife. “I’ll get it myself,” he says. He returns with a meat cleaver. “Now, is that really necessary?” I ask, eyeing the size of the knife. When he has finished cutting the rest of the slices apart, I pick up the sauce-filled knife and toss it in the sink. The clink of the metal knife against the metal sink rings throughout the kitchen. I sit back down and take a bite of my pizza. What thoughts are going through my mind? I think back to all the times that we argued, and then to all the times that we laughed together, and had fun. The trips we took: weekend getaways, vacations, day trips… My mind wanders to the good times. I watch him as he eats his pizza, wondering if he is yet aware that I am staring at the side of his face, his stubbly cheek that has not been shaved in probably 2 or 3 days. He puts the slice in his mouth, eating it backwards – crust first – then he takes a bite from the other side. I wonder if him eating his pizza this way bothers me. After a minute of thought, I decide that I don’t care. If he ate his pizza this way on our first date, I still would have gone out with him again, so I guess it doesn’t really matter. But then again, we never really had a first date. Or a second. We met through friends. Ex-friends, I should say. My co-worker thought we would be good together, so we made plans through her, never having spoken once before meeting. Sight unseen, he arrived at my door with a rental movie – something erotic, yet tasteful. I guess he was trying to get laid, but his attempt was unsuccessful. In fact, he did not even get a goodnight kiss. Not that I wouldn’t have kissed him back if he tried first, but he did not try at all. We didn’t really date at first. We just “hung out” I guess you’d say, usually at my house at first, then we started going to his house more often. We started sleeping together, and it didn’t take me long to realize that I loved him. I wanted to be with him. There was mystery to him. He was like a “whodunit” novel, and I was the sleuth. I wanted to know everything about him, his likes and desires, his dislikes, his past – everything! And that’s where the trouble began. He decided to reveal his past to me. Including the part about his girlfriend, whom he was still seeing. Crushed, I told him that I didn’t think we should see each other anymore. He manipulated my feelings, so that I was crying, telling him that I didn’t want to leave him and that I wanted to be patient until he was able to make a decision. And that is what I did. I waited and waited…I was as patient as possible. The holidays were tough. I was a secret from his girlfriend, naturally, so it was not I who was part of his holiday festivities. That was probably the most painful part of our relationship. |
| His movie is now over. He re-opens the pizza box, searching for another slice. “Where the hell is that damn knife?” he asks, nearly knocking my plate on the floor. Quickly getting up, I go once again back into the kitchen to retrieve the knife from the sink. I put it down on the table, next to him, nearly missing his thumb. “Watch what the hell you’re doing,” he scolds me. He cuts his pizza again. Holding the slice with one hand, he flips the channels on the remote with the other. Last Christmas, I went over to his house late at night so we could exchange gifts, long after his girlfriend had already gone home. We had a good time, but it was awkward. I always knew that I was the one that he wanted to be with, the one that he had more fun with. But at the same time, he wanted to have his cake and eat it too, so to speak. The empty pizza box sits on the table. My plate in front of me still has a slice on it, which remains untouched. He is still staring at the TV. There was this one time that he and I had a fight and he told me he didn’t want to see me anymore. I was so mad that I didn’t even care, so we hung up the phone angry at each other, having decided that our relationship was over. The next day at work, he called me and attempted to apologize in his own little way. He said that what happened the night before was “stupid” and that we should just “forget about it.” I teased him, saying, “Oh? Are you trying to apologize? Was that an ‘I’m sorry’ I just heard?” We dated a little while before the abuse began. It started small, then eventually it worked its way up to a much higher level. I remember the first time he ever called me stupid. It was on my birthday, the first birthday I had ever spent with him. He bought me some perfume and I was so excited to put it on after I opened it that I didn’t notice the nozzle was not pointing at my neck, but rather in his direction. I spritzed the pretty bottle real quickly, then realizing what I had done, my jaw slowly dropped as I giggled and said, “Oh, honey, I am so sorry!” He stood up off the floor and said to me, “What are you fucking stupid?” In shock, my whole demeanor changed. I was stunned that he could speak to me in such a manner. “I-I’m sorry,” I said again. “Whatever,” was all he could say to me, as he turned away from me and sat down on the couch, turning on the TV. I got up and sat next to him, putting my hand on his arm, apologizing again, and again, and again. But he ignored me and would not even look at me. Then, he finally spoke, “I am trying to watch TV,” he said. My hand, slowly releasing his arm, came down to my lap. I moved over, away from him, so that the side of my leg no longer touched the side of his. He found a television program that was of interest to him, but of course not to me, and settled upon that. When the commercial came on, he stood up, reached for his jacket and said, “I’m going now. Maybe I will call you tomorrow.” And I sat there and watched, sullen, as he walked out the door. I tried to call him on his cellular phone a minute or two later. I don’t know why I did it, but it doesn’t matter anyway. He never answered. |