Fragments - Flash Anthology

Five

"I'm not a liar; I told you this would happen if you didn't treat me well."

The bedroom door was left ajar, its tiny sliding metal ramp within the lock resting just outside of where it belonged.

From the edge of the amorphous main room of the apartment, a young man sat with his arms propped up and face in his palms. He continued to think in silence for another minute before finally responding.

"Should I just change jobs and make less money? I'm sorry, I have to work nights to have a competitive income. Not everyone can get a good office job like you, you know!" he said. Then, he stood back up and tried his best not to throw his clenched fist through the nearest wall.

On a large, decadently fluffy bed sat a young woman. She was stretching a plain, black hair-tie, hoping the elastic band could relieve her of the seething anger that still was just on simmer. Ticking tongue against her teeth, she decided to loosely collect her hair and replace the poor, innocent hair-tie before she broke it.

"I don't care if you make less money than I do. I told you to take off more nights or find something in the day! Six months ago! Instead of listening to me, you're off fucking some crackhead whore who winked at you from across the bar one night!"

"Oh! Oh-no!" The man raised his voice to match hers, dropping the weaker tone he had attempted earlier. "You can't sit there and say shit like that! Just because you're wanting to screw Todd and you feel guilty or something! No--! Fuck you!"

The woman's voice calmed, her rage seeming softer than before to the man. Like a loud whisper, her words slipped through the half-inch crack and out the bedroom door. "I. Told. You." She took a breath before settling on what she wanted to say. "You ignored me for a year. Ever since we've been together, you've always made me second. Yes, of course I'm going to start talking to other people. At least I'm not jumping on their dick! Though let me tell you, I have the numbers of five other guys I'd rather fuck than you right now! And they'd drop everything to do it if I ever gave them a chance. Unlike your sorry ass."

His words came out all at once as if he'd been waiting to say them all day. "So you admit you've been using apps to meet other men! What the hell is wrong with you?"

"You're abusing me!" she said, tears trying to form in her eyes. She fought them down with more anger as she pointed at the door. "You have the fucking gall to come home and play your fucking video games instead of sleeping! It's like you don't even want to see me! There's no effort!"

He silently laughed a puff of air out in disappointment and disbelief. "You're gone to work six hours later, anyway. What do you want? Want me to go to bed for four hours, wake up for two just to talk to you while you put yourself together in the morning? How the hell do you even take that long to get ready, anyway? You trying to impress someone?"

She smiled, her lips quivering and her mouth only letting loose several breaths of contempt. "I actually care about my career! You? You just..." Her hands began to shake. "You only care about your next hit on the PC. I can't believe you own two-hundred games, and you still buy new ones! You're an addict! It's disgusting, and it's only gotten worse since I've met you!"

"What does that have to do with you cheating on me? Do you think I'm talking up some e-girl? Are you that dumb?"

"I have a master's! You just waste money playing hot garbage! I'm about this close to burning your computer one night. I have hours to sit around and think about it every night before I pass out from exhaustion."

"Jesus Christ, are you insane?"

"I'm way fucking smarter than you!"

"Oh, ok! Degrees really mean a lot, don't they? You lived off your parents and your exes to somehow come out sixty-k in the hole! But yeah, you're the smart one."

"I just want a normal life, goddamnit! Not some bitch of a boyfriend who refuses to give me any time!"

"So do I! You just can't stand not getting constant attention! Go choke on Todd's dick!"

"At least I won't end up dead in the street someday. Go live a dead-end life of alcoholism and bimbos while you jerk it watching hentai. You fucking creep."

She sat back down and looked at their bed.

He walked away from the bedroom door and sat in one of their oversized, musky dining chairs.

A few hours later, they slept with a four-inch barrier between them on their only shared day off. She woke up at seven and covered her boyfriend with a blanket before getting ready for work. He moved from the sofa to the bed after his girlfriend left, then bought roses and left them for her before going to work. She blocked and deleted another number. He talked with the restaurant owner again.

Neither wanted to close the door. But neither would open it, either.