Orange Soda

"Who's orange soda is this?" I said as my mind was already speculating on a thousand different reasons as to why there was an orange soda in my refrigerator. Each more vile than the next.

"What? What orange soda? The one in the fridge, you mean?" He finally yelled back from the shower. It's just an orange soda. It shouldn't require much thinking, so why the long silence before any perfectly reasonable and yet impossible explanation?

"Is there another? Are we soda people now? Suddenly our bodies aren't temples anymore?"

"Ahh, that soda. Yeah, no... That's the only one. I forgot it was there." Whatever that meant.

"Excuse me!", I yelled as I barged into the bathroom. "Would you mind telling me why is there a godamned soda can in our fridge? What is this? Huh?"

"Wow, you seriously need to calm down, don't you think? It's just soda. I bought it this morning at the groceries store around the corner. Then I left it in the fridge. I was going to drink it later, but I forgot, okay?" Lies, lies, lies... You just don't know him like I do.

"You don't drink this crap. We don't drink this kind of shit in our house, damn it! Who's soda can is this?!" He stepped out of the shower with reaching arms. It seemed like a genuine gesture of self-preservation, which is funny since up until then I hadn't really thought about throwing that can at him. Funny how people think.

"Listen," he said. "I woke up this morning, and I felt like having an orange soda drink. I went to store around the corner and I bought myself one. I left--"

"If you felt like drinking it, then why on Earth would you put it in the refrigerator? Besides, you love your morning coffee. I mean, fuck! You love it more than you love me! And today of all days, you felt like drinking soda instead?! Soda?! Five spoons of sugar and some orange chemicals? Wow! And they say people can't change! Well, they haven't met you, have they?"

"Well, that's just it! I didn't feel like having our regular breakfast with you gone all day. So, I thought I'd skip the diet just for a day. Just for a meal, you know? Why are you acting so crazy? You're imagining things, I promise you that. It's just soda. Nothing more."

So maybe I was acting a little off. Perhaps I let myself be taken away by my mind's creative thinking. Creative and malicious.

"You promise me you bought this can?" I said.

"Of course... Baby, I would never lie to you. I was in here alone all day. I never even got out of my PJs, and this is my first shower the entire day! I couldn't wait for you to come back." His voice was calm and smooth again. Mine wasn't.

"Drink it."

"What?" He asked in shock.

"Drink the orange soda. Now."

"Are you serious?"

I answered him by opening the can and then handing it to him. Something about him being there naked and vulnerable brought up the worse in me. I admit I was anything but a nice person then.

He grabbed it from my hand, and drank the whole can right there and then. His face was mysteriously shrouded. I couldn't tell whether he felt victorious, or poisoned by all of that sugar.

"Okay," I said. "So maybe you did buy it, after all."

"Thank you. You know I'm being honest, don't you? You know you overreacted, right?"

"Sure. Why not?"

He stepped a bit closer and hugged me gently, but I was unable to hug him back. I needed time to absorb the whole episode.

"Didn't the people at the store find it strange?" I asked him just as he got back into the shower.

He turned off the shower and looked at me angrily and mockingly. I turned around and walked towards the door. This diet thing... It ain't for me. I'm out.

"Find what strange, babe?"

"That you of all people went to buy an orange soda can in your PJs."