Spite

He was going to delete her from his Friendster account. That’d show her! If they couldn’t be friends they certainly wouldn’t be friendsters. Then he’d remove her email from his address books. He had several email accounts so he’d have to check them all. Hotmail. Yahoo! Earthlink. Could he remember all the mail accounts he’d set up?

He was on the subway car and wanted it to move faster. He needed to get home so he could begin the deletion of her information. He’d expunge any trace of her. They’d had their final fight. He’d gone to her apartment in an effort to sort things out, but ended up standing in the hallway banging threateningly on her door. She wouldn’t let him in. As he knocked he could hear her moving around inside. Then she text messaged him on his cell phone.

"Go Away," the message read. "Don’t Ever Come Back. Never Ever."

He had knocked harder.

"Just open the goddamn door and talk to me like a fucking human being!" he yelled. It was no use. She didn’t want to see him. Never Ever.

The argument had started over a text message earlier that day. She had sent a message wondering why he hadn’t sent her flowers. She’d sprained her foot after all and couldn’t leave the apartment. The message went on to say how many of her other friends had offered their sympathy. Where was his? it asked.

He called her back and got her voicemail.

"Hey," he said. "Sorry I didn’t call or anything. I’ve been busy with work. I figured you were alright, since it’s just a sprain. No big deal really."

Several minutes later he got another text message.

"IT’S A PRETTY BIG DEAL FOR ME AND MY FAMILY. I CAN’T F-ING MOVE!"

And that’s what made him snap.

She had called him at work a few days prior, telling him how she had tripped and broken her ankle the night before and could he help her to the hospital. He asked where her brother was and she explained that he was at work and wouldn’t be home until nine or ten that night. He figured if her brother wasn’t too concerned he shouldn’t be either, but she sounded like she was in a lot of pain. He left work and hopped on a Brooklyn-bound R train.

When he got to her apartment he realized that she lived across the street from the hospital. Literally ACROSS THE FUCKING STREET! She could have hobbled downstairs and asked somebody walking by to help her across the two lanes of traffic, but instead she had called him and he’d left his job in Manhattan to come help her cross the street. He felt like a sucker.

After a few hours in the waiting room, waiting while she got her X-rays, he discovered that a) it was only a sprain b) she’d sprained her foot by kicking the wall of a building after an argument on the phone with her boyfriend in Rochester. The big news was that she had a boyfriend in Rochester. Now he felt like a sucker twice over.

He helped her cross the street again then told her he needed to get back to work. When he got to work he text messaged that he felt like a sucker and they’d talk in more depth when she felt better. She responded with: "You shouldn’t feel like a sucker. You should feel like the great friend that you are." This didn’t make him feel any less like a sucker.

Four days had passed before she texted about the lack of flowers. He couldn’t believe she was feeling this sorry for herself. And trying to lay a guilt trip on him at the same time. You crazy psycho bitch, he thought.

He remembered the summer before, when they both lived in New Orleans. One night he got jumped by four guys and beaten to a pulp. His face had swollen to Elephant Man proportions. He had called her the night it happened for some sympathy but just got her answering machine. He called a few more times over the next three weeks but to no avail. After a month she finally contacted him and said she’d been busy with school. By then the wounds had healed and the beating was just a story he told in bars.

And now she expected commiseration for a sprained foot?!

He had snapped after the text message about her sprain being a big deal for she and her family, the use of all caps suggesting that it was indeed a big deal for them and should probably be a big deal for him as well. He immediately called her back and screamed into her answering machine to "pick up the goddamn phone!"

"I am not going to conduct this argument in text messages!" he yelled into the machine. "Now stop being a cunt and fucking talk to me! You selfish little girl. I can’t believe you. I’m just...well if you’re not going to answer the phone I have nothing to say to you."

That’s when he hopped on the subway and went to her apartment to try and talk to her. Probably not his best idea. She wasn’t going to let him in, this he was sure of. Luckily for him an elderly neighbor of hers was leaving the building as he approached. The old man held the door for him and smiled. He thanked him and ran up to her floor.

Now he was on the train, returning from that fruitless journey. His only option was to delete her. He started by clearing her entry on his cell phone. He saved her text messages as evidence of her dementia.

When he finally got home he logged onto friendster.com, only to discover that she had deleted him first. That fucking bitch! How dare she steal his idea! He thought about waiting a month for the smoke to clear, adding her again, so he’d have the pleasure of deleting her from his list himself. His only recourse was to dress her down in an email. He let her have it too. A meticulous chronicling of everything bitchy she’d ever done. He let her know how petty she was and how grateful he was to lose her as friend. And when he sent the email he erased her address from his email accounts.

As the weeks passed, he continued to check his Junk Mail folders to see if she had responded to his harangue. Alas, there were no messages from her. He thought about resending the message, but eventually gave up and hoped she’d at least read it and felt bad about herself for a few hours. That’s all he could ask for really.