Like three slices in a pie

TW: mentions of suicide, substance use, mental health.

Sarah didn’t know when she became one with her bed; her flesh melted into the sheets, settling into the cotton like an unfortunate grease stain. The shut blinds didn’t give her any indication of what time it was, but she could somewhat tell by how noisy the streets were. The current calm, as well as the cool breeze coming through from the crack in her window, told her it was somewhere between 3 AM and 5 AM. She could check her phone, of course, but it had been dead for a while now, and the charger was all the way on the other side of the room. Dawn was her favorite time of day, and that fact almost brought her relief, before the weight of her sadness came crashing back down on her.

Her dry eyes blinked stickily, and it didn’t take much for her to close them again. She retreated further under her covers, willing herself to sleep again. The birds started singing outside, soon followed by the slow early-morning traffic. Soon, children would start going to school, accompanied by their office-working parents. Hearing their laughs was bittersweet, and she drifted off thinking of times long past, when she was in their little shoes, walking to class with her best friends.

When she heard the door of her apartment unlock, pulling her out of her light sleep, she immediately surrendered herself to the robber who was certainly here to, well, rob her. Her heart hammered in her chest, but between fight or flight, her body chose freeze. Typical. She wished he would just get it over with, so that she could finally die right there, buried in her stuffed animals.

The front door shut carefully, and she wondered what kind of thief was so considerate of her neighbors. Maybe he (they? women can be thieves too…) wanted to be as stealthy as possible. She figured he would go for her PS5 first, or maybe her TV. She didn’t have much else of value, other than the gold necklace she never took off. She heard whispers (there were two thieves?), followed by thumps. It sounded like shoes being taken off and dropped on the wooden floor. A light pair, maybe flats or sneakers, and a heavier one, combat boots, maybe?

Wow, she thought, these thieves are well-mannered. At least she didn’t have to clean her living room. She’d steered clear of it, containing the mess to her dumpster of a room. She rubbed her eyes with her clammy hands and exhaled deeply. She looked at the ceiling, then at the corner of her room where her guitar lay, gathering dust. She could use it as a weapon if push came to shove. But the problem was, she really, really did not want to. She genuinely could not be arsed. Even if she was, it was too late. The door of her room swung open.

She didn’t even jump. She didn’t even need to. The faces staring at her were both familiar and expected. A short, pale, and freckled redhead stood at the doorframe with her arms crossed and her brow furrowed, her green eyes blazing with intensity. She was shadowed by a tall and lanky girl who nervously brushed her dark hair out of her eyes.

“See, you woke her up,” Tee sighed, pinching her crooked nose.

“Good,” Lily huffed, “that’ll teach her not to reply to her texts.”

Sarah groaned and covered her face with a stray pillow.

“Why are you here?” she asked, her voice muffled. She peeked out from under the pillow. “And who the fuck gave you a key?”

“You did,” Tee affirmed.

“Do you have early-onset dementia now, too?” Lily asked, earning a light smack from Tee.

“Stop it, for real.”

“Fine. Sorry.”

Sarah turned her back towards them, willing them to leave, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it to them.

She heard their feet shuffling between the bags of delivery food strewn about before feeling the bed sink.

“Hey,” Tee said, and Sarah felt her slender hand lightly touch the back of her head. “We’re here. It’s okay.”

Tee petted the back of Sarah’s head, and it relaxed her, as it always had since they were children.

“We’re worried,” Lily said, her voice strained. “You can’t disappear on us like this. Not again.”

Guilt squeezed at Sarah’s insides. The last time was much uglier. She could still feel Tee’s fingers down her throat, forcing her to throw up the bottle of pills she’d tried downing. She could still hear Lily sobbing while trying to explain to the paramedics what happened.

“I’m not going to do anything,” Sarah croaked, her voice hoarse from lack of use.

She took a moment and sighed. “I just want to hibernate for a bit, become a hermit.”

She turned around to face her best friends. They were both sitting at the edge of her bed, looking at her. She’d seen these faces grow up alongside her. She had seen Tee break her nose in 3rd grade, then again in 8th grade, and encouraged her to get her nose pierced on her 18th birthday and her eyebrow on her 21st. She had been through all of Lily’s ugly and chunky glasses until she finally settled on thin metal frames that suited her, and was partially the cause for the gap in her already-thin eyebrows, but that was a sensitive subject. These faces that laughed so easily were tinged with worry, and that made Sarah feel worse. She noticed Tee’s leg bobbing up and down, Lily gnawing on her already butchered nails.

She offered them a weak smile. “Is that okay?” she asked.

The two shared a look. Sarah gulped.

“No,” said Tee.

“Absolutely not,” said Lily at the same time.

They lunged at Sarah before she could react. Tee grabbed her right leg, and Lily somehow secured both of her elbows. They pulled, extricating her from what they thought was her bed but apparently was quicksand. Or maybe, Sarah was a cat who dug her claws into the mattress, refusing to budge.

“Get up, loser,” Lily grunted, her ‘gym era’ giving her an unfair advantage over Sarah, who, at this point, had become a monthly anonymous donor to her local pilates studio.

“Leave me alone!” Sarah whined, looking like a 26-year-old possessed by a toddler.

Tee released Sarah and sighed deeply at the two others bickering like siblings over the top bunk.

“We have gummies,” she said.

Sarah tilted her head like a dog hearing the word “walk” or “treat”.

“Like actual gummies?” she asked, barely masking her anticipation.

“Yeah, bitch,” said Tee, affectionately, before Lily could make a smart retort about them making a big deal out of regular candy.

“But first, some food. And a shower, please. You stink.”

Sarah pouted and crossed her arms. Lily, who had stopped wrestling her, went in for another psychological attack.

“We can also… Play Minecraft?”

Sarah bit her lip; they were getting her good.

“We brought stuff to make pizzas, with like ten thousand toppings. Genuinely.”

“It cost us like a million dollars,” Lily added.

It was super effective.

“Fine,” Sarah conceded.

Relief showed immediately on her friend’s faces. Tee clapped her hands in a cute little yay that would unsettle anyone who had just met her, a stark contrast to her dark and mysterious vibe. Lily went in immediately for a tackle hug. Sarah let out a yelp.

“You’re suffocating me.”

“Good.”

“I want to hug too!” Tee jumped onto the bed, causing the two girls to grunt.

They stayed there for a little, their embrace speaking louder than any long-winded therapy-adjacent talk they could’ve had.

The weight and warmth of her friends caused Sarah’s heart to thaw after being numb for days. She felt her emotions gather in her throat, choking her up. Tears threatened to burn the corners of her dry eyes. She could break out in sobs right there.

“I should shower,” she said instead, her voice cracking.

Usually, a voice crack would never go unnoticed and un-made fun of. It would be the running joke for the rest of the day, with dramatic reenactments and exaggerated voices. Instead, the girls just nodded, sitting up.

“Yeah, go shower, stinky,” was all Lily could manage, barely hiding her sniffling.

Tee nodded, a sad smile on her face.

Sarah cried a lot in that shower.

The girls sat in the kitchen. Tee and Lily had changed into their monochromatic sweatsuits, navy for Tee, mint green for Lily. Sarah had walked out of the bathroom, wearing her own baby blue set. The girls stared at each other in silence.

“Did you guys plan this?”

“No,” they answered in unison.

All they could do was laugh. It’s crazy to be this connected. They had bought these sets together when they were still roommates, to wear to their weekly movie and pizza nights. Five years later, they were a bit raggedy, with some stains that never came out. Tee told them they should’ve opted for a darker color; hers looked pristine. Alas, they had “aesthetics”.

Before starting, they each took a gummy. The preparation was now a race against the clock. The pizzas needed to be ready by the time the high kicked in.

On the table, each one of them had her own ready-made dough on a tray. Sarah had the biggest oven and could easily fit three pizzas at once. She briefly wondered if that was the true reason for their visit.

She squinted at them, suspicious. Tee cocked her head, confused. Lily, easily provoked, said: “What? Do you wanna fight?”

She shook her head and focused on her pizza. She grabbed the jarred marinara before Tee could scoop three ladles of it onto her own pie. That girl basically ate tomato soup in a crust. Sarah spread a reasonable amount on the dough and dodged Tee’s hand to give Lily the jar first. Tee rolled her eyes, now observing Lily closely. Lily purposely kept adding small amounts of marinara to tease Tee.

This distraction allowed Sarah to go for her true goal: the cheese. Her friends always griped at her for using too much cheese, and wouldn’t leave her nearly enough. She reached for the grocery bag.

When she opened it, she almost burst into tears again.

“You guys…” She reached into the bag and pulled out the two large packs of shredded cheese.

“You got me more cheese?” She asked, her voice high-pitched with emotion.

They smiled, proud of themselves.

“Well yeah, you’re a cheese monster,” Lily said, “no one is safe.”

“Just take your lactase, please. I can’t handle your lactose farts right now,” Tee said.

Sarah smacked Tee’s arm. But she still got up and grabbed her purse, pulling the tin of pills out of it. She placed it next to her on the table and grabbed the cheese bag.

She struggled to open it and, at the pathetic sight, Lily got up and opened one of the drawers, knowing exactly where Sarah’s kitchen scissors lived. Sarah took them from her, nodding in thanks.

She grabbed fistfuls of cheese, making somewhat of a mountain on her pie. Her mouth watered at the sight. The munchies had begun kicking in.

She looked over at her friends; Tee had covered her soup with cheese, and Lily was the only one with a normal-looking pizza.

They split the pepperoni evenly. Sarah grabbed one of the freshly washed mushrooms, cringing slightly at its slimy texture, and started chopping it on her wooden cutting board. The girls took this as an invitation to gradually hand her all of the ingredients that needed chopping.

“Um…” she said after silently taking the fourth vegetable, “am I your servant or something?”

The girls snickered.

“Remember the first time she chopped an onion?” Tee asked Lily, ignoring Sarah’s question.

Lily almost choked on the bell pepper she was snacking on.

“She cut horizontally,” she snorted, “what a princess.”

“Hey!” Sarah interjected, “it’s not my fault my mom was a kitchen tyrant.”

They kept talking, laughing, arguing, and designing their pizzas for the next fifteen minutes.

By the time the pizzas were in the oven, the edibles had truly taken effect, and the girls were snuggled on the couch. Lily had found some chips to munch on. Tee took hits of her vape, purposefully blowing her Watermelon Ice air into Sarah’s face to piss her off. Sarah grabbed her PS5 controller and booted up Minecraft.

“Should we play survival or creative?” Tee asked, hoping they would pick the latter, for once.

“Survival,” Sarah said.

“Definitely survival,” Lily agreed.

Tee groaned.

“It’s okay,” Sarah reassured, “just build the house while we gather resources.”

The three best friends adventured on, getting progressively higher and hungrier. By the time the oven dinged, they were almost considering cannibalism.

Sarah took a bite of her ridiculously cheesy pizza and pulled the slice away from her face, achieving an insane cheese pull. Tee and Lily clapped in awe. The pizza was rich and cheesy, with a slight tang from the tomato sauce. Sarah loved putting a bunch of different toppings on her pizza, so every slice was different. Tee had put on their favorite childhood cartoon: the story of five teenage fairies at their fairy academy. She swallowed and felt the warm cheese go down to her stomach, its warmth spreading throughout her body.

It was probably the best pizza Sarah ever had. From a culinary standpoint, it would probably send the entire country of Italy into a coma. But for Sarah, this pizza satiated a hunger she’d had for days, and even months, before she burnt out and quit her job. A hunger for the soul. With her friends at her side, cozy and warm, she’d felt better than she had in a long time.

“I’m sorry for prioritizing my work over you guys this entire time,” Sarah mumbled.

“Girl, shut up. Bloom is about to transform,” Lily huffed, but her smile betrayed her words.

Tee snuggled up closer to Sarah, if that was even possible. They were practically triplets in the womb at this point.

“We love you, Sar,” she said.

“We really do,” Lily said, even though Bloom was transforming.