Social crumbs

There were days when Aaron hated his live. Most of those days were when he was obligated by an unstoppable force to do the most atrocious action he could imagine. That day the force was his wife, and the action was socialize.

Aaron was never a people’s person, he was lucky to meet his comprehensive wife when the elevator in the building they lived malfunction, and proceed to spend the next two hour of their lives having a forceful small talk and beginning to know each other. In the end everything turned alright, they married, moved to a lovely home and lived a happy, and completely fulfilled social life. Apparently not at all. His wife had the brilliant idea that he needs to open himself to others. “You should go out with your friends more often, If you don’t go with them they will get bored of you”, that was usually what Aaron heard. In the end he made a promise with her wife, he will go to the next social event he was invited, without excuse. That turned up to be the cookie exchange of Julia Reed.

To describe Julia Reed in one word, if it is even possible without puking all the bile, would be scum. When Aaron described her to his wife he usually started with coherent word and end with what looked like a hand of scrabble. She was insufferable. Even his wife felt bad for convincing him to go to the troll’s layer, but alas there he was, ready to exchange a bunch of poorly made cookies with a group of his most detestable coworkers, because Julia Reed decided to invite the toxic wasteland that were their friends.

Aaron knocked the door, hearing the laughter of the people inside. That was the worst part, entering alone to an already constructed social situation. Aaron always thought that whenever he enters a room with people, his mere presence, was enough to bring everyone’s mood to the floor. Luckily being Julia Reed’s friends will make the situation different. And it did. It made it worse.

The door opened. He was too late to try to run.

“Well, that’s a surprise.” Said Julia with a disgust grin on her face. She was beautiful, for a woman whose soul is as rotten as corpse left in the ocean, but that grin always made Aaron want to punch her.

“I told you I will be coming for the cookies exchange.” Intervened Aaron before his boiling desires to strangle that woman took over his body. “I couldn’t find you in the office, so I send you a mail, did you see it?”

“Sorry. It probably got lost.” Apologized whit puppy eyes.

Lies. Those were not puppy eyes. Those were the flaming pits of Cerberus itself. Aaron was ready to unload his thoughts, and that was the last straw. “Sorry then. I swear that I send it, but I must be wrong.” Maybe there was still some straws, like de law about murder.

“Don’t worry, come in, everyone who confirmed their assistance is already here.”

The “party”, if you could call it that, was a table with some drinks, some snacks and a plate to put the samples of the cookies we made. The plate was full with at least seven different types of cookies. There were some chocolate chips, mint, with cream and some poorly original variations of the previous. Aaron brought plain old cookies that can be found in any store for the minimum price. Aaron liked the fact that the quality of the cookies, the party and the host was at the same level.

Near the table were the abominations known as Julia’s friends. A group of every possible antagonist in a high school drama were the protagonist was the unpopular kid. Unluckily for Aaron he was that kid. They didn’t even spare a single glance at him when he arrived, to be fair, Aaron didn’t even knew most of their names, nor did they know Aaron’s. For them Aaron was a simple toy, a slave in the universe that was the social interactions of the office, a bother whose name was insignificant in their lives. Aaron was much more direct, he hated those assholes.

But what caught Aaron attention was not that group of beasts without beauty. What caught his attention was the small hoodie siting on the sofa of the living room. Inside the hoodie was a petite woman with short golden hair, which covered her face, and brown dark eyes. What was Lyly doing here?

Sparing to look at Julia’s pathetic excuse for friends, Aaron rushed to see Lyly and find out what was she doing there. The fact that Aaron was there was a singularity never seen, but still possible. The fact that Lyly was there could be summarized as the Sun rising from the south. Impossible. If there was someone who hated Julia more than Aaron was Lyly.

With Aaron they simply ignored him and laugh at him when he was not hearing, when they felt especially cruel they would laugh loud enough for him to hear it, but enough to make it look like a private conversation, knowing that Aaron would never interrupt them. What they do to Lyly was simply abuse. Pulling pranks on her office, insulting her in public, one time even physically abusing her in the bathrooms. Julia was the cruelest, and to make it worst she was Lyly’s boss, so Lyly was literally being push from above to remain in the mud. But, what really made this horrible was that Lyly was the nicest person Aaron has ever known, and his only friend in the office.

Aaron loved his wife with all his heart, for him she was all he need it in live, but Lyly had the silver medal by a large margin. If he had never met his wife, He would already ask Lyly on a date. Lyly was a lot like Aaron: she had problems socializing, didn’t like going out to places with a lot of people and was rather shy. So a date with her will probably be watch a marathon of the last season of some show, with a bunch of snacks in order to not get up. The perfect date.

“Lyly, what the hell are you doing here?” Aaron asked keeping his voice low from the bunch of scumbags over the table.

“Aaron? When did you get here? I thought that you hated Julia.” Respond Lyly keeping her voice as low as Aaron in order to not feed that kettle of vultures.

“I have to socialize more apparently, but what are you doing here, I can’t see myself coming here voluntary, you less. Are you being obligated perhaps?”

“Yes.” Said Lyly with a serious face. “I am being forced by my inability to say no.” Her serious face then turned into a smile. “I was invited, maybe Julia wants to end all of these and I couldn’t say no, say, did you eat anything already?”

“End all of these? Lily, she hates you. She enjoys bullying you and would never stop. Don’t even think that she wants to end that.” Aaron warned her.

“I rather try to believe that there is a way out of these than simply close my windows. She invited me to her party and I brought some cookies for her, and talking about cookies, do you want to try prove some of the samples, or have you already?”

“I think I will stay away from those things, they look like they could kill me just by its taste.”

Lyly laugh at Aaron’s remark. Aaron was happy to see Lyly smile, she deserved to be happy. When people insulted or laugh at Aaron he would usually ignore them. But when they attack someone he cares, that was different. He would do anything to protect that smile from those monster.

Aaron and Lyly spend some time chatting about themselves, and catching up with her lives, for a few minutes, before Julia called them over for some announcement. Neither Aaron nor Lyly knew about that announcement, and apparently they were the only ones. That’s bad understood Aaron.

Julia was in front of the table with all the cookies behind her, waiting for everyone to be there.

“First of all thank you all for coming, it’s great to see everyone outside the office having a good time. I know some of you came here when you already had other plans, thanks for being able to come, even if some of you didn’t even warn me.” That got a little laugh from her friends, who apparently were already informed of the lies the joke Julia thought for Aaron. “Anyway, I wanted to give a special thanks to Lyly, who brought some delicious cookies for us, after all, I know she is an extremely good baker.”

After that she proceed to pull a plate of cookies. Those were definitively different. With only looking at them Aaron could tell that the texture was different, those were handmade, the aroma they expel was intoxicating, and the color was intense full of live. Aaron knew that Lyly liked to bake, that was something everyone knew. Including Julia. So that was it, thought Aaron, Lyly was only invited to make cookies for them. Well, considering all the possibilities that was the best of the bad ones.

“I was amazed of how good of a baker she was.” Continued Julia, while she was giving the cookies to her friend. “I mean, it’s incredible she is good at something. Have you seen her, she is like the most useless and incompetent human being I ever had the misfortune to meet.”

The whole living room erupted in laughs. The same people who moment ago where praising Lyly for her baking skills were now pointing at her and commenting how stupid she was. Aaron looked at that scene with surprise. Not because he didn’t expect that kind of reaction from them, but because after all of that he couldn’t understand how they could do that to someone like Lyly.

Aaron was ready to come in defense of his friend, but before he could say something a hand catch him. When Aaron turned the image he saw was simply devastating.

“Please… no…” Lyly was crying.

All the anger inside Aaron’s body suddenly disappeared. He should be angry, but that image broke him. Seeing Lyly crying and stopping him was so heartbreaking that Aaron had to stop in order to reconstruct himself. That was interrupted when Julia arrived in front of them with the plate empty.

“Sorry it looks like we run out of cookies for you two.” After that she proceed to pull three cookies she snatched from the whole and took a bite from one of them. “Now, could you both get out of my house, I have a party going and neither of you are invited anymore.”

“I hope you choke with that cookie. Let’s go Lyly, if they want to laugh they have enough clown by themselves.” After saying that Aaron tried to grab Lyly and get out of that horrible place. He was surprised when Lyly refused to move. “Lyly?”

“I was right. Thank God I was right.”

Aaron stop for a second to look what was happening to Lyly. It was obvious when you see it, but that’s simply an impossible event, like… like Lyly coming to Julia’s cookie exchange. Lyly’s tears were tears of joy

.

The screams were short and consecutive. After the first guest dropped to the floor, all the others followed him, without much time to process what was happening. Julia was the last one standing, beside Lyly and Aaron. She could only look in horror at Lyly, and before her vision fade away, the last thing she saw was the cold smile, with tears running down her cheeks, of Lyly, having goodbye.

For once in his live Aaron didn’t know how to act. What was he supposed to do in these situation? First things first, Lyly.

“W-What have you done Lyly!”

“I didn’t knew if I was right. I tried to have hope, to trust her, but I couldn’t. After all I couldn’t. The cookies. Poison. I wanted to be right, because that means in the end the deserved. If I was wrong I would have killed people who was trying to change. I-I am fine now.” After saying that she proceed to go direct to the door. She was going to live with a dozen of bodies behind.

“Lyly! You can’t leave. You messed up really bad now. The police will go after you.”

“Was I wrong Aaron? Answer me.”

“Of course! You can’t just kill someone like that.”

“Then save them. If you call now you may be able to save them. Prove me wrong. Call.”

Aaron took his phone out as fast as he could, but, when he was going to call, he stopped. He didn’t want anyone to die, right? If he didn’t call now these people could die, it would be his fault. That people would die. The same people who enjoyed torturing a girl for their amusement.

In the end he couldn’t. He couldn’t kill them, but he couldn’t save them.

Lyly was outside, waiting for him to come out. She knew he was not going to call.

“What will you do now Lyly? The police will find out. They will lock you in prison.”

“I-I thought about that. My brother is the police commissioner. He knows everything I did today. He will be here in an hour. All of these will be classified as a mass suicide.”

“O-Ok”

After a while they parted away, each one to their own house.

“So how was it?” asked Aaron’s wife after seeing him enter through the door.

“Sorry honey. I couldn’t bring myself to go.”