Why Does Everyone Want Me Dead for Eating Apple Pie?

Over the past three years of dating with my boyfriend, everything was perfect. 

My first time meeting his parents at their Sunday Roast went better than I ever dreamed. His mother smiled warmly, serving me mountains of food, excitedly discussing which city we should settle in after graduation. It felt like they were practically picking out wedding dates.

But that illusion shattered over a single spoonful of apple pie.

The moment I took a single bite of the homemade apple pie, his mother's smile vanished. She slammed her spoon onto the fine china with a deafening CRACK. 

"My son must be cursed to have brought home a woman like you!" she shrieked, pointing a trembling finger at my face.

Totally bewildered, I froze. Did I miss the dinner prayer? Did I use the wrong fork? Desperate, I looked to my boyfriend of three years for help. 

But he didn't defend me. He just looked at me with this strange, cold disgust.

"We're done, Sloane," he said, his voice like ice. "Let's break up."

I completelt froze.

"A breakup?" I stammered, my voice trembling. "Over what? If I did something wrong, at least tell me! I can fix it!"

He didn't even flinch. His face was twisted in a sneer of pure disgust. Reaching out, he grabbed my upper arm with a rough, painful grip and yanked me up from the chair. 

"You know exactly what you did," he spat, shoving me toward the entryway. "I must have been blind to date you for three years."

"What are you talking about?!" I stumbled, my heels catching on their rug. "I didn't do anything!"

In the dining room behind us, his mother was still screaming. "Get her out of my house! Don't let her touch anything else!" 

"I can't believe you're actually this kind of person," he yelled. He physically pushed me out the front door. 

Before I could even catch my balance, he slammed the door shut. I didn't pull my hand back in time. The thick wood caught my wrist, crushing it right against the doorframe.

"Ah!" I gasped, clutching my arm.

I stood shivering on their porch in the freezing November wind, my mind totally blank. What the hell just happened? 

I mentally replayed the entire night as I dragged myself to my Honda. I was perfectly polite. I brought a nice bottle of wine. I complimented his mom's cooking. I used the right silverware. I hadn't said a single offensive thing all night. 

I cried the whole forty-minute drive back to campus. The moment I unlocked my dorm room and slammed the door shut, I grabbed my phone and FaceTimed my childhood best friend. She went to college in the next state over, but she was my absolute rock. 

She picked up. The second I saw her face in her familiar face, the dam broke.

I spent the next ten minutes pacing around my dorm, sobbing and ranting about how completely insane his family was. 

At first, she was one hundred percent on my side. "Are you kidding me?" she said through the screen, looking furious. "They just kicked you out? That's toxic as hell. You dodged a bullet, Sloane."

"Right?" I wiped my nose with a tissue, feeling a little validated. "And it was over literally nothing! I just took a bite of their stupid apple pie."

"They acted like I murdered someone." I scoffed, dropping onto my bed. "If you ask me, he clearly already wanted to dump me and just used the pie as a pathetic excuse."

I reached for another tissue, fully expecting her to agree and call him a coward. 

Instead, there was dead silence. 

My best friend supportive smile had vanished. Her face was completely rigid, her eyes glued to the camera.

"Wait," she said, her voice suddenly dropping. "You ate their apple pie?"

"Yeah?" I paused, a weird pit forming in my stomach. Her shift in tone was creeping me out. "Is that... is that like a major taboo here? Did I break some unspoken cultural rule?"

"Because if I actually offended them, I'll drive back right now and apologize to his mom."

She just stared at me. The silence stretched out, thick and suffocating. 

"I can't be friends with someone like you," she said. Her voice was completely flat, completely dead of any emotion. "We're done."

My jaw dropped. "What? Are you joking right now?"

"Goodbye, Sloane."

Click.

The screen went black. The FaceTime call ended. 

I sat on my mattress, totally numb. I immediately hit her contact name to dial her back. 

Straight to voicemail.

I pulled up iMessage. My hands were shaking so badly I kept making typos. 

[What are you doing? Please pick up.]

The text bubble turned from blue to green. Delivered as a standard text. Then, nothing. 

I checked Instagram. User not found. Snapchat. Gone. She blocked me. She blocked me on everything, everywhere, in a matter of seconds. 

I started hyperventilating. This wasn't just some random college roommate. This was the girl who jumped into a freezing lake to pull me out when I was drowning at seven years old. We had a twenty-year bond. We were practically sisters. And she was throwing it all away over a slice of dessert? 

Desperate, I opened WhatsApp, praying she missed one app. 

[Why are you doing this? What did I do wrong?!]

Seconds later, a reply actually popped up.

[People like you deserve to be despised by everyone.]

I typed back a frantic string of question marks, my tears blurring the screen. But when I hit send, a bright red exclamation mark popped up next to my message. 

[Message failed to send. You have been blocked by this user.]

My phone slipped from my bruised hand and hit the floor with a loud thud. 

I sat all alone in the quiet dorm room, staring at the blank wall. My three-year relationship was over. My childhood best friend hated my guts. My entire life had just imploded in the span of two hours. 

And I still had absolutely no idea why. 

It was just a piece of apple pie. Wasn't it?