Tossed Away

“Why must you always put the juice back in the fridge when there are only a few sips left? It drives me crazy!”
“Why does that bother you so much, honey? I pour the perfect amount in my cup and then put it back. It shouldn’t be such a big deal…”
“Why can’t you just sip the top of the cup with the juice and pour in the rest and throw the container away? It’s not that freaking difficult!”
“I don’t get it. What’s wrong, Meg? You never mentioned anything about this until now.”
“There needs to be more space in the fridge, Stephen. With something so empty, so pointless, it shouldn’t be taking up such unnecessary space, especially when it’s so close to being finished, over with…” Tears began to streak down Meg’s face as her voice calmed to a whisper. She grabbed the carton of Tropicana and threw it violently into the trashcan with a worthless sip still inside.
“Even if there can always be a little left, you need to know when things need to be thrown away.”
Stephen stood up slowly from in front of the television and headed to the kitchen to comfort his hysterical girlfriend who was manically cleaning the dishes.
“Is that how you really feel? Am I some almost empty carton for you to toss away? Am I taking up too much space for you, Meg?” Stephen started to catch on to her ridiculous emotions that were attached to something deeper, something more hurtful and more unfixable than simply sipping up whatever was left in the carton.
“Fine.” He reached into the trashcan and took out the orange juice, untwisted the lid almost mechanically, face turning red and distorted, his person giving off a nuclear amount of heat. He drained the carton into his mouth and returned it to the place that he wished it would have never visited. Meg was silent in her streams of tears, her eyes averted from his.
“The carton is out of the fridge… and so am I.” And with that, Stephen grabbed his jacket, wallet and keys and childishly slammed the door as he left her apartment, never to see the woman he had loved for three years, all because of a now empty carton of pulpy, sour orange juice.