The next morning, Karen ventured into work. The confrontation in the break room had been tense, to say the least, and the rest of the day was no different.

            Karen left work rather dejected. She was going to stay. She had made that decision. Sure it would be rough, but she was more than just Jim’s girlfriend. She had been dumped before, and survived. So what if they were still working together…with the girl she assumed he was now dating. She could handle it, right? She was an adult. She wasn’t going to let stupid teenage mind games ruin her life.

            Karen took a quick turn into the grocery store. She had realized last night that she had no food. She managed to scrape together a meal of baked beans and biscuits, but that wouldn’t work tonight. She needed real food, and soon.

            She grabbed everything she wanted, from ice cream to Raisin Bran. By the time she reached the produce section, her cart was full. That didn’t stop her from buying apples, lettuce, tomatoes, grapes, mushrooms, strawberries, bananas, and anything else she liked.

            When she saw pineapples, she paused. Jim hated pineapples. He practically had a phobia about them. She remembered when he first transferred to Stamford. They had had a Memorial Day party around that time, and she had made fruit salad. Josh had joked that she only brought that since it was something she couldn’t screw up (and he was half right). It was a basic fruit salad – pineapples, grapes, bananas, and various berries. She offered some to Jim, and he practically jumped in fear at the suggestion.

            He wasn’t allergic, and it wasn’t even that he disliked the taste, he had explained. He just didn’t like pineapples.

            It hadn’t made sense then, and it still didn’t. But now Karen didn’t have to worry about Jim.

            She grabbed a whole pineapple and nestled it on the top of her cart.