The bell is ringing. He had not gotten out of bed after ordering so he was still messy and only wearing his underpants. He felt defeated. Better hope it is not actually a pretty girl delivering his pizza, otherwise he might actually starts crying and cursing his fate.
Slowly getting out of bed, trying to evade the dizziness by letting his body adjust to the sudden change in orientation, he finally stood up straight. All the muscle that he used to have, while it did not mean much, is gone. Just like that drive from his early youth.
Standing there was a shell of a man. Not that he had a mirror so he could not confirm if he actually looked as wretched as he felt, but he did know that he was not giving off a vibe of someone that had anything going for him.
Slowly he walked to the door. The doorbell rang again but he stayed quiet. He was scared that if he shouted something like I'm comming his voice would sound weird. Maybe he would not shout it hard enough and the delivery person would think he is some kind of insecure wreck. Or maybe he would shout too loud and the delivery person would think there was something wrong with him.
He put his hand on the handle. His heart started beating out of his chest. He became fully aware all of a sudden how he looked. How he felt. And especially, how he smelled.
He did not want to open this door. He did not want another person to know of the kind of life he had been living. What if it was someone he used to know! Or what if it really was a pretty girl and she would tell all the other girls in the area about the wretched man living in this apartment. If that happened he would never have a future, even if he did do all his chores and got his life back together.
If that happened everything would really become useless.
In silence he thought these things. And he came to a conclusion. He had a plan. So while the bell rang for the third and last time He started talking.
"Please put the pizza down, I'll grab it later. I'm busy with something."
This was his plan. He did not have to let anyone go through the horror of meeting him in this state and his reputation would not forever be ruined. He waited for the sound the pizza hit the ground, but...
"I'm sorry but you selected the payment upon delivery option. I can wait though, take your time!"
It is over for him. Sheer panic overtook him. This is indeed the voice of a girl. Multiple ways to solve the situation came up in his mind. Could he still quickly shower? No, she would hear and it would take too long. Could he put on some deodorant? He had no such thing. At least he could put some clothes on!
Yes! He quickly went to his closet. On the way there he noticed the absolute mess his room was. After putting some relatively clean clothes on he pushed some things aside, so that they went just outside of the view the delivery girl would have of his room with an opened door.
Another smart idea came to him even though time was running out. He did not want to give the girl the idea that he was making her wait for the hell of it.
He took some soap from the bathroom, put it on a clean sock and very quickly washed his armpits. After splashing some water over it and drying it quickly he put on the shirt he found and went to the door.
This took about 5 minutes in total, maybe a bit more. He still looked like a mess. However, right now he looked like someone who had not taken good care of himself recently. This was better than looking like someone who looked like he had died and is rotting.
He smelled better as well. Or at least, compared to before.
He was standing in front of the door once again. Nervousness was setting in. Not panic, not despair and not emptiness. Just plain old, regular nervousness. The one you feel before meeting a girl.
This would actually be the first time in close to a week that he came face to face with someone as well.
He had become very good at avoiding personal interactions. He kind of forgot why exactly. Lying in bed all day for weeks, only looking at the phone and not thinking clearly resulted in a kind of brain fog. But right now he actually was pretty alert, probably the adrenaline from having to interact with a possibly pretty girl.
Deciding that he should just face it and open the door he wanted a peak at the girl first. Looking through the little hole in the door he caught his first glimpse of the girl.
She is...