Let’s Get Pizza

Some relationships announce themselves with grand gestures—roses, diamonds, promises of forever. And then there are the quieter ones, where love is as simple as sharing a pizza at midnight.

I once knew a man with whom I had little in common. He was disciplined where I was chaotic, guarded where I was open, hard-edged where I was soft. We were both dangerous to each other, yet drawn together again and again. We never agreed on much, but we both trusted pizza.

That was our truce food. No matter the storm, pizza was the table we came back to. Sometimes thin-crust, sometimes deep-dish, sometimes greasy slices eaten standing up, sometimes something dressed up with rocket and ricotta. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that pizza was the one thing neither of us lied about. He might break a hundred other promises, but if he said “let’s get pizza” he always showed up.

There is something democratic about pizza. It’s a food you eat with your hands, food you don’t need to dress up for, food that forgives mistakes. You can burn the crust, overload the toppings, drown it in sauce, and it still works. That was our love in its best moments: flawed, messy, but still nourishing.

Ice cream was another language we spoke. He liked flavours I never would have chosen, and yet I learned to take the first spoonful and wait for the surprise. A good ice cream reminds you that not everything has to be logical. Some things are just about joy. And when the ice cream melted down the cone faster than we could eat it, we laughed, and for a moment the sharp edges between us softened.

And then there were Italian sodas. Bright, fizzy, frivolous things. We drank them in the afternoons when the world felt heavy. They were a small rebellion, a reminder that even adults need bubbles, sugar, and straws. Looking back, I realise they were more than a drink, they were our reset button. A way of saying: yes, we’ve hurt each other, but let’s not carry the bitterness into this next hour.

Love is not built on the grand or the perfect. It survives —if it does— on the rituals of the ordinary. On the meals shared, the hands reaching into the same pizza box, the clink of ice cubes in a glass. These things outlast the arguments. They outlast the betrayals.

And yet, love can also destroy you. Ours did. It stripped me bare. In Hindi, there is a word—“ujaṛa”. It means a home torn apart, emptied of life. That is what our love did to me: it broke me down until I was nothing. I had been someone once, in my city, in my world. After him, I was no one. And yet, I survived.

Survival changes how you see things. Now, when I look back, I don’t remember the sharpest betrayals. I remember the pizza. The nights when grease stained the paper plate and our fingers brushed reaching for the same slice. The taste of ice cream shared, two spoons scraping the bottom of a cup. The fizz of soda on my tongue, laughter bubbling up after silence.

Food holds memory more faithfully than photographs. It carries love long after the lovers have left the table. And in those memories, forgiveness quietly takes root.

So yes, our story ended in ruins. And yes, it nearly destroyed me. But if you asked me today whether it was worth it, I would say yes—for the pizza alone. Because in that molten cheese and imperfect crust, I tasted a truth: love doesn’t have to be perfect to be real.

And maybe that’s all any of us can hope for. Not a forever free of heartbreak, but a few nights where the world is narrowed to two people and a hot pizza box between them. Nights when life feels bearable, even beautiful, with ice cream for dessert and sodas to wash it down. 

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