z - The Telephone Rang Just Twice

The telephone rang just twice before the receiver was lifted, but
nothing was said at the other end. He knew she was listening, waiting
for his excuse, too tired of the game to even speak anymore. She
coughed, sniffed loudly, said 'well?' in a voice balanced on the edge
of fury. His words shoved her with a muscular sentence into the red pit
of anger below.
'You'll never guess, it's the strangest thing?' he flexed the words
between his lips, relaxing and contracting the lie with practised
control. She breathed in deeply, slowly, filling her lungs with
dignity. This was the last time he would call her and make her feel
like a fool. As she listened to why they would not be spending the
evening together, she took a pair of scissors from the drawer in the
kitchen and cut the heads off the bunch of flowers he had sent in false
apology. He stopped suddenly, in mid lie and asked tetchily,
'What are you doing?' She dropped the heads into the swing top bin,
heard them thud against the rubbish.
'I'm cutting you off' she said and hung up.