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Isabella
Thehousewastooquiet. It had been too quiet for longer than it ever had been before. When I got ready to go to work, the house was empty. When I got home, the house was empty. There were no sounds of 80s rock music coming from Landon’s bedroom like there usually was every time he was home. There was no scent of freshly brewed coffee in the air. Not even the sound of the laundry machines comforted my ears.
It had been nearly a week since Landon's first date with Tiffany, and I had barely seen him.
Tonight, I had finally decided I was done with eating Lean Cuisines and decided to cook a regular meal. In normal times, I would do this with Landon, and we would make enough food to take to work the following day, or reheat at home on the weekends. But since he wasn’t here, I decided not to make so much food. Instead, I made something I loved and only made enough for two meals.
Once the jumbo shells were cooked and cooled, I began filling them with the cheese mixture I'd created, trying not to be too aggressive with my actions despite my frustration.
Landon had seemingly gone all in with Tiffany, despite them having only reconnected recently. I’d never seen Landon spend so much time with a girl he’d only begun dating, but maybe them already knowing each other had something to do with it.
Every morning, instead of coming home from the gym and eating breakfast with me, he’d gotten ready and left the house to meet Tiffany at Grumpy Coffee. Aside from Wednesday morning when we’d met up with our group of friends, Landon had been absent. And even on Wednesday, Tiffany had swept into the coffee shop and stolen Landon from us.
Maybe it was the jealousy developing in my gut, but I would have sworn the wink she’d sent me was malicious. As though she knew exactly what she was doing, and was glad to do it.
Just like every morning, Landon had also been absent every night. Staying out with Tiffany, taking her to eat, going to the gym with her, going hiking, or whatever else they were doing. I’d pretty much only seen him in passing.
Despite how much I tried to deny it, I couldn’t ignore the feeling that reared its ugly head inside of me. The jealousy that had begun to consume my thoughts.
At first, I told myself it was just a friendly jealousy, because Tiffany had taken time away with my best friend. I tricked myself into thinking I was just upset that Landon and I hadn’t watched a movie together in over a week, which was a record for us. That we didn’t walk to work together on Wednesday.
But tonight, cooking the stuffed shells made me realize that maybe it wasn’t just the loss of the tight friendship that I was jealous about.
Perhaps it was the fact that I started thinking about how he said they’d had so much in common, and had been spending so much time with her. I’d envisioned what that would look like for her. Knowing Landon, he was the perfect gentleman. Always opening her doors, pulling chairs out for her, making her walk on the inside of the street away from the traffic. He would be paying attention to her every word, responding in thoughtful ways that only enhanced the conversations. Landon would also compliment her often, telling her how good her outfit made her look, or how her hair was styled well. He’d never let her pay, and always try to spoil her.
Envisioning him like that had always been something I’d kept off limits in my mind. And rightfully so. Because now that I was doing it, I realized that it was something I wanted. I knew Landon so well, and he knew me. We were as close as any friends could get, and I had refused to think of us as anything but that. Now that he was with Tiffany, though, I was reconsidering my thoughts about that. Why had I always been so afraid to date Landon? I couldn’t imagine anything happening between us that would make it impossible for us to be friends if we didn’t work as a couple.
But now it was too late.
Even when Landon had dated other people, I had never felt jealousy. I had always refused to think about it, pretending that I never looked at him as anything other than a friend. A brother, even.
For some reason, now that he was with Tiffany, my thoughts had changed.
And, of course, he had to get back into dating with her.
Of all of the women he could bump into in the world and start dating, it had to be Tiffany Carmick.
We'd all gone to college together, and since we were all in accounting, circles of study groups had formed. Though studying rarely occurred, we had a group of about fifteen people that would regularly meet up to talk about projects and then we'd go out to eat and drink. Tiffany had weaseled her way into that group our sophomore year, and never failed to make it clear that she hated me.
It never mattered what project it was or if we were just hanging out with the group at a restaurant, Tiffany always had some passive aggressive comment to make about me. Others didn't really notice, because Tiffany would always say it in the sweetest tone, but I knew exactly what she had been doing.
One time, the group of us had gone out on a weekend, and Landon and I had danced for what felt like forever on the dancefloor. When my feet couldn't take anymore, I returned to the table where only a few people were sitting, one of which had been Tiffany. The second I sat down, I asked her if she was having fun, seeing as she seemed to be having a bad night. I was just trying to be nice, and potentially ask her to come dance with me, but her response prevented any other words from coming from my mouth.
"Oh, yes, of course! It seems like you're having a lot of fun out there dancing too! I could never do something like that. But I'm glad you don't care about what others think about you! I wish I could be like that, sometimes!" The syrupy-sweet voice she used was a stark contrast to the glare in her eyes as she communicated everything she hadn't directly said. That she thought my dancing was something to be embarrassed about.
But being my nonconfrontational self, I just nodded, telling her that I was indeed having fun, and then got up and left her there. I found Landon in the crowd and asked him if he would go back to campus with me.
That night was the first and only time I'd ever told Landon about the animosity that I could feel Tiffany had for me. He comforted me and assured me that my dancing was no worse than his, and that she was just jealous that she wasn't having as much fun. His words made me feel much better, as they always did, and he promised that if I felt silly for dancing, he would always try to look sillier so that people looked at him and not me.
Her passive aggressive statements continued throughout our entire college career, but I usually just brushed them off. I refused to give her any satisfaction, but still she wouldn't relent.
Which was why I was incredibly shocked to hear that Landon was now going out with her, and spending so much time with her. He obviously didn't remember exactly why I disliked her so much, but it still hurt that he would start dating her with how she used to treat me. But of course, I couldn't say any of this to him, and wouldn't.
So I would just cook breakfasts and dinners by myself until they stopped hanging out so much, if they ever did. And apparently, I wouldn't be getting any more blind dates set up by Landon, because he was too wrapped up in Tiffany to remember the game.
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Landon
