Eleanor speared a piece of ravioli on her fork as she listened to her friend chatter away. The restaurant was busy, but not busy enough to drown out the mindless rambling of her best friend.
Eleanor was happy for Theresa, she really was. The glint of Theresa's engagement ring caught Eleanor's eye often, and she smiled along to Theresa talking about her wedding plans. She was talking about her colour scheme - should she tell her guests not to wear those colours so that they didn't steal the limelight from the bridesmaids, or should she tell her guests to only wear those colours?
Eleanor made all the appropriate noises as she listened to her friend talk, knowing that she wouldn't be able to get a word in even if she wanted to. She looked up from her ravioli, watching her friend talk.
She'd known Theresa since they were in high school, and as she looked at her successful friend she couldn't help but feel a tinge of jealousy wash over her.
Her friend was gorgeous, all long legs and curves in the right places. Her career was going better than Eleanor's, much to Eleanor's dismay. She had always thought that while she may be the ugly friend, that at least she made up for it by being the smart one.
But while Eleanor was balancing a part time job and her Master's, Theresa had graduated and gotten a stable career with a well paying job, her student debt disappearing rapidly. Theresa's life plan was on track, and Eleanor couldn't help the jealousy welling up inside of her.
To add insult to injury, Theresa was now engaged to a former classmate and friend of Eleanor's. Luca. Eleanor lingered on the thought of him. His olive skin and jet black hair, the sexy Italian accent that made Eleanor quiver.
She met him at o'week, at a terrible party she could barely remember. It was her first week living in an awful sharehouse, three hours from her family home if the traffic was decent, and none of her high school friends had ended up at the same university as her. She'd drunk way too much before the event, and she still shuddered at how much she had drunk after arriving.
Eleanor could barely remember that night. But Luca had held her hair as she threw up and accompanied her home, missing out on most of the party for her. He snuck into her sharehouse, and cleaned up for her when she vomited on the bathroom floor. Eleanor had been smitten ever since she woke up to find him asleep on her bedroom floor - even if he had let her go to sleep with a face full of makeup and still wearing her heels.
And then he met Theresa. Beautiful, sexy Theresa who had no problem asking guys out. Eleanor's fork found its way quite forcefully into her pasta.
She glanced up at Theresa, seeing if she noticed. But no, she was chattering on about bridesmaids.
"Of course, you'll be one of them. And Leila. I'm going to ask my cousin Alexis to be my maid of honour," Theresa continued.
Eleanor paused, frowning.
"Why is Alexis going to be your maid of honour?" she asked, interrupting Theresa. She had always assumed that she would be asked to be maid of honour, just as Eleanor had always planned to ask Theresa to be hers. They had shared everything with each other since they were in their first year of high school. "You don't even like Alexis."
A blush crept over Theresa, and she gave Eleanor a curt smile. "I do like her. And she'll look great in my wedding photos, standing next to me. I'm going to have the order be Alexis, then Leila, then Samantha, and then you."
Eleanor frowned, looking back down at her pasta. She tried to focus on the honour of even being Theresa's bridesmaid, but she couldn't help but feel as if it were more out of courtesy. The other girls were all gorgeous, just like Theresa. Eleanor wasn't. She often felt like a balloon next to them, on the rare occasion she had to spend time with Theresa's other friends.
And she couldn't help but feel like she was being put on the end, so she wouldn't so obviously disrupt the natural beauty of the other girls.
She shook the thought from her head, as she finished her meal. She was being irrational, she knew. She was still over the moon for Luca, and unfairly upset with Theresa for dating him even though that was one secret she never told Theresa.
She bid farewell to Theresa that night, and tried to ignore the fact that Theresa hadn't once asked Eleanor how she was going.
--
Eleanor arrived early to the cafe. It was a cool day, the sky a miserable grey. Much like Eleanor's mood. She was still struggling to be excited for Theresa and Luca, but she was trying. She took a deep breath, and made her way to the cafe's bathroom. She checked her phone as she walked. Theresa and the other bridesmaids weren't there yet.
They were catching up for coffee and brunch, so Theresa could go over her colour scheme with them, and work out a budget for the dresses. Theresa had said something about making sure that the pale lilac matched their complexions, and didn't make anyone look old, or washed out. A small part of Eleanor couldn't help but wonder if that was secretly what Theresa wanted, so that she stood out even more on the day. She squashed that thought down. She was being bitter, and petty.
Theresa would surely outshine all of them anyways. Everywhere Theresa went, she seemed to turn heads. Eleanor stood in front of the mirror, and wished briefly that she looked like Theresa. Theresa seemed to have a perfect hourglass figure, and sexy legs. She'd been the breaker of many hearts growing up, falling in and out of love with ease.