It felt like the sky was hiding its face from the world. Clouds were traveling in odd patterns, gloomy in the late winter weather. Shivering in his sheets was a man dressed in a casual white tee and sweatpants, fingers trembling as he reached for his glasses.
“My god… the heater just had to break.” he grumbled to himself.
The house itself was bitterly cold, dust dropping from the ceiling and floating about. As he finds and adjusts glasses onto his face, he looks down at his phone.
1:13PM
January 3rd, Sunday
2021
You have 8 Notifications.
He swipes into his phone, checking his messages.
Carlos: Yo Landon, you still coming to Bri’s party Wednesday? I won’t go unless…
Swipe.
Liam: Dude. I’m gonna lose my shit. The party, Wednesday?? I’m not sure…
Swipe.
Bri💞: Hey babe, you’re still coming over, right?
…Swipe.
Swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe.
God, party this, party that… Landon almost didn’t even want to think about all the parties he’d have to do. Not to mention his own party. Celebrating his birthday felt like a chore at this point, how everyone expected him to throw a huge party and celebrate him getting older. How he’d have to invite all those people and blow all that money out of his pocket. He goes back to his messages and begins typing.
→ Hey Carlos. Yeah, I’ll probably be there. Meet me at the park in a bit? ██████████ Ave. Need to talk.
[I can try man. No promises. Gotta keep up the professionalism for the first few days at this job, yknow. They’re already on my ass about tomorrow.]
→ Lol. Maybe then you’ll move out?
[Ha ha. Have fun at the park. Tell me about whatever it is when you’re home.]
He sighs and turns his phone off. How misleading. Were they going to meet or not…Regardless, perhaps Carlos was right. He usually was. The park was probably what he needed right now to cool off, take his mind off all the stress of planning parties and college.
Landon gets up off his bed and puts a green hoodie on, grabbing his backpack and bike, exiting his house. He cycles down from his smaller neighborhood to the town, passing by shabby convenience stores and old gas stations with passerbys selling flowers. Soon enough, he reaches the corner of a grander park. The gates of the park were cold to the touch, while the trees were a mixture of barren and crunkled with leaves, the rest lining the bottom of their roots. He locks his bike in and enters the park, examining the rest of his surroundings and looking for a place to sit. The grass was rough, an odd mix of greenish-yellow, and the water seemed to be on the brink of freezing. There were few families at the park, just typically 3 or 4 children playing while trying to get their parents’ attention or playing amongst each other.
In a way, Landon envied them. Their athletic ability and yearn to be noticed by their parents and peers, it felt all too familiar to him. He doesn’t spend too much time dwelling on the past though and immediately sits down at the nearest bench, opening his backpack and taking out a planner. As he opens it, he rubs his temples, scratches his goatee, sighs, and looks up once more. This time, he’s startled by the man sitting across from him, not having said nor breathed a breath at him; had he always been there?
“Sh..shit—Ah, sorry.. Were—were you always..?” he’d hardly spoke out, stuttering and just awaiting response.
The man was just as shocked as him it seemed, as he had also physically reacted, but calmed himself immediately.
“… I’ve been here for the past hour now. I figured you.. were just going to sit here and move after a bit.”
He spoke slowly and quietly, but the words registered to Landon clearly… he had been in this man’s personal bubble. How was one guy so quiet and calm, yet so nervous at the same time?
“R..right. I guess I just didn’t see you, you’re really quiet, and I was just thinking about how often I’d come here as a kid.. hah..” Landon chuckles nervously. The tension seemed to be rising.
The man doesn’t respond, but instead looks away and fidgets with something. Landon, too, looks down at his planner again before attempting to break the silence.
“..So, what’re you looking around here for?”
“The plants.”
“What? But it’s late winter, what—”
The man drops what he had been fidgeting with onto the table. An oddly-shaped mushroom takes both their focus.
“I’m more intrigued by decomposers such as this one. They grow more commonly once everything begins dying and withering off.” He spoke with more certainty now. The man looks up towards Landon, awaiting a response. Instead, Landon picks up the mushroom and looks at it as well. There was nothing interesting about it as far as he could tell, at most that it’s condition was grim; it was covered in dirt and scratches, and felt weird to touch as well. He puts it back on the table and makes brief eye contact with the man before the other party looks down at the mushroom once again.
“..It is pretty cool.” Landon somewhat mumbles, hoping it satisfies the guy. He began to look directly at him.
“… You.. um…” He looks away completely. “…Th..thank you.”
Landon pauses and subconsciously begins to thoroughly observe the man. He had messy brown hair hardly above his shoulders with an odd strand in the middle of his face. Though, he had facial hair that he couldn’t make out very well. His eye color seemed a mystery to him, as he couldn’t make eye contact with him for long enough to see. It was then he’d realized he’d been staring, and looked away suddenly.
“Oh—I’m Landon. Sorry, forgot to say that…” He attempted to let out another nervous chuckle, but instead formed an odd smile.
The man looks back over.
“…Rodger.”
“Serious? That’s so cool, how’s it spelt?”
“..r-o-d-g-e-r..?”
“I’ve heard it spelt a bajillion different ways… I dunno, I think that’s awesome.”
“…’Landon’. You have a very nice name, too.”
“‘Naww, most of my friends don’t even call me Landon. Probably think it doesn’t suit me.”
“I think it suits you perfectly.”
Rodger lets a slight smile show while Landon looks at him and returns the favor.
“…Hey, Rodger. You wanna come with me to a cafe? Family-owned, I know the guy. Get to know each other more, maybe?”
Rodger turns away and seems to calculate his words.
He turns back to face Landon, but doesn’t maintain eye contact, “…I’d like that.”
The two began exiting the park, Landon unlocking his bike and walking beside it, and made way to a busier part of town.
Back home, the sound of a door opening and closing is heard.
“I’m hooome!” Landon called out
A messily dressed man exits a room.
“Lando? Man, where you been??”
“The park, remember?” He responds.
“Dude, I told you no promises—”
“Yeah, alright, Carlos. I didn’t do it for you, I did it for me.”
Carlos takes a second, taking off a necktie and unbuttoning his shirt.
He resumes, “Ohhh, I get it. You went to decompress, huh?”
“You got it that quickly?—”
“But still, why were you out for so long? There’s no way the park was THAT invigorating.”
Landon’s face scrunches, “Invi-what? Uh… I met a guy—”
“Ooh, don’t make me tell Brielle~” He jokes.
“Dude, come on, let me finish. We— …I just, hung out with him. Like how I’d hang out with you, y’know..?”
“I’m just teasing you anyways, man. I’ll meet him at the party then, I assume?”
The party… It had completely skipped Landon’s mind. Inviting Rodger would give him the opportunity to get to know him more, and all of his friends could meet him. Though, he wasn’t sure if he even wanted to go to the party at all. He loved spending time with his girlfriend, of course, but partying took up all of his life. It felt like he’d never truly been enjoying himself, but enjoying the person he was with others. The person he made to appeal to everyone but himself.
“Landon?”
He snaps back to reality. “Huh? Yeah?”
“The party. You are going, right?”
“…What? Ye—Yeah. Yeah I’ll—I’ll be there.”
He could probably just mull it over and deal with a hangover on his birthday.
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