“It’s not every day you make an enemy out of your best friend” Tom thought to himself, vaguely amused by what he had just seen. And now, looking through his girlfriend’s window at her and his best friend, he supposed he should be on his way. It wasn’t the best time to surprise his girlfriend. He walked back to his car, opened the door and carefully set the dozen roses on the back seat. Just before he sat down he got an idea. Tom leaned over to the passenger side, opened the glove compartment and started to feel around inside until his hand rested on a cold pair of binoculars with a thin layer of dust settled on them. He pulled them out and blew the dust off, it flew everywhere and he instantly felt a sneeze sneaking its way through his nostrils, paranoid it would be heard, he desperately clamped his hand on his nose and held his breath. After a second or two the feeling receded, he relaxed and walked closer to the house. He didn’t worry about being seen, the sun was all the way down and this particular street didn’t have any lights. Tom didn’t feel he really needed the binoculars, they were big and clunky and he could see through her window with near perfect vision anyway (a skill he acquired from his earlier years as a “peeping Tom”, along with the binoculars) but like most sane and rational people he needed to be sure his eyes weren’t fooling him. After a quick glance he concluded they weren’t and lowered the binoculars to his waist. He used to be delighted by what an open window would display, but tonight it made him feel … well he supposed he should have felt depressed, angry, and betrayed, but it didn’t. It made him feel like laughing.
So he did.
It started out as a chuckle and slowly morphed into a teary-eyed howl. He couldn’t help it. He laughed until his stomach hurt and then laughed some more. He couldn’t quite understand why but the entire situation was hilarious to him. After a minute or two he finally settled down and dried his eyes, gasping for air as he walked. He took one more look through the window and chuckled again before driving away. As he drove his mind contemplated what he should do next: any sane and rational person would call them out for what they did and then never speak to them again, but that didn’t seem very fun to Tom. He thought about blackmailing them but realized he was the one being cheated on (it wouldn’t make sense to tell either one that he knew what they did and would tell him if they didn’t cooperate with him).Tom’s last idea was to pretend to have no knowledge of their affair but work to make them miserable, to ruin their lives from the inside. Tom liked this idea very much. It would be easy to do, he thought. If he were clever enough he imagined he could even turn them against each other. A little rumor here, a big lie there … and who would they seek for comfort? Why, Tom of course!
That night Tom drove home with a bigger smile on his face than he’d had in years, and slept better than he ever had in his life.