It was just a date. A normal double date with Eddie and Barry and… Linda. What I would usually enjoy thoroughly, probably ending in the bedroom, kissing whom I'd thought for so long was the man of my dreams. We'd decided we would try this, try to move past the awkward and go on toward encouragement and real friendship again. It was just a date.
And then it was… something else.
Barry sits across from me in another seat with another girl. She smiles, and laughs, and they playfully tease each other. I can feel myself turning green. My mouth is tight, and I can't take my eyes off of the two of them. Every once in a while, Barry will look over at me and I'll try to look away, but it's no use. For as long as we can keep ourselves from being caught, our gaze lingers.
I don't want to feel this way. I'm angry at myself for feeling this way. Eddie, Eddie, Eddie. Focus on Eddie. But then she giggles and he has his arm wrapped around her, helping her to toss the ball. They get a strike.
"Iris!" I snap my attention back to Eddie, who's sitting beside me and pointing at the lane. "It's your turn." I nod, trying to focus. I stand up and move toward the lane with my ball in hand.
I swing my hand back, letting the weight of the ball take control and swing it forward again, and just before the ball slips from my fingers, she giggles again. I twitch. The ball releases, and goes straight into the gutter.
"Damnit." I whisper.
"Loser!" Eddie jokes from behind, making the word longer than it is. "Get your head in the game!"
Barry and Linda laugh and I turn around, scowling at them. I stick my tongue out at Eddie.
"The ball slipped, okay?" I say. At least I get one more chance. I grab the ball again and lift it up in front of me, walking back towards the lane with determination. "You have this. Just focus." I whisper to myself. I swing and release the ball again and this time it glides down the aisle as if it were ice, but of course ice is slippery, and the gutter wins again. "Really?!" I shout.
"You tried, at least." Says Linda, trying to be sweet.
"Thanks, Linda." In my thoughts, it's sarcastic. In reality, it seems sincere.
Eddie steps up. "My turn." he says, kissing me on the cheek as he passes with his ball heavy in his right hand. A vein pops up from his bicep. Why am I jealous of Linda, when I have Eddie? With his bulging muscles? Yeah… whatever I can tell myself to make me feel less guilty…
Eddie's bowling ball hits all the pins and sends them flying at each other. Every single one of them tumbles over and Eddie lifts his hands in the air with one enthusiastic "Strike!"
"Good job, babe!" I shout, looking at Eddie with a smile, and then averting my eyes to see Barry's reaction.
There it is again. The glance that should have been a glance, but persists until it becomes a gaze. How dare I? And apparently I don't know the meaning of self-control. Eddie. Eddie. Eddie. Focus on Eddie. But then his gaze is a little too heated, and my heart beat is a little too fast to go unnoticed.
"Barry?" Linda notices him noticing me. "Barry… it's your turn." She tries to look normal, unaffected, but her eyes keep the pain that her heart obviously bears.
"Right." Barry stands up and takes his turn. There's a bounce to his walk that I can't help finding adorable. But I look back to Linda. She must know… She must see the way he looks at me. The way he always has. She must know that he loves me, just like everyone else knew before I did.
Barry gets a spar. Six pins, then four. When he walks back over to sit with Linda, he forms his hand like a gun and mimics blowing smoke from the tip of his index finger. He winks at Linda, then looks at me. Again. I try to look away. Again.
"Hey, listen. I should probably go. I'm… not feeling well." Linda makes up an excuse. Why can't Barry be better at hiding it? Why can't I be better at hiding it? Get your shit together, Barry. This girl doesn't deserve this.
Who am I kidding? I'm doing the same thing…
Barry furrows his brow at Linda, and then tries to sound understanding. "Oh… Okay, that's fine. I'll take you home in a minute." She stands up and takes her coat.
"No that's okay." she says. "I'll take my last turn and then I'll go get a cab." Linda moves to grab a ball, hanging her coat over her left arm, she throws the ball and it lands with a thud on the floor, racing towards the pins in a fury. All ten pins go down at once. The same for her every single turn. She wins. There's nothing we can do to catch up with that. "See ya." She says, and then she walks out.
"Is she okay?" says Eddie, who couldn't be more oblivious. Or maybe he's just trying to ignore it.
"I don't know." Barry responds.
He takes one look at me, knowing what my eyes are screaming at him. Don't go after her. Don't go after her. Don't go after her.
He goes after her.