Warm light radiated from the building. Jason had been here before, a few years ago for some kid’s birthday party, and he had no trouble finding it again. It was smack in the middle of a strip mall, and the sign advertising it was the tallest thing on the block. It was incredibly gaudy, brandishing “Bolero” in red and yellow neon lights. It looked like it had been built in the 80’s and never renovated.
The cold fall air stung Jason’s face. He was actually pretty toasty otherwise, layering a sweater on a long-sleeved shirt, and thick jeans on his legs, so he didn't have immediate motivation to go inside. Which was probably not helping him.
He wasn’t sure why he was so nervous, but there was anxiety burning his neck and shoulders that he couldn’t shrug off. He’d hung out with Craig a couple times, and this wouldn’t be any different. He’d also hung out with J.P. at least once before he left for college, though he couldn't recall when or where. He hadn’t been close to Kelsey since at least middle school, probably longer. Craig had told him later that this was a reunion of sorts, since J.P. was back in town. Why did he get invited to their reunion? He was never part of their group. Besides Craig, nobody would really want him to be there.
Oh.
Well, he at least recognized the source of his nerves, even if sorting through his thoughts made him cringe. Hopefully he wouldn’t seem as desperate as he felt when he went inside.
He wasn’t planning on staying long, anyway. He could always leave early to go to Kennedy’s if it was that insufferable. He knew it wouldn’t be, though. They were all nice people. They would at least be polite about him being a complete waste of space. It would be fine. He would be fine. He was going to be fine.
He opened the door before he changed his mind about being fine.
Heat and grease hit his face as soon as he walked in. Even though the outside of the building was tacky, the inside was relatively well kept. Tables greeted him on a ledge where he walked in, the lanes lying down a couple steps.
There were a few groups scattered across the bowling alley. A few middle schoolers, yelling loudly about God knows what. A few adults around a table, several beers between them. A couple on a date, probably about to murder the middle schoolers next to them. A group of high school students, sitting just left of the center of the alley.
He walked closer to the high schoolers, and a hand stuck out and waved.
“Jason!” Craig held his hand high, even though Jason was only ten feet away. “Over here!”
He looked good, and not just because Jason thought he always looked good. He looked cheerful, a wide smile plastered on his face. Jason hadn’t seen him like that in a while. Small smiles, sure, for greeting friends and in between classes, but this one was infectious.
Sitting next to him were two girls almost complete opposites of each other. The stocky one had fair skin and a bob of tied-up red hair. The other had brownish-black hair draped in front of her face, a lean build and deep tan skin. Jason recognized her from the school library, where they would bump into each other while hiding there during lunch. Well, he was hiding. She just liked to read. He just barely remembered her name, a pun on how she’d hide behind the piles of books.
“Hey Jason,” Stacks said.
“What is up, Jason?” Kelsey said, banging the back of her seat when she said “up”.
“Hey guys.” Jason said. Christ, he hadn’t talked with either of the girls since middle school. Why did he decide to come inside, again? “How’s it going?”
“Alright,” Kelsey replied. “Didn’t do anything all morning. Went to the gym this afternoon. Avoided doing any homework.”
“Same here,” said Stacks. “I slept in ’til 11.”
“Wow, I could never sleep that long,” said Craig. He wasn’t lying, he’d woken Jason up before when he called him at 7 AM on a Saturday. It was a little freaky.
“Yeah, I usually don’t, either. I stayed up pretty late last night, I guess.”
Kelsey smiled. “She’s leaving out the part where she was at my house.”
“It was a movie marathon, and your dad was in the other room.” Stacks laughed. “Don’t be a perv.”
Jason hadn't talked with either girl since eighth grade, and found it hard to break his silence now. They were both a year younger than him, so it was excusable, but it didn’t ease his impostor syndrome. They bounced off each other far too easy, and Craig fit right in next to them. Jason couldn’t steal him away the entire night, and he could see himself wading in his own awkwardness for the rest of the evening. Why couldn’t someone he was somewhat close with be here, like…
Jason looked around. “Hey, is J.P. here yet?”
Craig shrugged. “Don’t know. He should be here soon.”
“Maybe he’s fashionably late?” suggested Stacks. Jason had aimed to be fashionably late, so either he was early, or J.P. was the regular type of late.
“Maybe he bailed last minute to go to some house party on campus!” Craig said in a sarcastically peppy voice.
“Let it go, dude.” Kelsey sighed out, then pulled out her phone. Glancing at it, she said “He says he’ll be late picking up Vanessa,”
“Vanessa?” Craig asked, alarmed. “She’s coming?”
“J.P. invited her.”
“Since when?”
“Since this morning. It wouldn’t kill you to check the group chat once in a while.” She gave him a disappointed stare.
“I was literally talking to her yesterday, and she didn’t say anything about it.”
“Yeah, well, just because she was your girlfriend in middle school doesn’t mean she owes you her life’s story.”
Craig looked taken aback at that. “Wait, they’re not-“
“No, they’re not dating. Why is this such a big deal for you? Just check the group chat next time, for Christ’s sake.”
“Vanessa is her own woman, Craig,” Stacks interjected. “Even if she was dating J.P., it’s none of your business. Leave her alone.”
“I’m not attacking her,” Craig defended, “I’m just saying I didn’t know.”
“Who’s Vanessa?” Jason asked.
They all turned to him, and he realized this was a very dumb question to have.
“Vanessa. From school," Craig replied.
Jason cringed. Why had his brain picked this moment to stop working?
“She did that presentation on forest fires at the assembly a month ago?”
“Oh, you mean Wildernessa!” Thank God he didn’t forget anyone important. “Hey, you guys dated in middle school? Weird.” Realizing his wording wasn’t the most polite, he added “I mean, it’s weird that I didn’t know. Feels like I would have known, you know?”
“Yeah, we did.” Craig ignored the excessive use of ‘know’ coming from Jason. ”You still call her Wildernessa?”
Jason hadn’t realized no one else did. “In my head, yeah. I don’t talk to her, man,” he added defensively.
“Dude, remember how she wore that teddy bear on her head? That was metal,” said Kelsey. “She was so fucking cool, and she was like, six.”
“No way she was six,” said Craig. “That was like, fifth grade so… we were 11. Wow, five years ago.” He looked wistfully at the floor. “Wow.”
“Maybe if you’re lucky, she’ll want to get back together.” Kelsey nudged Craig with her elbow.
He moved her elbow away from him. “No.”
They were interrupted by the doors whipping open and J.P. yelling “SORRY, WE’RE LATE!” to everyone in the alley. A much more somber Vanessa stood behind him.
“We got stuck behind a pickup that wouldn’t move,” J.P. said at a normal volume as he walked towards the group’s lane. He was wearing his old orange and white sweater, but it was no longer oversized on him. He was also rocking the ugliest mustache Jason had ever seen. He’d been trying to grow one throughout high school, and Jason reasoned he had finally ‘succeeded’ in college.
“Gas-guzzling assholes,” Vanessa mumbled. She, thankfully, did not have a mustache. She wore a baggy brown hoodie with the hood up, which reminded Jason of the teddy bear she wore all those years ago.
“It's fine, we waited for you,” Craig said, his hands waving the problem away. “Get your shoes.”
“Oh shit,” Jason said. He forgot to get his shoes when he walked in. “Let me get mine, too.”
When Jason came back, some conversation had erupted. Kelsey has taken control of the center console, and was typing away at the keyboard.
“Your name doesn’t fit,” she said to Vanessa.
“You can do V-N-S-S-A,” she spelled the letters aloud.
“Jason? You got a nickname you want?”
“Nah, just put Jason,” he said as he sat down.
“I’m glad you showed up.”
He looked over at Craig, who was sitting right next to him. His wide eyes bored into Jason, who was slightly creeped out at being observed so intently. “I said I was coming, didn’t I?”
“You did,” he reasoned. “You just seemed kind of hesitant yesterday.”
Leave it to Jason to not sound excited while sleep-deprived in a math class. Craig was lucky he didn’t fall asleep mid-conversation. “Well, I’m here now.”
Craig nodded. “You are.”
“My dad’s having some work schmoozefest at the house, anyway. He needed me out of his hair.” Jason didn’t know if it was a lie or not, and he didn’t really care. His dad hardly ever showed him off to his coworkers anymore, so it was best to leave the house during this kind of event.
“Oh.” Craig had an inquisitive look on his face. “That’s an excuse, yep.” He nodded again, this time to himself.
It was weirdly endearing, but Jason brushed the feeling off.
“Alright, guys, watch and learn!” Kelsey grabbed a blue bowling ball. She walked up to the lane, and chucked the ball as hard as she could.
It rolled a tilted 5 feet forward, then landed in the gutter.
“Fuck,” she muttered. Everyone cheered for her anyway, albeit sarcastically.
“Amazing throw, thy great Kelsey,” Craig said in a mock Shakespearian accent.
“Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m amazing.”
Craig fist-bumped her as she sat down next to him. She ignored Jason, who didn’t know whether to be offended or relieved. It didn’t matter; he was up next.
He went up to the alley, grabbing a ball from the rack. Muscle memory returned to him (and bowling isn’t that hard to begin with), so he got 8 pins down in his turn.
Craig’s turn was right after, and Jason decided to watch him instead of joining the conversation across from himself.
He was well aware that he was being rude, but it was easy to ignore the guilt as he gazed at the boy. Craig had grown into himself through adolescence, growing lean muscles as well as height, whereas Jason had kept his scrawny build from childhood. Craig also had a decent haircut, the one he’d gotten after someone called him Peanut Head too many times, shaved sides with a lot left on top. Jason’s hair was as neglected as the rest of him, a ratty, dirty blond mop. He stopped caring about his looks when he stopped trying to impress people. Craig put effort into everything about him, his appearance and grades and being a contributing member of society. His sheer perfection got on Jason’s nerves sometimes, even when he knew the lengths Craig went to achieve it. He might have been slightly jealous, but there was something else there, too.
Craig sat back down, this time opposite to where he was sitting before, joining in the other’s conversation. Jason tried not to feel left out, but it wasn’t working.
It’s not your reunion, he reminded himself. This isn’t for you.
The nerves from earlier reared their head again. Maybe if he was fundamentally a better person, he wouldn't be in this situation. If he hadn’t been such an asshole as a kid and played nice with Craig and his friends, he could be part of their group by now. Or any group, for that matter. Scouts hadn’t exactly ended on the best note for him, and he was scrapped for company most of the time.
Jason could feel sorry for himself and stare at J.P. (and his stupid mustache) bowling all he wanted, but he knew if he didn’t talk to anyone now, he would just feel worse. His eyes wandered, and caught Vanessa sitting near him, blank faced and also not talking to anyone. She hadn’t spoken since she first got here, to Jason or to anyone. A perfect target for a conversation, Jason reasoned.
He was just about to open his mouth when she got up and grabbed a ball.
Great timing, he thought to himself. Luckily he’s learned never to let a moment go to waste, so he used the extra time for planning what to say. Something like Hey, how has school been? Or Do you want to be here any more than I do? Or Maybe if I stick my hand in the ball return system, I’ll have an excuse to leave. The last one would have never been a viable topic, but it popped into his head anyway. It worried him less than it should have, but gave him motivation to say literally anything else.
Jason’s brain caught a more polite topic as a waiter walked by them, carrying an absolutely loaded plate of fries. “Damn, those fries look good.”
Vanessa’s head turned to him, then to the waiter. She made a face. “They look super greasy. Nasty.”
She must have been joking, Jason thought. “What, you can’t have grease every once in a while? You live a sad life.”
She shrugged. “It’s mainly about the meat.”
“Oh, are you one of those hardcore vegans?” It came out meaner than he intended.
“Yes?” She gave him a curious look. “I’ve been vegan since I was a kid. Why does that surprise you?”
“Oh.” Shit. “I guess it never occurred to me. I don’t know you that well,” and he realized too late again that it came out mean.
Vanessa spat out a laugh, more of a scoff than anything. “Yeah, I guess we don’t talk much.”
Jason melted a little with relief. He was saved by mutual disinterest.
“But I did think you’d know my name is Vanessa after being in my homeroom last year.”
He cringed, letting out a long “Fuck” under his breath.
“Yeah, Craig told me.”
“Did he say that he thought you were dating J.P.?”
“What?” She laughed. “No way, why?”
“Because you can’t have two people of the opposite sex being close to each other without them being in a relationship, obviously.”
She made another face, eyebrows creased.
“Or he’s just jealous, I don’t fucking know.”
“Oh my God, of course he thought so.” She smirked. “No, we work at this animal shelter together after school. He asked me yesterday if I wanted to come.”
“Cool. Where’s the shelter? It has to be pretty far if you’re both going there.”
“It’s maybe half an hour outside of Baltimore. I take the train there. We both were interning there this summer, but since school started up I’ve only been going every other week. J.P. goes more often, but he’s getting paid for it since he’s going into vet stuff.” She shrugged and smiled softly, and Jason didn't think he’d ever seen her do that. “I don’t, but I don’t mind. I do it for the animals.”
“You like the company of animals better than people, huh?”
“You could say that.”
“I get it. People suck sometimes.”
She was actually a lot nicer than he expected. Jason remembered her being unsociable at school, never talking in class or in the halls. Vanessa was a voluntary loner, and he admired her self-reliance. It was how he aspired to be. Maybe that was why they were getting along so well.
“Jason! You’re up!” Kelsey called.
“Oh, alright.” He looked back at Vanessa.
She nodded at him, as if to say What are you waiting for?
“I was gonna tell you my bear story, but I’ll tell you after.”
“Your what?”
He got up. “Nope, can’t talk, need to bowl.”
He didn’t need to turn around to see her expression. “You got in a fight with a bear?”
He never said that, but instead of correcting her, he yelled “Can’t hear you, I’m bowling!”
Another large crash came from the opposite of the alley.
“How are you so fucking good at this?” Kelsey exclaimed.
Stacks walked back from the lane where she just got a strike. “I play sometimes with my family. It’s our little tradition.”
Kelsey pouted. “You never took me bowling. Maybe if you had, I’d be better than this!” She had the lowest scores on the board, and her competitive spirit wasn’t taking it well.
“You’re better at every other sport, let me have this one.”
“You’re crazy good, Stacks,” J.P. said. “You’re the only one who’s gotten a strike. Or maybe we’re just bad, who knows?”
“Probably you’re just bad,” she teased.
Kelsey gasped very over-dramatically. “How dare you. I was just warming up.”
“Sure you are.”
Jason was in a better mood, having talked with Vanessa for most of the night. They had a good conversation, and it made him feel less out of place in the group. Stacks and Kelsey’s bickering had given him an idea, though. “Hey, Stacks.”
She looked at him.
“If one of us gets a strike in the next round, you have to buy us chili fries.”
Luckily it was Vanessa’s turn, or else she may have objected. “And if you don’t?” Stacks replied.
“If you get a strike your next turn, I’ll buy you fries. Otherwise, nothing.”
She mulled it over, then shrugged. “Fair enough. You guys are pretty bad.”
“Hey!” yelled Kelsey.
Jason just smiled. “Deal.”
Vanessa returned, and he got up. He grabbed his ball from the ball rack. He was already in third place without really trying, so getting a strike would be easy. His plan to impress everyone with his natural talent at bowling was flawless.
He walked up to the lane.
He took a deep breath, and threw the ball.
He knocked down eight pins. Middle pin split.
“Goddamnit!” Jason’s voice joined the cries from the group. He walked back to the chairs.
“Alright, my turn.” Craig grinned. “Are you ready to taste defeat, Stacks?”
She scoffed. “I’d like to see you try.”
Kelsey started chanting “Strike, Strike, Strike!” No one joined her, but her attitude spread through the group. The air was electric. At least, it felt so to Jason.
Craig walked up to the lane, ball in hand.
He visibly took a breath. Jason did the same, unknowingly.
He took a step back, wound his arm back, and swung the ball forward.
It rolled the distance down the alley, not wavering in its direction.
The entire bowling alley seemed to stop.
The sound of all ten pins crashing down was musical, and so were their cheers.