// Chapter 13: Gutter Balls are my forté \\
I decide to search the rest of the house. And you can imagine how specific one has got to be when they're searching for such a small object. It takes a lot of time. Before I knew it, I was outside, digging through the garage when I hear my mom's voice.
"Leila! It's time to eat!"
Relief washes over me, as I need a break from all this searching. I wearily head inside the house and am surprised to find an actual home-cooked meal laid out on the table. The last time we had a home-cooked meal was with Hope . . . Guess my mom really has changed.
I stare down warily at the table. "What's this?" I ask.
My mom doesn't even look up from the task at hand when she replies, "It's chicken-pot-pie."
"I know that. I mean, what's with you cooking dinner. Is there a special occasion or something?"
She finally looks at me. "Can't a mother cook a nice, home-cooked meal without being questioned about her motives?" She sighs. "Look, I know I haven't cooked for a while, but as I said, I'm finding ways to occupy my time." Finally finished with cutting the pie, she sits down at the table.
I take that as my que and sit down as well. "Okay . . . well, thank you. It looks great." I grab the spatula and get a piece of the pie with it before setting the piece on my plate. "Where's dad?" I ask.
My mom is now getting herself a piece of the pie. "Oh, you know, he's at work."
"I thought his shift always ended at five?" I think back on the past few days. "You know, now that I think about it, he's been gone an awful lot. Did he take on an additional shift?"
My mother sighs and sets the fork down that had been on its way to her mouth. "Not an additional shift. He got another job."
"What? Why?" I exclaim amidst a mouthful of food.
"You'll have to talk to him about it," she says firmly.
And that's the end of our conversation.
I hurriedly finish eating the surprisingly delicious meal and before heading upstairs to my bedroom to get ready for tonight, I help clean up the table.
"Thank you," I say to my mom.
As I leave the room, I hear a distant "you're welcome."
I bound up the stairs, open my door, and immediately throw myself onto my bed, exhausted from all the searching I did earlier. I decide close my eyes for just a moment.
A few minutes later, I open my eyes feeling very refreshed. Time to get ready for bowling. I look over at my bedside clock and I have to wipe my eyes a few times to make sure that I'm reading it correctly. "Eight-thirty!" I yell. "Ahh I must've overslept. This is not good. Not good." I condone myself as I start to pull on some non-wrinkled clothes. "Leila, why oh why are you such an idiot? You make a new friends and then you blow it by being late to hanging out."
Twenty minutes later I'm rushing into the bowling alley. I sweep the masses of people with my eyes before they land on that familiar red hair. She's already in the lane, playing a game with some guy, it appears. Not wanting to disrupt their fun, I'm about to turn around and leave when she spots me and waves me over.
I wave back and walk over to where she's standing. "Hey, I'm so sorry I'm late. I laid down for a second and it turns out it wasn't actually a second, more like two hours, and I'm really really sorry."
I hear a chuckle from my right and turn to see none other than Thomas Moores standing there. My mood plummets even further.
"It's totally fine," Tiffany is saying.
"What is he doing here?" I jerk my thumb in Thomas' direction.
Tiffany looks to see who I'm pointing at, then looks back at me confused. "I thought you were okay with me bringing someone along?"
I recall our conversation from earlier. "You're right. I did. I just—I'm just surprised you know Thomas."
"Oh, you know him too? Our families used to be good friends, back when we were kids. Haven't seen him in years now." Tiffany smiles.
Thomas then drawls out, "You girls can talk about me all you want, but keep in mind that I'm standing right here."
I'm still mad at him but I also really want to be good friends with Tiffany, so right then and there, I decide to put aside our differences for the night. "I'll be right back. I'm going to go grab a ball and some shoes."
"I'll come with you!" Tiffany perks up.
I smile at her and start to walk towards the counter where the shoes are kept. "One pair of eight and a half in womens," I say to the lean teenager standing behind the counter.
"Sure thing," he responds and turns to grab my shoes.
I take them from him and go to a nearby bench to put them on.
Tiffany sits down beside me. "You're okay with me inviting Thomas, right?"
"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"
"It just seemed like you weren't too happy about it."
I sigh and decide to explain my first time at support group to her. I finish with "So Thomas and I aren't on the best of terms, one could say." I finish tying up my shoes and stand up to grab a ball.
"That was really an idiot move of his. I'm sorry, Leila." For the first time, I see Tiffany frown. "I shouldn't of invited him."
We're now at the ball rack and so I grab a purple and blue tie-dye one, size 8. "No, no, I said you could invite someone and I meant it. I've decided to put aside mine and his differences and make the most of the night." I smile to reassure her.
"Okay . . . well, if you're sure."
"I'm sure."
We're now back in our lane, and Thomas is sitting in a chair, inputting my name into the system.
"Ready to get this game started?" she asks me.
"Heck yeah," I reply enthusiastically. "But hey, weren't you guys in the middle of your own game?"
Tiffany turns to Thomas.
"We were. I started a new one now that you've finally awoken from your beauty sleep," he says, putting emphasis on the word finally.
Ignoring him, I turn to Tiffany. "Looks like you're first!"
She looks up at the screen. "You're right!" She then stands up and walks up to the place where the balls come out and grabs hers. Walking to the lane, she pulls her arm back and right as she brings it forward, she releases the ball. When the ball is only halfway down the lane, Tiffany spins around and looks at Thomas. "Beat that!" she practically yells at him.
I look around her just in time to see all the pins fall down in one sweeping motion. "Guess we know who won this game," I mutter.
Thomas hears me though, and says "That was only her first ball! C'mon, I bet you twenty bucks I got this game in the bag."
"Whatever you say." I sing-song and reach over to shake him on it.
It's Thomas' turn now, so he stands up and gets in position. He releases the ball and it seems like it'll be a stroke, but at the last second, that ball veers left and all the pins but one come tumbling down. Of course, he hits that one on his second shot.
"Not bad, not bad." Tiffany drawls. She turns to me and whispers, "not great either."
I laugh, amused by this game of theirs. It's to bad I'm not very competitive myself. I stand up and go to hit as they both did before only to get not a strike or even a spare. It went in the gutter both times.
I turn around with a guilty look on my face. "You probably can't tell, but I haven't been bowling in years."
"Nope. Couldn't tell at all," Thomas replies sarcastically.
The night continues like that. Tiffany won the first game and I got twenty bucks. In the end, it came down to the nitty gritty, and one less stroke and Tiffany would've lost. Thank the stars the odds were in my favor.
We play a few more games and they continue to play with a multitude of strikes and spares while gutter balls are my forté.
"What time is it?" I ask after the fourth game.
Tiffany picks up her phone to check. "Ten thirty-four," she says cheerily.
"Crap," I mutter. "I need to leave soon if I want to meet my curfew."
Thomas chuckles. "What seventeen-year-old has a curfew?"
After being around him for the past two hours, I'm used to his insults by now and quickly rebut "This one. Because I have parents that actually care about me."
Thomas averts his eyes to Tiffany and a second too late I realize my mistake. Her parents recently died. I try to repair the damage. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that."
"No, I understand. It's fine." she plays it off as if I didn't affect her, but I can still see the hurt in her eyes. "Anyways, thanks for coming tonight. It was nice to not have people feel bad about me the whole time . . ." She trails off as I look at her in sympathy. "Well, until now, that is." She attempts a smile.
I think back on our night, and I realize that I had completely forgotten about the issues in my life and had fun, despite Thomas' constant antics and insults. "Yeah, I'm glad you brought it up! I needed some fun in my life."
Tiffany pulls me into her arms and whispers in my ear "Sorry about Thomas. He's an idiot."
I whisper back. "He wasn't too bad." I pull back and she looks at me in a quizzical manner.
"We should do this again something," I say.
"We should!" Thomas chimes in.
I cough.
Thankfully, Tiffany speaks up for me. "I think she meant just me and her. Sorry, Tom. Girl's night."
"I can pretend to be a girl if you guys want." He speaks in a high-pitched voice. "Oh my gosh, did you guys hear about that—"
I cut him off. "Should've known you would say something like that." I find myself smiling at him despite my attempts not to. "Well, I'll see you both."
"Bye!" Tiffany waves. "I'll text you."
And with that, I walk out of the bowling alley, leaving my two new friends behind. Yes, I guess you could say that I consider Thomas as my friend. As I told Tiffany, he isn't too bad after all.
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Sorry this wasn't posted two days ago! I had it written then, but I was out of town with no wifi. The plan was to post this using my phone's hotspot, but for some idiot reason, Wattpad didn't work on it no matter how many times I tried.
Anyways, we were on the charts this week! #662 in Mystery/ Thriller XD
<3 ash