In the dim evening light, the sign for was lit up in red lettering that zapped in and out, so half the time it was only .

It was an ugly shack of a place, long and narrow with a big picture of a bowling ball on the front door. There were no cool neon lights. There wasn't even a real parking lot. A few stray cars parked along the side of the building.

"Smells like rain," Michael said, and I turned my face skyward to see large clouds crowding over the quickly fading sunset.

"How do you know that?"

"I'm a farmer," he said. "My rain senses are tingling."

"I don't even wanna know what that means," Meg muttered as she ripped open the door.

Behind the counter was a skinny kid with big square glasses and a deep cleft chin. He smiled widely when he saw us, but his eyes seemed dead inside. "Hello," he greeted.

"I have big feet," Bobby said. "13 shoe."

I squirmed a little when both he and the kid looked at me. "Uh, I need 8½- actually, you can just go with 9."

"We have everything," the kid said. He sipped his Pepsi.

"Cool." I glanced behind me to where Meg and Michael continued bickering near the door. He was grinning and she was jabbing her finger at him.

"It's sad," Bobby said casually while the kid retreated to his wall of shoes in the back. "She keeps torturing herself."

I raised my eyes to him, but he didn't meet mine, just kept them glued to an assortment of chips on a rack by the counter. That was something I'd noticed. Michael was the only guy I'd ever met that always looked you in the eye.

The Pepsi kid returned, setting my pair of shoes on the countertop, and blinked in slow motion as he saw the rest of our group join us. "Havin' a party or something?" he asked, raising his soda to his lips once more.

Meg smiled painfully. "Nah, we're just trying to spend an evening doing something besides illegal drugs. You got women's size 6?"

"We have everything," he said, then burped.

"And pizza," Bobby added. "I need me some pizza."

Pepsi kid nodded. "We have-"

"I know, I know, you have everything," I interrupted. He blinked and adjusted his glasses up his nose. I felt a little bad. He did only look about fifteen or so.

"We have... boxes or slices," he finished after a moment of silence. I stared guiltily at the floor. "Which would you like?"

Bobby cleared his throat. "Whole box sounds good to me," he said. "Ooh, yeah, and about twenty bags of those Lays potato chips there. Yep. Just sweep 'em off, there ya go."

Meg, Michael, and I walked to the side of the lobby while Bobby stayed to gather the food, kicking off our shoes and putting on the new ones. Mine were tight, and slightly soggy inside, like a really sweaty child had just been wearing them. Michael kept his eyes closed the whole time, muttering something about his fear of feet.

"Sooo," Meg said as I walked ahead of her to our lane. "How are things with you and Michael?"

"What do you mean?" I asked, already filled with dread.

"Like..." She smirked craftily. "Is it different now, you know, after he took your virginity?"

I stopped in the middle of the floor and turned around, almost making her crash into me. "Are you delusional?" I shouted. "I lost my virginity to Patty Hartley in the tenth grade."

"Oh," she said, frowning in confusion. "I just assumed-"

"Little loud there, Benjamin," Michael commented.

I looked around to gauge if anyone was looking at me, but the only people around were an old man by himself a girl with frizzy pigtails drinking a bottle of water. "If you-" I stepped closer to Meg and lowered my voice. "If you don't stop harassing me I'm gonna bash your skull in with a bowling ball."

She snickered. "Okay. Anyway, I was thinking we could put our differences behind us and be BFFs. We can go shopping together this weekend."

"Pass," I said.

Now she looked sad. "Why not?"

"Because I've spent the last decade of my life being someone's pet and I really don't want to do it again."

My nose twitched with the smell of food and I turned to see Bobby set a large Domino's veggie pizza on the table. He reached to draw out a chair and sat down, lifting out the first slice gingerly like a prized treasure.

"Hey," Michael murmured, his hand brushing mine as I walked around the table.

I picked up a slice of pizza and frowned as a few veggies tumbled off. "Hey."

"Stop," said Meg.

He laughed. "Stop what?"

"Stop flirting with him."

"I said hey."

"Can someone just go bowl already?" Bobby sighed in exasperation, and when he opened his mouth I could see a sizable piece of broccoli in his front teeth.

Meg pushed herself away from the table and pranced down to the lane, flipping her brown hair behind her shoulder. I watched, rolling my eyes, as she selected a black ball and did this stupid little run up to the foul line, swinging her arm forward and releasing way too early. The ball rolled straight to the gutter.

"You suck!" I shouted. Bobby snorted and then covered the noise by shoving more pizza in his mouth.

"Shut up, you little runt," she hissed. "I still got another go." She gripped the second ball and followed the exact same pattern: awkward run, arm fling, gutterball. I smirked.

"You've got to work on your posture," Michael said calmly. He took a ball and approached her, holding its weight easily. "When you move your arm back it has to be a fluid motion, not a jerk. And try to make the ball glide, don't just fling it randomly. Look." He nudged her to the side and tilted his body, twisting his arm back and sending the ball careening down the center of the lane.

It all looked great till the very end, when the ball curved a little to the right. I watched the clatter of pins. Two were left standing.

She looked up him, one eyebrow raised. "Pretty good."

"Nothing to it." He turned around and walked back for another ball while Meg waited for him in the approach. "No congrats?" he asked me as I scowled.

"Theory," I said. "She's doing it bad on purpose so you'll help her."

Bobby chuckled beside me. "Theory seconded."

Michael waved his hand to shut us up and squinted at the two remaining pins before aiming for them. Only one was successfully knocked over.

I continued munching on my pizza as Bobby got up. If there's ten rounds, I thought, and there's four of us... that's forty, no eighty, times I'm gonna have to watch that damn ball go down the lane.

Michael took Bobby's seat and reached for the box of pizza. "You any good?" he asked casually as he picked through the remaining slices.

"Probably not," I answered honestly.

"Kabooshma!" Bobby suddenly screamed. I looked up in time to see him chuck the ball into the air, making it arc up and then back down, smacking into the left chunk of pins. I counted the remaining ones with disbelieving eyes. Five.

"How... how did that work?" I asked, still surprised by his burst of energy. I hadn't thought he would get that excited about anything besides pizza.

He rolled the second ball, this one taking out three more pins, then folded a fresh piece of pizza to fill his mouth and pushed me out of my seat.

"Luck," said Michael. I couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic.

I hoped I would not make a fool of myself like Meg. Something told me she would be particularly cruel in my defeat. I waited for the balls to come back in the return and lifted one lightly at random.

"Shit," I hissed as my arm plummeted under its weight.

"Oh my god!" Meg's jaw had dropped and she cackled evilly in the back of her throat. "Can you literally not lift the ball?"

I glared at her, wishing I could somehow melt a hole through her face with my eyes, and straightened out my arm roughly. "Of course I can."

"You should get a lighter ball," Michael suggested helpfully. I immediately turned my laser vision on him. "They say you should use one that's 10% of your body weight."

Unfortunately, I was too stupid to figure out what 10% of my body weight was. I turned around and took about four steps up to the foul line, then swung my arm and hurled the ball with every last drop of my strength. It hit the lane with a thud and rolled off into the gutter.

Meg cleared her throat. "What's that line about people in glass houses?"

"Why are all of you throwing the ball?" Michael shouted. "You roll the ball, you don't throw it!"

I blinked. "Sorry I'm not a professional... bowlist."

"Here," he said, already jogging over before I could refuse his assistance. I sighed impatiently as he crouched down to the second rack of the ball return and presented me with a small orange bowling ball. "Try this one."

"That's a girl ball," I said.

"Try it."

I held the ball in both hands and itched my ankle with the toe of my sneaker. "I don't know what I'm doing."

"Just stuff your fingers in the holes and go for it," he said.

Behind me, Bobby paused in tearing open a bag of chips to clap twice. "You got this, buddy."

My nerves only worsened as the three of them all started cheering me on, Meg by far the most reluctant, muttering something about how no one had clapped for her.

I took one broad step forward and twisted to the right, swinging my arm back and releasing the ball forward steadily. This one was extremely lighter. It rocketed down the lane, never wavering in its track. I felt my heart jump as it cracked into the head pin and sent them all tumbling down in a beautiful cascade.

"Yeah!" Michael shouted. "Fuck yeah! What did I tell you? That is how you fucking bowl!" I kept staring at the pins, defeated on the floor, until the bar swept them away. Then I bounced over to the table, my blood still pumping hard with adrenaline. "You are fucking gold," Michael whispered.

Bobby held up his hand as I climbed into my chair. "High five, my man." He had crumbs in his red beard.

I obliged with a laugh and then settled back to watch Meg storm off for her next turn. She rolled the ball, gentler this time, and I stifled a spiteful giggle as it knocked into three sad pins at the end. I felt much more comfortable taunting her now that I knew I was capable of such a perfect strike.

She went again, managing to clear away a healthy six of the remaining pins, then sat down without a word. I flicked my gaze to her face for a split second. She looked miserable.

"Your turn," I said to Michael.

He had just bit into his second pizza slice. "Alright. Here, hold this."

"Hold your pizza?"

"These tables are disgusting," he said.

"Fine," I snapped. I took the pizza from him and deliberately took a large bite of it where he had already eaten.

Meg chewed on her lip and sat back, her arms crossed over her low-cut sweater. "I can't wait for this to be over."

I smirked. "You don't like bowling?"

"It's boring." She looked over suddenly. "You can find your own way home tonight, can't you?"

I tore off a piece of my crust. "No. I'm afraid I would I get dreadfully lost."

"Shut up. You're trying to fuck him too, aren't you?"

I watched Michael knock down eight pins. The exact same eight as last time. Maybe he had a special stance or something. "Nope."

"So you won't mind if I fuck him then?" Her voice was like a pesky mosquito that kept buzzing in your ear after you swatted it.

"I couldn't care less," I said. "Fuck away."

Michael succeded in a spare this time, taking out the last two pins. I watched Bobby walk up to take his place, flexing his hand as he chose a ball. I didn't want my turn to come again, but even that seemed better than sitting at the table with Meg.

We rotated for a while, our conversation dropping to nothing but the game. By the end of the fifth frame I was in the lead, in the seventies, with Meg still straggling in the twenties.

"Michaellll," she whined when he came back from his turn. "I hate this game."

"You picked it," he said stiffly.

She sighed loudly and spun around in her chair to drop her head on his thigh. "I'm tired now," she said, looking up at him with widened eyes. "Where are you going after this?"

He shrugged. "Home. I guess. Why?"

"Because. You should come stay at my place." She smiled craftily. "And in the morning I'll let you use the kitchen to cook whatever you want."

A slow smirk formed on his face. "Omlettes?"

"And bacon," she said.

"I like bacon."

I cleared my throat and leaned over. "We, uh, have microwavable blueberry muffins... they looked pretty good."

"Please," scoffed Meg. "That's your big offer?"

"Actually, I bought those myself," Michael informed her. "Been dying to try them."

"It's microwavable muffins," she said. "Versus omlettes and bacon."

He sighed and raised his hand to rub over his jaw. "Hmm. I don't know. I really should watch my cholesterol. I think I'm gonna have to go with the muffins."

Meg's lip quivered, her eyes darkening to a look of pure rage, but before she could spit out a reply Bobby tapped her arm. "You're up, sister. Get it over with, would ya?"

I looked at Michael to convey my appreciation as she left, and at first I thought he was staring off into space. Then I spotted the pigtail girl from earlier standing at her lane, readying to send a pink ball rolling. She swung forcefully and every pin toppled over.

"She's good," I commented.

He flinched suddenly and sat up straight like he'd been caught doing something bad. "Uh, yeah."

I smiled slightly and looked closer at the girl herself. She was wearing a loose crop-top and high waisted shorts that showed off her curvy figure. "She's hot," I said, watching her ass jiggle as she hopped on her toes in celebration.

Michael looked over at me. "You think so?"

"You don't?" I said. "I mean, look at her."

He laughed. "Yeah. I just didn't think you..."

"Well if you're not gonna go talk to her I am," I announced, pushing back my chair. Michael tilted his head in amusement and followed me with his eyes as I scampered over to the girl, my hands clenched into fists.

I am confident, I thought. I'll show you.

This was more anxiety-inducing than any round of bowling. I struggled to swallow, cursing my pride for bringing this terrible task upon myself. "Hey," I called cheerfully.

She was taller than me, though not by much. Not that it really mattered. I didn't plan on ever seeing her again. "Hey there," she said. "What's up?"

"I just wanted to say good job," I said, making my words up on the spot. "Uh, I've only gotten one strike and I think that was some kind random fluke."

She nodded. "It's mostly luck in my opinion. And practice, if you really like bowling." She laughed a little. Her teeth were shiny and white. "Personally, I'm not the world's biggest fan."

"Oh hell, me neither," I said. "I actually haven't bowled at all since I was super little."

"Gotcha," she said. "I wondered 'cuz there's a bunch of kids here, like, all the time. But I've never seen you."

I shrugged. "I just moved here. You a local?"

"Yep. Born and raised."

I raised my eyebrows slightly. "Nice." She nodded but said nothing. I took that to mean I was boring. "I'm Ben, by the way."

"Ivy," she returned. I looked at her eyes. They were a dark, deep green. Like emeralds. She met my gaze for a second, then hurriedly flicked it away. "And my boyfriend, um... where is he? Oh, he's back." I followed her gaze to a tall, handsome Hispanic guy heading our way from a creepy little hallway labeled .

Great. Now I'm gonna get beat up.

"Oh my god, he's so cute," I exclaimed suddenly, deliberately making my voice higher. "Mine's over there."

"Oh." She looked over to where Michael just so happened to be staring right at us. She gave a little wave and he grinned and lifted his hand.

"Well, anyway," I said as Ivy's boyfriend walked up to us. "Have a great night, you two."

She smiled. "Thanks. Good luck!"

I speed-walked back to my table, almost knocking into Michael as he stood up. "You putting in a good word for me?" he said excitedly.

"Totally," I said.

"Good. It's my last turn. I can show off." He leaned back and twisted his hands together to crack his knuckles.

Go ahead, I thought. I'll gladly watch you get beat up instead of me.

He stood still for a long time, holding the same ball he'd been using, staring at the ground stoically. Then he took a deep breath, a couple steps back, and lunged, shooting the ball toward the left at an angle. It curved around and crashed into the pins. I waited. One lone pin stood strong.

"Damnit!" he yelled. "God damnit. What's the score at?"

"Don't worry about the score," I said. "You got this."

He took a new ball without pause and cleared the remaining pin. "I'll never catch up to you," he pointed out.

"Just focus. Pretend Heather's watching you or something."

He took a deep breath and I stepped back as he swung, sending the final ball zipping down the line and crashing full force into the center of the pins. Every last one fell.

"Yeah!" I cheered. He jumped back, his breath coming out in shock, and I wrapped my arms around him as he reached to grab my hand. "I knew you could do it!"

We danced around for a minute as Meg came over, followed by a slower Bobby, who patted his friend on the back. "Good job, man."

"Alright, let's hear it for Bob!" Michael said. "Last turn!" We all clapped.

Bobby glared intently at the pins, as if trying to psych them out. He swung and knocked out six, then one, then nine. He finished about thirty points behind Michael, who held 154. And then came the most important moment of my bowling career.

I grasped my orange ball viciously by the holes and squared my shoulders to take the fateful steps. What should I pretend I'm aiming for? Michael's heart? No. I couldn't care about that. Meg's stupid face, begging me to fail? Excellent choice.

Shit. Too far left. The ball only took out seven pins.

"You already beat me," Michael said. "You won."

I ignored him and mentally prepared myself again by staring down the three pins. Like three little pigs, and someone needed to knock their house down. I squeezed shut my eyes momentarily, then zipped the ball forward. It crashed into the pins and sent them toppling over. "Yes," I whispered.

"Okay," said Bobby. "This is your chance to be a legend, bud." I picked up the ball, noticing my hand shaking slightly. If I got a strike I'd have a score of 178, which was technically above average for amateurs. I should bowl more.

I stared down the lane for a long time, until Bobby slowly started clapping. I snickered and smiled at him, then went back to staring at my arch enemies.

I had never been good at much. I'd never been the smartest, I'd never been the strongest, I'd never been creative or really won anything at all. I couldn't remember the last time someone told me good job.

Michael leaned his chin on my shoulder as I clutched the ball. "You gonna strike?"

"I don't know," I muttered.

"Wrong answer."

"Yes," I said. "I'm gonna strike."