Installment Two

We arrived at Tano’s Pizza a few minutes late, much to the annoyance of my friend. Me and Mom met the youth pastor, who everyone called “P.R.,” and put my stuff in the church bus. Mom left, and I went inside and sat with Becca, Hannah(an old friend of mine), Hannah’s friend Halie, and a girl named Elizabeth. And of course, I was sitting in a spot where I could see “him” perfectly. It was hard to not keep staring in his direction. And by “him” I mean Andy. I knew it was him immediately, though I had only seen a photo of him on Facebook. As soon as I opened the door, he looked at me. Granted, so did a lot of other kids, but they quickly went back to their pizza and talking. But he didn’t. He kept his gaze on me. Our eyes eventually met, and I quickly looked away and acted totally engrossed in my pizza slice.

Throughout the meal, us four girls enjoyed some small talk, all the while I was sneaking looks at Andy across the room, and when we were done we all loaded into the church bus and was off towards the bowling alley.
“I can't find my seatbelt!” I complained to Becca, who was sitting next to me.
“It’s right beside you, silly,” she said, slightly annoyed.
“Well, I don’t see it,” I said, trying to feel for it in the darkness.
“Ugh! You are SOOO blond!” said Becca, and proceeded to climb over me and grabbed the belt.
“Here,” she said.
“Um…haha….thanks…” I said, clicking the belt together, embarrassed.
We got to the alley in a few minutes, and all went inside. Once inside, we all got in line, and gave the clerk our money, then were assigned lanes.

“You four girls are at lane 13,” said P.R., nodding in our direction. We went to the lane, and set up the game. I was pleasantly surprised, Elizabeth actually spelled my name right! To make a long story short, Lizzy brought her own bowling ball, totally owned the entire game, and I lost miserably. But we had fun! I got a pretzel, which yummy, then of course, being the klutz that I am, spilled the cheese all over the table. Becca proceeded to laugh her tailbone off at me, while I attempted to clean up the mess as I was laughing hysterically myself. We played an arcade game, and won some plastic ball…things. Which I gave mine to Becca, who gave it to her little brother later that night.

Halfway through the night, I whispered to Becca that I hadn’t been introduced to Andy yet.
“You know, you still haven’t introduced me to Andy,” I said.
“Oh, ok!” she said, running off and getting him. I started freaking out, and walked away, pretending to not know what was going on.
“ALLIE! Get over here!” Becca yelled to me. I walked over to where she stood, with a cute dark haired boy standing next to her.
“This and Andy. Andy, this is Allie,” said Becca, with a huge smile on her face.
“Hello,” Said Andy, extending his hand for me to shake.
“Hi,” I said quietly, shaking his hand and trying not to giggle. Our matching blue eyes met, and I looked down, blushing.
We then just stood there for a few seconds, then kinda went our own ways. Before I knew it, I had taken a million bowling photos, Lizzy won the game, and it was time to leave.

On the way out, Becca said something funny while I was sipping root beer from my straw, and I laughed and pop went up all over my face. I tried wiping it away, but I didn’t know that all it did was smear my mascara. Andy and this guy named Jonathon sat in the seats behind us. Me and Becca played with our cell phones most of the way to the church, and for some reason, I couldn’t get butterflies out of my stomach. I had no idea way, and it was driving me nuts! Just because some dude I had been talking to online was sitting behind me? I could hear every word he said...every laugh...everything. I loved it. But I couldn't figure out why. What did it matter? It wasn't like I was in love with the guy.

When we got to the church, mostly everyone left right away, and me and Becca were getting all my stuff together, and waiting for her mom, Dawn, to pick us up. And I couldn’t figure out why on earth P.R. kept giving me weird looks. Of course, I was unaware that I had black streaks smeared all down my cheeks. After we got home, I went to the bathroom, and nearly screamed.
“BECCA!!!!! Why didn’t you tell me my mascara smeared?!?!” I yelled.
“I don’t know…sorry!” she said.
I sighed. I couldn't believe it! I had never been more embarrassed in my entire life. Oh well. There wasn’t anything I could do, and I highly doubted I would see anyone from the youth group again.