Loosening the ties

For unfathomable reasons, it was decided that the most effective way of confronting the awkwardness was head on.

I already had plans to meet my friend (henceforth referred to as TG) for drinks on Friday night. She arrives at my house, and with only a little trepidation, tells me that C was likely going to be at the pub.

Another deep breath.

"Oh, what the hell!" I exhale. "Might as well beat down the awkwardness as soon as possible, and it would be good to see him."

She comes and sits on the bed of what is now the guest room, which my mother has doused with family photos. Sitting, watching us from an end table, is a photo of him and I in prom regalia.

We giggle a little frantically. She picks it up, joking about taking it to the bar and putting it on the table directly in front of him.

We start to thrive on the notion of awkwardness, and begin one upping each other.
She suggests we start calling him sloppy seconds.

She then calls him, and leaves a message telling him to be ready to meet us with shots and to be prepared for plenty of awkward silences.

I think that maybe this won't be so bad, with the whole situation out on the table, and that perhaps we can all grit our teeth through an awkward hour and emerge unscathed.

It is only later, with a little reflection, that I realize that the Sean Connery impression she did over the phone to him was what I used to do back in those days.

We arrive at the bar. I notice him noticing me at the bar, but head to a table with my sister, letting them greet one another. He arrives at the table a few minutes later carrying a tray of tequila shots and caesars. TG pretends to introduce him to me for the first time. Nervous laughter erupts.

We all engage in awkward conversation. Him and I do a decent job of playing catch-up. In hearing that I am working in a forensic clinic, he makes a few remarks about his "work" with criminals. He also makes a vague reference to a Nepalese prison, which it was not clear if he was visiting or otherwise.

Just as I start to think that this situation will be bearable, I notice that the two of them have been drinking a lot faster than me. We're talking ordering two at once, and still needing another round before I finish my single drink.

It's like they have suddenly regressed into the teenagers I used to know. She is slurring and making crude jokes. He is pulling out the textbook class clown act I remember so well, pulling out goofy accessories from his bag, pretending to shout at people walking by.

They also begin, as my sister later called it, "canoodling", getting more touchy feely as the night went on. When my sister leaves to go play pool, I feel like the epitome of a fifth wheel, and I get the sense that it would be horrendously awkward even if I hadn't spent a year in her place. I interrupt their whispering to say I'm going to check on my sister for a bit.

Ten minutes later, I get several drunken texts from her asserting that she loves me, and then a voice mail saying she is too drunk and thus left.

I spend the remainder of the night on a pool team (creatively dubbed Team Awesome) with a 19-year old whose older friend has fallen in love with my sister, and have a remarkably good time.

She visits my family's open house on Boxing Night. We work as a winning duo at Pictionary and drink Baileys. She mentions he will be out with her again that night. I tell her its fine and I really don't see the point in overanalyzing the situation anymore (Ed note- I do recognize the irony of this statement in the middle of such a post).

I see them but for a brief moment that night, in the midst of a hubbub of "Oh-my-God-what-have-you-been-up-to"s. He catches my eye while standing alone by the bar, and it feels like the most genuine recent moment we've had. They quickly scurry off, claiming the crowded bar was too overwhelming for them, and I face a barrage of questions about their new relationship, trying to remain nonchalant while being pushed for a reaction.

Moving on to Friday night...
TG texts me and invites me for drinks and bowling. I meet her, him, and her sister at the house she is housesitting.
We have a few drinks, and manage a few laughs. It feels softer in the room, as though the ice has been broken, and we're all a little less tense.

And then the alcohol takes its effects.

The tension strikes again, as we are walking to the bowling alley. Her and I are reminiscing about a particularly crazy character we encountered on our journey to Costa Rica.

She nudges him. "You remember I told you about that, right, baby?"

My feet keep their pace, but my head starts going. That event happened when him and I were together. I told him that story.

We arrive at the bowling alley. Fitting with the emerging theme of regression, we make immature bowling monikers. As I glance over from where I sit, his hand is grabbing her ass directly at the level of my head.

The pattern starts to emerge again. Empty glasses start to line up, outnumbering the drink I am nursing. They begin first by quick pecks between rounds, to full on arms around each other kisses.

He starts doing the moonwalk and popping his collar. I recognize this facade from a mile away. His whole act is nearly transparent to me, like the back of my hand, like nothing has changed since we were 17 and he used such antics to belie all that pain.

Each time I turn my back to them and hurl the ball down the lane, I wonder why I forget the cardinal rule that history repeats itself. Not only that week, but over the years. I question why I am even in this bowling alley with two people who have both made me cry on more than one occasion. I ask myself why I always play this role, and why I pretend to be what I'm not in talking to them, why I downplay my achievements on their behalf. I ponder why I spend so much time worrying on each of their behalves. And I know that I can't say anything, not only for the sake of my pride, but because someone would undoubtedly toss the "jealousy" card into the equation, when in fact it is nearly the opposite.

As we leave the bowling alley, in the dark of the parking lot, he grabs her and pulls her in for a passionate kiss.

It is like they are performing for me.

And I realize that though their birth certificates may claim otherwise, they are still stuck in what once was adolescence for me. They are working the same jobs as then, entering the same relationships, using the same coping mechanisms, playing the same games. I'm just not there anymore.

And I am glad.

TG's sister and I walk ahead of them as they giggle and push each other into snowbanks. She is actually the one who appears angered. I turn off to head back to my parents, and shout goodbye.

A few minutes later, as I am about to put my headphones in, I hear my name being called, and the two of them are running across the street towards me, no longer pressed to each other.

Breathless, she exclaims that she was worried about me walking home alone, and asked if I was okay.

I can't tell you how good it felt to look her in the eyes and say "Why wouldn't I be?" and mean it.

Because I realized, that night, that at this point in their life, they deserve each other.
And I don't.