Example of a Jealousy Realization Scene

She saw him across the bar with someone else. A redhead in a green dress who was touching his arm and laughing at something he said — the same joke, probably, about the bartender's mustache that he'd told her last week. It shouldn't have mattered. They were friends. Barely even friends — coworkers who sometimes got drinks and once shared an umbrella in a rainstorm and never talked about how their hands touched under the handle. But the redhead leaned in to whisper something and he smiled — that slow, lopsided thing he did — and something inside her chest detonated like a controlled demolition. "You okay?" her friend asked. "You look like you just swallowed something alive." "I'm fine." "You're gripping your glass like it owes you money." She set the glass down. Unclenched her jaw. Tried to look at anything else. The jukebox. The exit sign. The bartender's mustache, which was honestly impressive. He found her twenty minutes later, outside, pretending to check her phone. "Hey. Didn't know you were here tonight." "Who's the redhead?" It came out before she could stop it. Sharper than she meant. He paused. Something shifted behind his eyes — recognition, maybe. The beginning of a question. "Jealous?" He said it lightly. Testing. "Don't be ridiculous." "You're ridiculous." He stepped closer. "You've been ridiculous for about three months. And I've been waiting for you to figure out why." The phone in her hand went dark. The street was quiet except for bass thumping through the bar's walls. "I don't get jealous," she said. "I know. That's how I know this is serious."

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