Bite Your Tongue

3:45 P.M.
Stevie;;

“Delia, hurry the fuck up!”

“Relax, Stevie. She hasn’t been at school in two days. Where else would she be but home?”

I rolled my eyes and jabbed the doorbell again. Why the hell wasn’t Korinne coming to the door? I mean, I knew about the recent baby drama with Zoe and all that, but it was just a breakup--even if the guy who’d broken her heart was a complete idiotic fuckwad with absolutely no intelligence whatsoever. I hoped that she was truly sick—like the lady in the front office at school had confessed to me after I’d threatened her for information—and not just sitting at home, wallowing.

Delia caught my hand as I went to ring the bell again.

“Someone’s coming,” she said, pointing. Sure enough, I could see the outline of someone walking towards the door through the blurry glass circle.

The door opened to reveal a very disgruntled-looking Elias, who had a bag of Hot Cheetos in his hand. I hadn’t seen him in what seemed like forever, since he had, for some reason, stopped sitting at our table. I just assumed that he met other friends, which was kind of alright with me; because I got the feeling that he and Korinne didn’t get along very well.

“Hey, Elias,” I said, shoving past him with Delia not far behind.

“What the—”

“Where’s Korinne?”

He frowned and wiped some cheese dust on his pants. “I don’t know. In her room? Why?”

“She’s missed two days of school, and we’re worried.”

“She missed school?”

I sighed exasperatedly. “Yes! You’re really on top of things aren’t you?” I added, drowning my words with sarcasm. “Come on, Delia!”

I hurried towards the stairs and charged up them, comforted by Delia’s footsteps behind me. Elias was shouting something, but I paid him no attention. My eyes focused on Korinne’s closed bedroom door, and I knocked twice before pushing the door open.

The room was nearly pitch black, with the only light coming from the well-lit hallway. I could barely make out the shape of her furniture, yet I didn’t see her anywhere.

“Shit,” I cursed. “She’s not here.”

Delia nudged me in the ribs and pointed to the small sliver of light coming from the bathroom door. I breathed a sigh of relief and carefully negotiated my way across the room, mindful of any possible obstacles, and knocked on the door. I didn’t expect an answer, but my panic level still increased when all I heard was silence. I glanced at Delia, whose face was pretty much an exact mirror of my own thoughts, and twisted the doorknob.

The first thing I noticed was the humidity. The mirror was fogged up to the point where it was useless, and the glass of the shower door was the same. I tried to wipe away some of the condensation, frustrated to find that it was all on the inside. With my heart pounding fast in anticipation of the horrific sight I might find, I slowly slid the door out of the way.

Korinne was sitting on the floor, directly underneath the stream of water. She was fully clothed; her arms were wrapped around her legs, holding her knees to her chest, and her head rested on top of her knees. My first instinct was to go and hug her, which I tried to do, only to shriek and leap back as the scalding hot water touched my skin. How can she stand that?

I reached in again and managed to turn the water off, nearly burning myself in the process, and it was then that I heard Korinne’s sobs. They were soft, quiet—but her whole body shook with each one.

Without even thinking about it, I stepped into the shower, sat down, and wrapped my arms around her shaking frame. Her clothes were soaked and unnaturally warm, and her hair clung to the sides of her face in wet clumps.

“Korinne?” I said softly.

She turned her head to look at me, and I was alarmed by her appearance. Her eyes were red and watery; her face blotchy and trembling as tears spilled down her cheeks.

“Korinne…”

“I miss him,” she whispered. And then her sobs turned to anguished cries that I feared would never stop.

+++

Korinne;;

I finally calmed down after about an hour, with the help of Stevie and Delia. I couldn’t even remember why I’d gotten in the shower in the first place—but I supposed it had something to do with my ongoing lapse into insanity. Every breath I took reminded me that, once again, things hadn’t worked out for me. The rational part of my brain knew it was silly to get so upset over a boy—and yet didn’t stop me form eying every sharp or relatively dangerous object in the room like it was my savior, my escape from this misery. Even the presence of my two closest friends did nothing to abate the despair I was being suffocated by. I missed Brian. I wanted him here with me, right now, but I knew that couldn’t and wouldn’t happen ever again. He was going to have child with Zoe—and he would be hers forever.

I curled my hands into fists until my fingernails cut into my palms. The slight pain helped me keep my composure and refrain from returning to the sobbing mess I’d been just a short while ago.

“I can’t believe him,” Stevie said suddenly, angrily.

“I know. What kind of an asshole does things like this?” added Delia.

“He should be drawn and quartered.”

“No, sixteenthed.”

“Ew, Delia. I think chopping him into four pieces would suffice.”

“Yeah, but sixteenthing someone would be way more fun.”

“Are you guys talking about Brian?” I asked quietly, catching on to their conversation.

“You mean Mr. Scum-Sucking Dirtbag? Yeah we’re talking about him,” said Stevie.

“Please don’t,” I pleaded. It hurt badly enough to think about him. Talking about him was ten times worse, and I didn’t even want to imagine what I’d be like when I saw him at school.

“Why?” wondered Delia. “He was a total jerk to you, Korinne.”

“He could have handled things so much differently, too.”

“Just…let’s talk about something else, okay?”

Stevie and Delia exchanged a worried glance.

“Okay…”

“Are you guys hungry?” I asked. “I haven’t eaten since…” I trailed off, realizing with a jolt just how painful it would be to finish that sentence.

“Sure,” said Stevie.

“Nah. But I could use some water,” Delia said.

“All right.”

I got up off of the bed, where we were all sitting, and headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” Stevie demanded. “We’ll get it.”

“No, it’s okay,” I insisted. “It’ll keep my mind off of…things.”

Both of them looked hesitant, so I just gave them a weak smile before going in search of food.

+++

Elias;;

The annoyances of my Trig homework had been plaguing me for the past hour or so, but I couldn’t concentrate. All I could focus on was the fact that Korinne had skipped school for two days, and I hadn’t noticed. I usually never saw her in the mornings, since Brian picked her up after I was already on the bus. I sometimes saw her when she was getting dinner, but she always ignored me, and a few days ago had been the weirdest of all. Seeing her cry like that had absolutely destroyed me, even though I had been the cause of that until Brian found out what was happening and threatened to kill me if I didn’t stop. I was glad he did, too, because it forced me to realize just how stupid I was being.

I felt terrible about what I had done to her—and I honestly couldn’t remember why I had decided to hit her. All I could recall was being so unbelievably angry at everything, and Korinne had just been in the wrong place at the very, very wrong time. I hated thinking about the pain I’d caused her, and I would have given anything for things to go back to the way they were before the accidents.

I heard footsteps on the stairs and looked up to see Korinne making her way into the kitchen. I watched anxiously, waiting to see if she would leave once she noticed me there at the table, but the blank, zombie-like look on her face didn’t change a bit as she walked over to the refrigerator. I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding, relieved. I had so much to say to her, so much to apologize for, that I hadn’t the slightest idea where to begin. Nothing could possibly atone for the way I’d treated her, a way that I couldn’t explain the reasoning behind. I hated feeling like I didn’t even know my own sister anymore—and what was worse was the fact that it was all my fault. But hopefully, I could fix that.

I cleared my throat nervously.

“Korinne?”

She turned to look at me, her hand poised on a package of Poptarts.

“What?” she asked quietly, her face expressionless.

“I was, uh, hoping I could talk to you.”

“Delia and Stevie are waiting for me.”

“Oh. Okay.”

She got her food and left, and I stared after her, disappointed. I was annoyed with myself at the abysmal attempt I’d just made at an apology, and, vowing to do better this time, I got up followed her.

Korinne was halfway up the stairs when I caught up to her, and she must have heard my footsteps, because she glanced over her shoulder and looked surprised to see me there.

“Korinne, please. I just want to talk,” I begged.

Something within her seemed to snap, for she rolled her eyes and affixed me with a hostile glare.

“Yeah, well, I don’t feel like talking, so if you could just leave me the fuck alone, that’d be great, thanks,” she snapped.

I found myself inexplicably stung by her words, and I reached out to grab her arm, trying to remedy the situation but unintentionally just making it worse. She backed away from me, looking murderous.

“LEAVE ME ALONE!” she shouted.

“Korinne, please! Just talk to me!” I yelled back, desperately.

“NO!”

And then, in one movement so fast I hadn’t seen it coming, she lunged at me. Her hands connected with my chest, shoving me backwards. I staggered back, not expecting such force from her, and flailed my arms wildly even though I knew it was no use. With my balance lost, my feet soon connected with air, and within seconds, I had tumbled down the stairs.

I heard a sickening crunch, and then there was a sharp pain in my leg, but that was the last of my worries. My head hurt, too, and the last thing I heard before the darkness took over was Korinne’s worried voice.

“E-Elias?”

+++

5:30 P.M.
Zoe;;

“Isabelle…Ryan…Victoria…Josh…Roxy…” I mumbled to myself as I wrote down every name I ever remembered liking. Of course, I wouldn’t be in need of them for a while, but it didn’t hurt to start preparing early.

Earlier, I had decided that it was time to face the music and tell my parents that I was pregnant. I had expected yelling, screaming, colorful profanities—that sort of thing—but instead, they had been calm. My mom had actually seemed kind of…excited, while my dad had quietly declared that Brian had better be helping me out with the baby, or he would get a foot stuck so far up his ass that it would come out of his mouth. I immediately informed them that Brian was on board, though, in all honesty, I hadn’t seen or heard from him since I’d called to tell him the news. I knew he would come around eventually, though. He had to. Plus, I knew that Korinne hadn’t been at school lately, which was obviously significant in some way.

There was a soft knocking on the door, followed by my mother’s voice.

“Zoe?”

I abandoned the pencil and paper, got up off of my bed, and went to open the door. My mom stood there, looking pleased.

“Brian is here to see you,” she announced, smiling.

My heartbeat kicked up several notches.

“Okay,” I said. “Tell him I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

Once she was gone, I dashed into the bathroom and yanked my hair out of its messy ponytail, arranging it around my face. I quickly touched up my makeup, applying a fresh coat of lip gloss. Then I headed downstairs, unable to keep a small grin off of my face.

Brian was waiting in the living room, looking nothing short of drop dead sexy as he sat comfortably on the couch. He turned his head as I walked towards him and gave me a somewhat nervous smile.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.”

I went and sat next to him.

“So…” He looked at me and seemed to be at a loss for words.

Sighing, I decided to make things easier for him.

“I want you back, Brian.”

“You do?”

No shit, Sherlock.

“Of course. You’re the father of my child. Why wouldn’t I want you in my life?”

He looked relieved.

“Okay…then does this mean--”

“That we’re back together?” I asked, cutting him off. “Yes, it does.”

And then, I didn’t waste any time before leaning forward and planting my lips on his—just like it was always supposed to be.