Bite Your Tongue

Twister

10:35 A.M.
Korinne;;


“Fuck yeah, last day of school!”

A tall kid I recognized from my Spanish class rocketed past me in a shopping cart, closely pursued by two of his friends. I stared after them for a second, wondering how in the hell they had managed to sneak a shopping cart into school and ride it through the hallways without being caught.

Shaking my head, I closed my locker and headed to homeroom. It was the last day, I was done with finals, and my obligations to the school ended with cleaning out my locker. I was about five minutes away from not being a freshman anymore.

The room was crowded with people when I entered. Everyone was making plans for the summer and expressing general joy about school being over for a bit. I, on the other hand, just wanted to pack my things and leave before I ran into Brian. I wasn’t avoiding him, exactly, but talking to him hurt like a bitch and was something best done in small doses. I didn’t know if we were still friends—I had no idea how we could be, actually—and I definitely didn’t hate him, but I just couldn’t talk to him. Not today, when I was in such a good mood due to it being the last day of school.

I was throwing the massive amount of paper that had been in my locker into the recycling bin when my phone vibrated, startling me. I retrieved it from my pocket and flipped it open, quickly scanning the words on the text message I’d received from Stevie.

You, me and Delia at California Pizza Kitchen for lunch in an hour. I’ll pick you up in front of the school.
BE THERE!


I grinned and composed a reply. I was infinitely grateful that all of my friends were older than me and in possession of cars—I certainly wasn’t jealous of how Elias had to make arrangements a week in advance just to use my mom’s car for a few hours. My mom was making enough money that Elias and I each could probably have gotten our own cars, but if she was aware that she now had two kids of legal driving age, she didn’t make it known. I was still rather far away from getting my driver’s license, but ever since Elias had apologized, he’d been extremely nice to me, even offering to drive me wherever I wanted when he had the car, since our mom was too busy to concentrate on anything but her work. He’d also been teaching me the basic principles of driving that I would have learned months ago if I had had a parent who paid even the slightest bit of attention to me. His leg had yet to heal, but since he’d broken his left leg, he insisted that he was fine and continued driving whenever he could. And he’d already told me he was going to see a movie with Maddie tonight, so I was happy not to bother him.

I pressed the send button, putting the phone away right as a familiar person stepped into the doorway. My mind registered the person’s details in fragments—long, dark hair. Alluring brown eyes. Shirt just tight enough to show a hint of muscle beneath the fabric.

Brian gave me a small smile. He looked a bit uncomfortable.

“Hey, Korinne,” he said. “I, uh, didn’t know you’d be here.”

“Well, this is my homeroom. Yours, too.”

He chuckled. “True. So, what’s up?”

“I was just cleaning out my locker,” I said. Seeing him seemed to re-open the aching wound in my chest that had been left by our breakup.

“Fun stuff.”

“Yep.”

I tried not to stare at him, but it was impossible. I was so accustomed to his face that I could instantly tell that something was up with him—good or bad, though, I didn’t know.

“Is everything okay?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m fine.”

We stared at each other awkwardly for a few seconds.

“Well…I should probably go,” I said finally. “I have some forms to pick up from the office.”

Brian followed me as I walked back to my desk to grab my now empty backpack.

“Forms? For what? You’re not in trouble, are you?”

I shook my head. “Nope. They’re letting me skip straight to junior year, so there are all sorts of waivers my mom has to fill out.”

His eyes widened in shock.

“You’re skipping a grade?”

“Yep.”

“That’s great!”

A huge grin took over his face.

“I know!”

He stepped forward and for a second, I thought he was going to hug me. But he seemed to quickly realize what I must have been thinking, and he moved away slightly.

Another awkward silence progressed.

“Right. So…I guess I’ll see you around?”

“Yeah…see you around,” I replied.

He gave me a small smile and left the room, enabling me to breathe normally again. I slipped my backpack over my shoulders, trying to get my hands to stop shaking. I felt ridiculous reacting so strongly to a simple conversation. It had been several weeks since we’d stopped dating. I should have been close to being somewhat capable of dealing with things by now.

You’re so lame.

Leave me alone.

I mean, ‘See you around’? Seriously?

He said it first!

So? That doesn’t mean you have to repeat it!

What should I have said, then?

…I don’t know.


Sighing, I pulled myself together and headed out the door.

+++

12:46 P.M.
Brian;;


“Okay, so what was so important that I had to stay for lunch instead of leaving early?” asked Jimmy in a complaining tone. He glared at me as he sipped his can of Coke.

I rolled my eyes.

“It’s worth it, trust me.”

“Will you just tell us already?” Johnny said. “I want to get a calzone before they run out.”

“You’re all a bunch of whiny babies,” said Zacky.

“Who cares? I’m starving; can we please hurry this up?”

Zacky glared at Matt and everyone else for a few seconds before giving in.

“All right. Since WE’RE GETTING SIGNED TO A FUCKIN’ RECORD LABEL, I thought we should throw a party.”

“Oh, yeah! I forgot about that!”

“Jimmy, you’re an idiot.”

“Fuck you.”

Zacky ignored him.

“And at this party, we can also celebrate the end of the school year, yeah?”

“Sure!”

“Will there be strippers this time?” Johnny asked.

“If you want to pay for them, then yeah, sure. Knock yourself out.”

Johnny sank down in his seat a little.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Zacky said, laughing. He turned to Jimmy.

“So. Jimmy. You think your parents will be cool with the party being at your house?”

“Hell no, man. Someone puked on their bed last time.”

“Oh…well then.” Zacky turned to me. “Brian?”

“I don’t think my mom will have a problem with it.”

“Great! Go ask her, and the rest of us will start spreading the word.”

+++

By seven o' clock that night, the party was in full swing. It was kind of scary how quickly things fell into place after publicizing the event to a few notorious big-mouths and grabbing a bunch of cheap food from the store.

As Johnny messed with my computer, trying to find the perfect mix of party songs, I headed into the kitchen for another beer. Zacky was leaning against the counter, stuffing his face with chips.

"Hey."

"Dude, this party is fucking awesome."

"I know."

"And your mom is totally cool for agreeing to leave the house for a few hours."

I didn't tell him that she had only left under the pretense of me not destroying the place. I now had the feeling that I was going to be grounded until the end of all eternity once she returned.

"Have you seen Delia?” Zacky asked. “She said she would be here twenty minutes ago.”

"I saw Stevie making out with Matt upstairs, so Delia's probably here too."

And so is Korinne, I added silently. I hadn't seen her yet, and as much as I enjoyed her presence, Zoe was here, and I knew she would fly into a rage if I so much as glanced in Korinne's direction.

"I guess I'd better check upstairs, then."

Zacky left, taking the bag of chips with him. A second later, Zoe walked in. Her face brightened when she saw me.

"There you are."

"Here I am."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I'm just...tired," I lied. Well, it wasn't a total lie. I was pretty exhausted.

Zoe ran her hands through my hair. "You poor thing," she said.

"Want to go watch a movie upstairs?"

"Do you really plan on actually watching the movie?"

"Of course. Unless you don't want to..." she trailed off suggestively.

"Maybe later."

Zoe smiled and hooked her arm through mine, leading the way upstairs.

+++

Korinne;;
8:45 P.M.


I am going to kill Stevie, I thought as I walked miserably throughout Brian's house. I’d had fun with her and Delia at lunch earlier, but now her spot on my List of Favorite People was definitely in jeopardy. She'd dragged me here to keep me from wallowing in my sorrows at home, but I didn't see how this was any better. Brian was here, as was Zoe. I would have rather faced a night of loneliness than see those two all over each other, like everything was back to how it was before I'd moved here.

It was like Brian had completely erased me from his memory.

Not knowing what else to do, I wandered into the kitchen, looking for something to eat. I rolled my eyes after looking into the refrigerator--it was full of beer and nothing else. There were some chips on the counter, along with some cheese puffs and other predictable party snacks. I absentmindedly grabbed a plate and loaded it with a mixture of food.

The only drink options seemed to be beer, but after a few minutes of searching, I managed to locate a case of bottled water shoved in a corner. I used my nails to rip through the plastic and took a bottle with me into the living room.

This party was on a much smaller scale than the disastrous one I'd attended with Brian, but it was still a party. A group of people had gathered around the TV and were playing Rock Band, while others had claimed a corner of the room to play Twister. I laughed quietly to myself as Zacky twisted himself inappropriately and purposefully around Delia, causing her to blush. Jimmy, who seemed to be in charge of the spinner, started laughing hysterically.

I looked for someone else to talk to, but Stevie was nowhere to be seen, and I didn't want to interrupt Delia. Sighing, I settled for lounging on the couch and watching people make idiots out of themselves. It made no sense to me, but I somehow felt lonelier here than I imagined I would have if I had stayed home. Sure, I knew most of these people from school, and they knew me from when I used to date Brian, but I wasn't friends with them. And the small group of friends I did have seemed to have forgotten about me. Or maybe they just didn't care.

"Wow, I'm a loser," I muttered to myself. Here I was at a party full of friendly people, and instead of putting myself out there and attempting to make new friends, I had already returned to my old habit of disappearing into the crowd.

I bit angrily into a cheese puff.

I had eaten about half of my plate when someone threw themselves down on the couch so forcefully that I bounced about a foot in the air. I turned to glare at them, my gaze softening when I saw that it was Jimmy.

"Oh, it's you."

"Disappointed?" he asked, grinning.

"No, I just thought you were someone else. Someone else I could have glared at for nearly bouncing me off of the couch."

"Sorry about that."

"It's fine."

"So what's up? You look lonely."

"I'm fine." I threw a handful of Chex Mix into my mouth.

"If you were fine, you'd be over there playing Twister with Zacky and Delia and me."

"I wouldn't play Twister with Zacky if you paid me. In fact, I'm pretty sure that that should be illegal in some states."

Jimmy laughed, and I found myself wondering why I'd never noticed how pleasant the sound was.

Excuse me?!

What? He has a pleasant laugh!

You just got dumped, Korinne.

You think I don’t know that?



Jimmy’s just a friend.

Oh, sure. A friend with a pleasant laugh.

Yes, a friend with a pleasant laugh. Good lord.


"It probably should be," he agreed. "But come on--are you really going to sit here all night? Alone?"

I looked down at my food. The pretzels seemed to scream at me to stop being such a loser and go be social.

"Fine. But tell Zacky he needs to keep his hands to himself.”

Half an hour later, my arms were shaking as I attempted to hold myself up so I wouldn't collapse onto Jimmy. Zacky had taken over the job of spinning the spinner-thingy, and I was beginning to suspect that he wasn't spinning at all--just simply making up positions as he went.

"Okay. Uh, left hand yellow."

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

Jimmy did a sort of mid-air twist to accomplish the maneuver, giving me an extremely close up view of his rear end.

"Jimmy!" I exclaimed, laughing as I shifted my weight so my left hand was on a yellow dot. "Get your ass out of my face!"

He wiggled his butt. "You know you like it."

Delia burst into laughter and fell. "I give up. I'm going to go get some food."

"At least you tried, babe." Zacky kissed her on the cheek before she left. "Okay, you two. Ready to see who's the Twister Champion?"

"Sure, why not?"

A few spins later, I was about 99% sure that Zacky wasn't even spinning. My hand was reaching between Jimmy's legs to touch a blue dot, and Jimmy's arm was dangerously close to my chest.

"Zacky," I said as I willed my arm muscles not to give up on me. "Are you even spinning?"

"Of course I am." He gave me a wicked grin and flicked the spinner for dramatic effect.

I rolled my eyes.

"Okay...Right foot, green."

"You have got to be kidding me." In order for me to get my right foot on green, I had to throw my leg over Jimmy's torso and practically straddle him, while still keeping my hand on the red dot underneath his crotch.

I was so going to kill Zacky when this was over.

Jimmy chuckled as he assessed our new predicament.

"Well, Korinne. I never really pictured you as an on-top kind of girl, but you seem pretty comfortable..."

Shocked, I lost focus and collapsed onto him. I'm sure I turned bright red as I hastily scrambled to my feet.

"Asshole," I said.

"Don't be a sore loser, Korinne!" Zacky scolded.

"A sore loser? Did you even hear what he said to me?"

"Yup. And that's exactly why Twister requires such intense mental focus."

Rolling my eyes, I went to return to my food. Strangely, instead of being mad at Jimmy for distracting me, I felt like I could have giggled. And as I spotted my plate and reclaimed my spot on the couch, I kept seeing Jimmy's smiling face in my mind.

And hearing his pleasant laugh, don’t forget that.

Shut up!


I suddenly got the feeling that this was going to be quite an interesting summer.

Yes. An interesting summer, indeed.