Bite Your Tongue

The Joy Of Summer

11:04 A.M.
Brian;;


“Brian, sweetie, could you open this for me?”

I rolled my eyes and turned to face my mom, who was wearing her robe and an expectant expression as she held out a new bottle of shampoo.

“Seriously, mom?”

She raised her eyebrows, and her voice adopted the tone that came before her getting angry.

“Seriously, Brian? Are you really going to be evil to me after the destructive party you threw last night? After I, out of the goodness of my soul, believed you when you said you told everyone to be neat and they just didn’t listen? Really?

“Sorry.”

Sighing, I took the bottle from her and opened it with one twist.

“Thank you.”

She disappeared, and a minute later, I heard the shower turn on. I gratefully returned to my previous task—preparing a mountainous plate of hangover food. The microwave beeped, announcing the successful heating of the several frozen burritos I’d thrown inside. I gave each burrito a poke to make sure it was hot. Then dumped all of them onto a plate, grabbed some extra plates as well and traipsed into the living room, where Jimmy and Johnny were passed out on the floor. Zacky and Matt had, of course, left last night’s party with their girlfriends.

“Hey,” I said, nudging Jimmy’s motionless form with my foot. “Get up. I’ve got microwaved burritos!”

Jimmy made a noise that was somewhere in between a dying whale and an angry duck. He didn’t move. Johnny, on the other hand, looked up right as I said burritos.

“Yay!” he exclaimed.

I sat down next to him and shoved the plate in his direction, allowing him to grab a burrito before taking one myself. I hadn’t really had that much to drink, so I was only suffering from a minor headache, but eating hangover food was still an after-party tradition that I doubted would ever cease.

Jimmy slowly pushed himself into a sitting position.

“Advil?” he mumbled, rubbing his face.

I tossed him the bottle I’d made sure to put in my pocket. He was unprepared, so it hit him in the face, and he then proceeded to call me a few unpleasant names. As Jimmy downed two of the pills, a vibrating noise came from the pile of blankets that had been my bed for the night. I answered it on the second ring.

“Hello?”

“Dude, are you awake?” Zacky’s sleepy voice said into the phone.

“Yep. But it sounds like you’re not.”

“Shut up…” he said, chuckling. “I’ve got a good excuse, too. Right, Delia?”

I raised my eyebrows. Did he mean…?

“Oh my God, Zacky, you’re so full of yourself,” she said. She raised her voice so I would hear. “We fell asleep watching Uptown Girls, Brian. Don’t go getting any ideas.”

I burst into loud laughter, causing Johnny and Jimmy to wince and give me identical death glares.

Uptown Girls? Wow, Zacky.”

He ignored me. “Anyway, apparently, we’re supposed to be at the recording studio by one today. The guy I talked to said that he just wants to meet with us about contracts and all that.”

“Okay,” I said, still laughing.

“Pass the message on, will you?”

“I will. So, what movie are you going to watch next? The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants?

There was female laughter in the background, accompanied by a very classy Fuck you from Zacky before he hung up the phone.

+++

12:30 P.M.
Korinne;


“Elias, keep up! I don’t want to be here all day.”

Elias rolled his eyes and stopped to rest next to the frozen vegetables.

“I’m on crutches, Korinne.”

“You drove here! You’re fine.”

“I know, but my leg hurts.”

“Well, then you should have stayed home.”

I consulted the grocery list in my hand and looked around the supermarket for the next item: frozen pizza, which was to be our dinner tonight, since my mom was at yet another meeting.

“Ooh, look! Hot Pockets!” Elias said, limping away towards the brightly colored boxes.

I shook my head, admitting defeat, and pushed the cart over towards the selection of frozen pizzas. There was so much to choose from that I eventually just closed my eyes and picked the first thing my hands touched—Elias would have to deal with it.

I turned around right as he returned with a box of pepperoni-flavored Hot Pockets in his mouth.

“We don’t have money for this,” I said, grabbing the box and setting it down. “Mom did give us a budget, you know.”

“Oh, come on. We’re like, loaded.”

“No, we’re not. Mom might make more money than she did before, but that doesn’t mean that we can spend it all on food we don’t need.”

“One box of Hot Pockets isn’t going to hurl us into poverty. Please?”

“God. You’re worse than a five-year old.”

“Does that mean yes?”

“Sure,” I said irritably, glancing over the list again. “Only now we’ll have to make do without Sprite…”

As Elias realized this and went to return the unnecessary Hot Pockets, I heard a familiar voice from the next aisle. I walked over, curiously, and my heart turned to ice when I saw Zoe. She was shopping with a woman that could only be her mom—they shared the same envy-inducing perfect blonde hair and good looks—and their entire cart was full of parenting magazines and diapers that I guessed they were buying beforehand.

I blinked back tears and tried to compose myself. It wasn’t like I hadn’t expected to see her at all over the summer—we lived in the same city, after all. But it still hurt to see her and know that she was happy with Brian and I wasn’t. I knew I would have to get over him eventually. Especially when the baby came.

It just sucked to have real proof that he wasn’t mine. He had made me the happiest I had ever been, and now that he was gone, I still had no idea how I was getting by. I couldn’t sleep very well, because I didn’t want to wake up to another day without seeing him, and I’d declined all invitations to hang out with Stevie and Delia today because of the risk of him being there. I was being pathetic, I knew it, and I really didn’t care. I just needed to get through the summer so school could start again and I could throw myself into my work.

“Ooh, maybe we should get a mobile! You know, to hang above the crib?” Zoe’s mom suggested.

Zoe squealed. “Definitely! And then we should go to Target. I saw the cutest bassinet on their website yesterday.”

I briefly considered taking my shopping cart and pushing it in their direction. The image of Zoe and her mom toppling to the ground like bowling pins pleased me in a sick, twisted way. Instead, I took a deep breath, clearing my mind, and headed back to where Elias was hopefully waiting—and not off looking for candy, or something—with a new determination.

I would get through this, no matter what.

+++

4:34 P.M.
Zacky;;


“Fuck, I’m starving.”

Jimmy looked at me like I was insane.

“We just ate.”

“I know. But I’m still starving.”

He shook his head.

The meeting with the record company people had been successful, and we were set to start recording our demo in a few weeks. We were all thrilled, but we’d already celebrated ourselves to the point of exhaustion, so instead of celebrating again, we’d each gone our separate ways. Johnny’s parent’s were making him babysit their neighbor’s kids again, and Brian had been dragged to Home Depot against his will—his mom was in one of her moods, and she’d randomly decided that she wanted to repaint their kitchen.

Jimmy and I were in the mall, searching for places that were hiring and filling out job applications. My mom had cracked down on me after seeing my most recent report card and said that in order for me to remain in the band, I needed a job. I didn’t really understand her thinking—it wasn’t like I was going to grow up and become a mathematician, so I didn’t know why having a D in Trig was such a big deal—but whatever. A job would be easy. I’d just be putting clothes on hangers or something mindless like that. And I’d be getting paid, which was pretty awesome. Jimmy had just agreed to come along because he was bored and didn’t feel like going home.

“So, where should we go now?” he asked.

“No idea,” I said. “Maybe somewhere near some sort of food?”

Jimmy chuckled.

“There’s an ice cream kiosk and a few shoe stores by Macy’s. And there’s that pet store, too.”

“Okay.”

The mall wasn’t crowded, so we reached our desired wing of the mall in a minute or two. A familiar girl was sitting on the bench outside of Macy’s, focusing intently on the piece of paper in her lap.

“Korinne!”

She looked up, searching for the source of the noise, and smiled when she saw us.

“Hey. What are you guys doing here?”

“Looking for jobs. You?”

She held up the piece of paper. “Same.”

“I thought you had to be eighteen to work at Macy’s.”

“You do. This is for Chick-Fil-A,” she said. She gestured to the multiple sheets of paper occupying the seat next to her. “And this is for Smoothie King, and this for that one shoe store by the south entrance…”

“Jesus,” said Jimmy. “A little desperate, are we?”

“I just need something, besides running errands for my mom, to keep myself busy.”

“If you ever need help with that, I’m always available. I can think of a few ways to keep you busy.”

Korinne laughed, rolling her eyes as she set down the Chick-Fil-A application and picked up another.

“Was that supposed to sound as perverted as it did?”

Jimmy grinned. “Yes, actually.”

I looked back and forth between the two of them. I didn’t think that I was hungry enough to start hallucinating, but there was no other explanation for the way they were acting. Strangely, it looked like there was something going on. Maybe I was just imagining things. It didn’t seem possible that Korinne was over Brian already—it had only been a few weeks since they’d broken up, and even if she was over him, it was kind of bitchy to go after one of his best friends. Korinne had never seemed like the type of person who would do something like that, and I doubted that she ever would. But I knew Jimmy well enough to know when he was interested in someone, and from what I had seen, he had clearly found a new challenge. I made a mental note to ask him about it later.

In the meantime, I grabbed a few applications from nearby stores, and the three of us talked about nonsense while Korinne finished filling out the papers—I got bored and gave up once I’d filled out about four applications.

By the time we finished, I was even hungrier. I made this known to the others, so we dropped off the completed applications and headed to the ice cream place for snacks. Then we walked around a bit while we ate, watching the mall slowly fill with people.

As I tossed my now empty bowl of ice cream into the trash can, I noticed Jimmy staring at Korinne. She noticed too, and blushed.

“Stop staring at me, Jimmy.”

“Sorry. Just…you’re really enjoying that ice cream, aren’t you?”

“You’re disgusting.”

“What?” he asked innocently.

“I’m just eating an ice cream cone! God. Get your mind out of the gutter.”

“I’ll get my mind out of the gutter as soon as you stop treating that ice cream cone like a penis,” Jimmy said.

Korinne rolled her eyes and continued to eat. I could tell Jimmy had gotten to her, though, for she ditched the ice cream a minute later, giving him the finger. He laughed, and I did, too, despite my gut telling me that I should be doing something to stop this. Brian was my best friend, and even if he was with Zoe, I knew he still cared about Korinne. I knew he wouldn’t be happy if her and Jimmy started to date. And as badly as I wanted to take Jimmy aside and ask him what the hell his problem was, it didn’t seem right to interfere.

If they wanted to date, then fine. I just hoped that they knew what they were getting themselves into.