Bite Your Tongue

Korinne;;
11:30 A.M.

“Korinne!”

I tried to ignore the sound of Jimmy’s voice as I hurriedly assembled a customer’s chicken sandwich, all too aware of the woman’s impatient gaze on my back.

“Korinne!”

“What, Jimmy?”

“What’s the correct change if a customer gave me a ten dollar bill for an order that cost four fifty-seven?”

“I don’t know! Doesn’t the cash register tell you that?” I asked. I quickly wrapped the sandwich and placed it into a bag with the rest of the woman’s order.

Jimmy was silent for a moment. Then I saw him peer around the corner and smile.

“Yeah, it does. Thanks.”

I completed the woman’s order with some fries and handed her the bag, telling her to have a nice day. Then I whirled around to glare at Jimmy, who was operating the drive through window.

“Were you just messing with me, or did you really not know that?”

He gave me a wicked grin.

“What do you think?”

Repressing the urge to beat my head against the nearest wall, I resumed my position at the front counter. A group of pink-faced young boys in dirty baseball uniforms had just walked in, accompanied by an older man who I guessed was their coach. The boys started jumping around, loudly proclaiming the food they intended to order.

Please kill me now.

It had been two weeks since that disastrous show, and in an effort to keep myself from thinking about things, I’d taken on as many shifts as possible at work. My attempt had been successful—the only reminder I had of that night was Jimmy’s nose, which was still badly bruised, but healing. And as long as I could pretend that he’d just broken it by tripping and falling onto something, I was fine. Well, as fine as one could get when working in the food service industry.

I’d always thought that working at a fast food restaurant would be easy, that it wouldn’t take that much energy. I was sadly mistaken. It was hell. I hated chicken and any variation of it. I hated stupid waffle fries and stupid milkshakes and stupid ice cream. Every time I had to fill an order for chicken nuggets, it felt like a tiny part of my soul was dying. Each new customer became my enemy, the degree of my hatred towards them determined by how complicated of an order they decided to place. Kind souls who only ordered sodas or ice cream were my favorite. But anyone who ordered anything more complicated than that automatically ensured that my smile would be forced when I handed them their food, and that I would envision spitting into their order several times before deciding against it.

Basically, I hated my job.

Jimmy, on the other hand, seemed to love working at Chick-Fil-A. He filled orders with a smile that I could tell was genuine, and he was always in a good mood no matter how busy the restaurant got or how annoying the customers were. I envied his calmness. It was him who made getting through the day a possibility; he somehow could always sense when I was seconds away from completely freaking out and screaming at someone that no, they could not have a little extra mustard; they needed to sit the fuck down and eat their goddamned sandwich—and he would always make a joke or do something to get my mind off of how irritated I was. Even if he sometimes—like today—only made matters worse, I was still grateful for his presence. Nothing fazed him. He handled every situation politely and with ease, and it was impossible for a customer to get under his skin.

“Korinne!” Jimmy said loudly.

I looked in his direction to see him strolling toward me, a sour look on his face.

“Yeah?”

“Could you handle the drive-thru window for a minute, please?”

“Why?”

He stepped out of the way and pointed at the person inside the car idling outside; the one customer he apparently couldn’t deal with: Brian.

I looked away quickly. He was absolutely, positively, the last person I wanted to see right now. Thinking about him made me feel sick—I was constantly torn between being excited that he hadn’t totally gotten over me and hating him for what he did to Jimmy. I couldn’t believe that Brian had beaten up one of his best friends. Out of all of the guys, he’d always seemed like the one least inclined to exhibit violent behavior, and even as I tried to justify what he’d done, telling myself that he had every reason to be angry, I couldn’t deny that I was slightly scared of him.

“Why do you want me to talk to him?” I asked.

“Because he hates me, and I’d rather not have someone snarling at me.”

“But—”

“I know it’s awkward. I don’t want to get fired for punching him in the head, though. Please?”

Sighing, I agreed. “Fine.”

I dragged my feet as I headed toward the window, determined to take as long as I possibly could. The distance was short, however, so I reached my destination long before I’d wanted to. Brian looked up, and shock became evident on his face as he saw that it was me.

“Korinne!”

“Good morning. Welcome to Chick-Fil-A.”

“You work here?”

“Obviously,” I said, gesturing to my uniform and name tag. The amount of venom in my voice surprised me, and I tried to sound civil the next time I spoke. “Can I take your order?”

“Oh, Jimmy already took it.” His face darkened. “He must not have recognized my voice at first, ‘cause he took my money, but he bolted once he saw it was me.”

I glanced at the small television screen above my head, looking at the orders that were currently being assembled.

“What did you order?”

“Chicken strips, a chargrilled chicken club sandwich, two orders of fries, a chocolate milkshake, a Coke, and some packets of honey mustard, ketchup, mustard, and mayo. Oh, and a fudge nut brownie.”

I tried not to start picturing his death in my head. Of course he would have a complicated order. Of course he couldn’t just order a damn chicken sandwich and be done with it.

“Uh, okay.” I started to walk away. “I’ll go check on it for you—”

“Wait!”

I paused, despite all of my muscles itching to run in the opposite direction.

“Um…how are you?”

How am I? Are you fucking kidding?

“Super,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Now if you’ll excuse me—”

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

“I’m working.”

“Yeah, working on my order, which I’m guessing won’t be done for at least a minute or two. So…can we talk? Please?”

“Fine.” I crossed my arms over my chest and looked at him expectantly. “Talk.”

“I know I probably freaked you out…you know, after the show? I didn’t want you to think that I would ever hurt you like that. I would never hurt you like that, Korinne.”

“You expect me to believe you?” I scoffed. “I didn’t think that you would ever break Jimmy’s nose for no reason, but life is full of surprises, I guess.”

“I didn’t mean to break his nose! I just…I was so angry, and I had to do something. And I didn’t punch him for no reason! I had a damn good one!”

“Why? Because he kissed me?”

“Yes!”

“So what?” I shrieked. “It’s not like you and I are still dating. You broke up with me, which means I can date whoever the hell I want to date, and you just have to deal with it. If you didn’t want me dating other people, then you shouldn’t have broken up with me.”

“I didn’t have a choice! And you didn’t have to pick Jimmy, either!”

I didn’t want to bother pointing out that he did have a choice. You didn’t HAVE to go back to Zoe, I thought bitterly.

“You can’t tell me who I can and can’t date, Brian! You don’t own me.”

“I’m not trying to —“

“And another thing—if, in the future, you have a problem with who I’m dating, talk to me instead of beating the shit out of them. Jimmy didn’t deserve what you did to him. If you were mad at me, you should have said so.”

“I’m not…never mind.” He sighed. “I didn’t come here to argue with you, Korinne.”

“Really? You could’ve fooled me.”

Someone tapped me on the shoulder, and I turned around to see Lauren, the shy blonde girl who had been filling most of the drive-thru orders, standing there with two bulging bags in her hand. I thanked her and quickly checked the bags to make sure Brian’s order was complete before going to grab some straws.

“Korinne.”

“What, Brian?” I said irritably. He didn’t say anything, so I glanced at him impatiently, hoping he would hurry up so I could get the hell away from him.

He opened and closed his mouth a few times before speaking.

“I love you,” he said.

I blinked, sure that I had been hallucinating.

“Excuse me?”

“I love you.”

The words that had come out of his mouth were so ridiculous that I blurted out the only thing I could think of.

“What the fuck?!”

“Okay, I definitely pictured your reaction as being way more pleasant than that.”

“What, did you expect me to vault out of the window and into your arms?” I snapped. “You have a girlfriend, Brian. A pregnant girlfriend. You can’t go around telling other people that you love them.”

“But—”

I tossed the bags containing his food at him. One of the drinks probably spilled over, but I didn’t care.

“Here’s your damn food. Now go home.”

I walked away, forcing myself not to look back.

If I wasn’t a voice inside your head, I would totally give you a high five right about now.

Go away.

Ignoring Jimmy’s worried gaze and the inquisitive ones of my other coworkers, I headed for the bathrooms, and managed to make it into a stall before bursting into tears.

+++

2:21 P.M.

“Holy shit…what happened?” Elias’s voice was half-worried, half-disgusted as he saw the mess I had made of the kitchen table.

“Nothing,” I said, shoving another spoonful of Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Therapy ice cream into my mouth.

He raised an eyebrow, and I could almost see the gears turning in his head as he tried to figure out what could have caused such a colossal mess.

“Um…oookay.”

“Could you leave me to wallow in peace, please?”

“Absolutely not.”

He slid into the seat next to me.

“What’s wrong?”

“Hand me those marshmallows, will you?”

“Not until you tell me what happened.”

“Fine then, I’ll get them myself!”

I threw down my spoon, feeling satisfied by the metallic clunking sound it produced as it came into contact with the table, and lunged for the bag of marshmallows. Elias got there first and held them over his head.

“Elias!”

He looked at me closely.

“Have you been crying?”

“Give me the fucking marshmallows!”

“Answer my question!”

“No!”

“I guess you don’t get any marshmallows, then.”

“Fine.” I tried my best not to start crying again as I explained things. “Brian showed up at Chick-Fil-A today, and Jimmy made me talk to him since he didn’t want to get fired for punching a customer, and Brian was all ‘Oh, I didn’t meant to punch Jimmy and break his nose; I don’t want you to be afraid of me, Korinne’, and I was all ‘Bullshit’, and then he was all ‘You didn’t have to pick Jimmy’, and I was all ‘You can’t tell me who to date!’ and then he was like ‘I love you’, and then I really couldn’t take it anymore and I was such a total bitch to him and then Jimmy drove me home; he’s so nice, and I know he probably heard the whole thing but he’s still nice to me for some reason, and when I got home I was hungry so I found the ice cream and things progressed from there. So, sorry if I made a mess of the kitchen and I may have eaten some of your cereal but you’re going to have to get over it because I’m kind of freaking out here. And Brian probably hates my guts right now but seriously? ‘I love you’? That totally wasn’t how I wanted him to tell me that! I wanted it to be on the beach, with us watching the sunset, and…just…fuck, I hate him for just springing stupid shit like ‘I love you’ on me without any warning! What was he expecting? Huh? HE HAS A GIRLFRIEND, DAMMIT! ”

Elias just stared at me in pure shock for a few seconds.

“Um, okay. First of all, breathe.”

I took a deep breath, and as I let it out, I started sobbing.

“Here,” Elias said, handing me the marshmallows. “You’re going to need these.”

He reached into his back pocket and retrieved a half-full bag of Hot Cheetos.

“And these,” he added.

I sniffled. “Thank you.”

“Where’s your cell phone?”

“Why?”

“Never mind, I see it.”

He grabbed it off of the table, pressed a few buttons, and held it to his ear.

“Who are you—”

“Shh. Go eat your marshmallows.”

Scowling, I sat down and tore open the bag, reveling in the fluffy goodness as Elias had his conversation.

“Hello, uh, Stevie? …Yeah, it’s Elias…no, she’s not okay, she’s….uh…well, I don’t really know what to do in this situation, so I’m calling you…okay.” He hung up the phone. “Stevie’s coming over,” he declared.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I said through my mouthful of marshmallows. “I’m fine.”

He responded with a pitying look, so I guessed that I must have looked even worse than I felt. I dismissed him with a miserable wave of my hand.

“Whatever. Thanks for the Hot Cheetos, though.”

He departed hesitantly, as if he expected me to throw myself to the ground and try to rip the tile off of the floor.

Stevie arrived less than ten minutes later, after I had finished the marshmallows and moved on to the Hot Cheetos. I heard Elias let her in; she breezed into the kitchen, and her jaw dropped.

“Oh my God,” she said. “What are you doing to yourself?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” I responded.

She was so tan that she almost looked like a different ethnicity, and she was wearing sunglasses that were so big they looked like they were attempting to eat her face.

“Did Jimmy do something stupid? God, I swear, men are such idiots.”

“Not Jimmy. Brian.”

“Oh, shit. What happened?” Stevie pulled out a chair and perched on the edge of it. “I’m guessing it’s pretty bad, since you seem to be vacuuming up every ounce of junk food on the planet.”

I ignored her jab at my recent failure in the consumption of healthy foods and instead inspected her peculiar appearance.

“Why are you wearing those sunglasses? You look ridiculous. Like some sort of insect.”

“I’m going to pretend that you did not just say that. These are Versace sunglasses, Korinne.”

“…Okay, but you still look like a bug.”

Stevie rolled her eyes.

“Don’t change the subject. What did Brian do?”

I licked Hot Cheeto dust off of my fingers.

“He told me he loved me. Out of fucking nowhere. Like, ‘Oh, hey, I’m here to order a bunch of ridiculously complicated shit to make you miserable, and by the way I LOVE YOU’.”

“Oh, honey.”

“‘I love you’? Are you fucking kidding me?! You can’t just…he can’t…”

Sensing another round of hysterics, I reached for the bag of white chocolate chips.

“Drop the chocolate chips, Korinne.”

“No!”

“I know you’re upset and emotionally distraught, but binge eating won’t do anything but make things worse. Trust me.”

She snatched the chocolate chips off of the table and began to gather the rest of the food up as well.

“All I want to do is eat, Stevie! Can you please at let me be pathetic for a few more hours?”

“Nope.”

“Please?”

“No way. I care about you too much to let you do this to yourself.”

“But—”

“I have a better way of taking your mind off of things. My family does it all the time. I call it the Ryan Family Solution To Everything.”

“You just made that up, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but that’s not the point.” She pushed her sunglasses up onto the top of her head and looked at me, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “The point is that you need to get upstairs and start packing.”

“Packing?” I frowned. “Packing for what?”

“Packing for London!” Stevie exclaimed.

“What?”

“You know, London. Sexy accents, fish and chips, Big Ben…”

“London?!”

“You heard me.” She started to shove the food I had been eating into random cabinets.

“I can’t just up and go to London, Stevie. I have a job. And I don’t have money for—“

“Korinne, if you live in this neighborhood, you have the money.”

I knew she had a point, but what I didn’t know was if my mom even realized how much money she was making. We probably did have the money—she was just to busy to notice.

“Okay, fine, that was a dumb excuse. But I have to work; I can’t just—”

Stevie placed her hands on my shoulders and gave me a little shake.

“Look. You need an escape. And now is the perfect time. My mom is mad at my dad and in one of her Let’s-Leave-The-Country moods, and she’s practically begging me to go with her. She bribed me by saying I could bring a friend, and I’d ask Delia, but she’s already agreed to be a camp counselor at some super-intense gymnastics camp for the entire summer, so I’m asking you, and I’m begging you not to say no. You don’t even have to pay for it, unless you’re crazy and want to, for some reason. And it’s not like you need a job, anyway.” She looked at me with huge, pleading eyes. “So, how about it?”

As crazy as it seemed, it did seem like the perfect opportunity to forget about everything that had happened over the past few weeks. I didn’t think my mom would have a problem with me going. I’d always wanted to go, too. So I decided to go along with the impulsiveness.

“Sure,” I said. “London. Why not?”