Bite Your Tongue

10:24 A.M.
Zoe;;

Once you got past the morning sickness, the back pain, and the eating everything in sight, being pregnant didn’t actually suck all that much, I decided. I had a solid excuse for staying home all day and doing absolutely nothing. And if I didn’t feel like doing something, like going with my mom to her dumb country club, I could easily claim that I felt sick or tired or whatever, and I was instantly free to do as I pleased. It did get kind of boring, though. Summer wasn’t even halfway over, but I felt like I’d already watched about every TV show and every movie on every channel possible. I’d also scoured every website I possibly could in search of baby names and now possessed a list long enough to provide practically an entire town with names. There was nothing else to do. I kind of wanted to go shopping, even though it was probably too early to start buying maternity clothes, but that would have required leaving the house, and since I felt disgusting today, there was no way that was going to happen.

I headed into the kitchen in search of some food. My stomach had been growling and I’d been ignoring it, telling myself that I wouldn’t eat until lunch, but I didn’t want to starve my baby, so I forced myself to forget about my aversion to a second midmorning snack and started searching through the cabinets. In anticipation of my inevitable cravings, my mom had removed all unhealthy food from our house and replaced it with a bunch of all-natural, organic shit, half of which I couldn’t even pronounce. There were no processed foods either, not even a simple microwave meal, so if I wanted something, I’d have to cook it.

“Fucking hell,” I muttered, trying to find something that was easy to prepare. What I really wanted was a hot dog—no, wait, a chili cheese dog. With onions. And some fries. And maybe a milkshake. Sadly, the only thing I could find that was even remotely close to a hot dog was some sort of tofu bratwurst thing, which had the appearance of blended vomit shoved into a hot dog casing. Instead, I quickly settled for some peanut butter toast—on ultra-healthy bread, of course—and an apple. Once my food was ready, I took my plate and sat at the kitchen table with a sigh.

The house was absolutely silent except for the faint sound of some dumb reality show on TV in the living room. My dad was at work, and my mom was probably off spending his hard-earned money at Nordstrom or Neiman Marcus or something. As nice as it was to not have my parents home nagging me, I missed their presence. I hated the feeling of being absolutely alone. It made me feel like a total loser. I wanted to call Brian and make him come keep me company, but he was off recording with the band, and besides, he rarely answered his cell phone when I called.

I crunched dejectedly into my toast and attempted to think of someone I could call. No one came to mind instantly, and I found that incredibly lame. I’d never had a problem with friends before, not until Korinne had moved here and forced me to be a bitch in order to claim what was rightfully mine. I’d known Stevie and Delia since kindergarten; we’d met the guys sometime during eighth grade, and there was never a reason to meet new people, because we’d had our own group we were comfortable with. Now, though, I wished that I’d at least tried to make some new friends. The guys were all busy. Delia was probably doing something gymnastics-related. Feeling pathetic, I decided to call Stevie and see if she would be willing to come over. She’d probably refuse, but I had to give it a try.

She didn’t answer her cell phone, so I called her house. A voice a recognized as her father’s picked up on the third ring.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Mr. Ryan. It’s Zoe.”

“Zoe! We haven’t seen you in quite a while!”

Yeah, I know, I thought bitterly.

“I’ve been busy.”

“Well, you’re welcome here anytime you like!”

I rolled my eyes.

“Thanks. Is Stevie there?”

“No, I’m afraid she’s not. Her mother took her to Europe with a friend.”

“Oh….what friend?”

“I’m not sure. I think it started with a K.”

“Korinne?”

“Yes, that was it!”

His words stung like a slap in the face. I knew Stevie and I hadn’t exactly been best friends as of late, but I thought she would have at least had the decency to tell me she was going to Europe! I couldn’t believe she hadn’t invited me. Was I suddenly the antichrist now, because I’d been mean to Korinne, who everyone loved for some reason? I didn’t understand what was so special about her. I was ten times prettier than she was, even on my worst day. I wasn’t socially awkward like her, either. So why the fuck did everyone like her so much?

“Zoe? Are you still there?” Stevie’s father asked.

I fought hard to keep anger out of my voice. “Yeah, I’m here. Thanks, Mr. Ryan. I’ll try Stevie’s cell phone again.”

I hung up the phone before he could respond and tossed the device across the room with every ounce of strength that I had. It didn’t shatter into dozens of small, sharp pieces, like I’d hoped, but it made a satisfying noise as it bounced off of the wall. That wasn’t quite the emotional catharsis I was searching for, so I screamed. I screamed hard enough to strain my throat and I kicked over the nearest chair, imagining that it was Korinne and that every kick caused another one of her bones to break. I hated her. First she’d stolen Brian from me, and now she was stealing my friends? There was no way in hell. I’d gotten Brian back without a problem. And I was going to do whatever it took to get Stevie back as well. But since I couldn’t exactly fly to Europe and snatch Stevie out of Korinne’s thieving hands, I would have to figure out a way to ruin her life from here. No one treated Zoe Windham this way.

She was going to wish she’d never been born.

I stormed about the house in a whirl of hatred, taking out my anger on whatever I possibly could—the couch, a pillow, one of my mom’s glass vases. I did this until I could actually think clearly, until the veil of rage clouding my eyes was gone. Then I returned to the kitchen, taking slow, even breaths as my mind worked to come up with a plan. What are her weaknesses? I wondered. What will make her miserable?

The answer popped into my head almost immediately: Brian.

It wasn’t hard to notice the looks she gave me whenever I was around him. I would have had to be just plain stupid not to notice them, actually. If every second she saw me with him wasn’t pure, absolute torture, I knew it had to be close. And I just so happened to know what might push her over the edge.

I snatched my phone off of the table and quickly accessed the pictures I had stored. Nearly all of the pictures were of Brian and I, smiling and happy about a year or two ago. Frowning, I continued scrolling through the list. Those pictures were okay, but I needed something more. Something that would, without a doubt, ruin Korinne’s day like she was attempting to ruin my entire life.

An idea suddenly struck me, and I scrolled faster, looking for one set of pictures in particular. Within seconds, I had found them. The pictures were ones I’d never intended to show to anyone. They’d been taken one night when Brian and I were bored as hell, after we’d raided the fridge for alcohol and gone upsairs to mess around. He’d been way more trashed than me, and, just for the hell of it, I’d decided to take some pictures. He was naked in most of them. And so was I.

I sat back for a moment, marveling at my own genius. Then I set about finding Korinne’s number in my contacts list. I’d gotten it shortly after we’d met, when I’d had no idea that she was interested in Brian and was just trying to be nice to the new girl. I’d never expected a phone number to be put to such good use.

Giggling, I began to send her the pictures in one minute intervals.

Have fun in Europe, I thought. And enjoy the slideshow, bitch.

+++

4:45 P.M.
Korinne;;

“Stevie,” I said, trying not to laugh at the outfit she was wearing, “You are deranged.”

Stevie dissolved into hysterical giggles.

We were in the lingerie department at Harrods, having some fun after a long day of shopping. Stevie and her mother shopped like they were training to compete for an Olympic event. It’d been fun at first, but after a few hours, my feet had started to hurt, and I’d simply shuffled after them from store to store. I hadn’t complained, though—the foot pain was a welcome distraction from the thoughts of things back home that plagued me at night, keeping me awake. Despite Stevie keeping her promise and making sure I had fun, once she was asleep, I was alone, and I didn’t handle that very well. Some nights I stayed up well into the morning, tossing and turning and wishing that Brian was in the bed next to me. It was pathetic, I knew, but I couldn’t help it. I missed him. And I didn’t know which was worse—being away from him and having no idea what he was doing, or being around him and being constantly reminded that he wasn’t with me.

Boys sucked.

I forced myself to stop thinking about him before I got too depressed and focused instead of the ridiculous thing Stevie was trying on.

“What do you think?” she asked, snorting.

“I think you look like a hooker,” I said. She was wearing a pale blue corset that defied the natural position of her breasts, and black lacy stockings.

“I know, right?” She gave another giggle and gestured to the doorway that led back out into the main part of the store. “Go find something to try on and join me!”

I stared at her, horrified.

“Um…no.”

“Why not?”

“…Because I don’t feel like it?”

Stevie rolled her eyes, placing a hand on her hip.

“Oh, come on. It’s fun!”

“Stevie. How is this fun?”

“Well…‘cause we’re young and we’re probably never going to look this hot ever again,” she said with a cheerful smile.

I laughed, shaking my head. “The answer’s still no.”

“Whhhhy?!”

“Honestly? Because I think of lingerie as something you buy to wear in front of someone special, and since the someone special I have in mind is going to be a father in several months, trying on some lacy, skimpy thing will probably make me want to hurl myself down an escalator or two.”

Stevie gave me an apologetic look.

“Right. Sorry. I didn’t think about that.”

“It’s okay.”

“We can go back to hotel, if you want. I’ll go find my mom and tell her to stop shopping for makeup—she has enough anyway—and we can leave.”

“No, no, it’s fine. You have fun.” I pulled out a magazine I’d grabbed before we’d left the hotel. “I’ll be here reading.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Stevie,” I said, shooing her away. “Go try on more hooker clothes.”

She laughed and disappeared into her changing room again. I immediately immersed myself in the magazine, reading the first article I found with forced interest. I read in peace for a bit, with the silence of the otherwise empty room being occasionally broken by Stevie’s giggles—as she tried on particularly hilarious outfits—and the annoying vibrations coming from the phone in my pocket. I ignored my phone for as long as I could, preferring to read, but eventually the constant distraction proved to be too much.

“Good God,” I muttered. “Who the hell keeps texting me?”

I took out the phone and checked the screen. Then I stared, shocked, at the number of picture messages I’d just received. I didn’t recognize the number from which they’d been sent, but I clicked on the first message anyway, curious. A close-up image of a guy’s face, mouth open in a laugh, filled the screen. It took me a few seconds to realize that it was Brian.

I nearly dropped my phone.

“What the…?”

I clicked to the next picture. Brian again, only now his bare chest was visible. My breath caught in my throat, and I closed my eyes, afraid to look at any of the other pictures. But my curiosity soon got the better of me, and I began to click through the rest of the messages. There were a few more of Brian—he looked like he was completely drunk, I realized—and then there was one of Zoe, wearing nothing but underwear, smiling up at the camera.

I dropped the phone. I didn’t need to see the rest. I felt like someone had come along and given me a swift kick in the lungs, collapsing both of the vital organs. My breath came in irregular gasps. Tears stung at my eyes. I wanted to go die in a hole somewhere. I couldn’t believe that anyone could be so mean. Zoe already had what she wanted—why did she have to rub it in my face?

“Korinne?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Stevie emerge from the changing room, wearing normal clothes. I could see her facial expression change from curious to worried as she took in the sight of me glaring at the phone on the ground like an alien had just burst out of its screen.

“What happened?” she asked.

When I didn’t respond, she bent down and retrieved the phone to investigate. Her eyes widened as she clicked through the messages.

“Oh my God!” she exclaimed suddenly. She let the phone drop to the floor. “Did…did you look at all of those?”

I shook my head.

“Good.” Stevie seized me by the arm and hauled me to my feet. “We’re leaving.”

“But…don’t you want to try on more hooker clothes, or whatever?”

“No. Come on.”

I followed her, zombielike, to the makeup department. Stevie told her mom that we were bored, and since Janet wasn’t quite ready to leave, she gave us money for a taxi back to the hotel. On the way there, Stevie kept a close eye on me, as if she expected me to open the door and hurl myself into traffic. I wanted to tell her that she was being silly—there weren’t enough cars on the road to kill me as quickly as I would have liked—but I was sure she wasn’t thinking such violent thoughts, and instead I remained silent.

The images I’d just seen on the screen of my phone kept flashing through my mind, like a movie clip on repeat. I didn’t even want to imagine what had been going on in the rest of the pictures. The ones I’d seen were enough. Enough to remind me, yet again, that things hadn’t worked out for me.

“Korinne, you’re kind of freaking me out, here,” Stevie said. She paid the driver and ushered me inside.

“Why am I freaking you out?”

“You just…you look like you’re dead inside.”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t feel exactly like she’d suggested, but I was pretty damn close, and when we got to our room, I immediately collapsed facedown onto my bed. I heard Stevie go to her side of the room, and she returned a minute later. My bed moved suddenly, and I opened one eye to see her sitting next to me.

“What?”

“Here.” She handed me a pint of some fancy-looking chocolate ice cream.

“Where’d you get this from?”

“My mom asks them to stock our room with it whenever we stay here. We’re obsessed. You’ll probably like it.”

“Um…thanks?” I sat up and began to dig into the ice cream with the spoon she handed me. “But I thought you wanted me to have fun.”

“I do. After today, though…I figured you could use some wallow time. I cannot believe Zoe did that.”

“Well…we don’t know that it was Zoe,” I said miserably. “It could have been Brian.”

Stevie shook her head. “I doubt it. He’s an idiot, but he wouldn’t be downright mean to you like that. At least, I don’t think so.”

I shrugged and devoured a spoonful of ice cream. “Whatever. Is there anything to drink?”

Stevie raised her eyebrows. “Are you really in that bad of a mood?”

“I meant like water or something, Stevie,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Oh.”

She got up and headed to the mini-fridge located between our rooms.

“Drinking would take your mind off of things, though,” she pointed out. “But if you’d rather not, there’s mineral water, Coke, pomegranate juice, orange ju—ooh, wine!” She gave a triumphant yelp. “Sorry,” she said, noticing the look I was giving her. “I like wine.”

As she found some dangerous-looking device with which to open the bottle, I looked on, wondering exactly how well the wine would keep me from thinking about the pictures.

“That won’t like…kill me or anything, will it?”

Stevie regarded me cautiously as she removed the cork from the bottle.

“Um…no, I don’t think so. Why?”

“Just wondering.”

Oh, no. Please don’t tell me that you’re actually considering this.

Zoe just sent me practically nude photos of her and Brian. I think I’m entitled to some alcohol.

Resist the peer pressure, Korinne!

It’s not peer pressure. Stevie has a point, you know.

You have no backbone. You are a jellyfish. A weak, spineless jellyfish.

Thanks. I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.

“Do you want some?” Stevie asked. “Wait, no. I don’t want to corrupt you. I’ll drink for you, instead!”

Before she could leave in search of a cup, I took the bottle from her.

“No need,” I said.

I held the bottle to my lips and tipped my head back, letting the cool liquid cascade down my throat.