Bite Your Tongue

11:01 A.M.
Brian;;

There were several things I’d always imagined to be horrible methods by which to be woken up. Being trampled by an elephant, for example. Being doused in cold water. Stung by scorpions, tossed off of a roof…the list went on and on. The worst method, however, was one I’d never anticipated—Zoe shrieking a hello in my ear.

“Good morning, sunshine!”

I practically vaulted off of my bed in surprise. I ended up with half of my body on the floor and the other half still in bed. I opened one eye a tiny bit, saw Zoe’s face, and immediately willed myself to go back to sleep.

“Don’t you dare go back to sleep. I didn’t come all the way over here to talk to your sleeping body.”

Seizing my pillow, I stuffed my face into it, resulting in partial suffocation. “Oh my God, please kill me now,” I grumbled. It was the last day of Thanksgiving Break, and all I wanted to do was sleep. Actually, all I wanted to do was see Korinne again, but after our recent lapse in self-control, we’d agreed that it was probably best to distance ourselves from each other for a while.

“Stop mumbling under your breath and get up. We have important things to discuss,” Zoe said.

“When the hell did you get back?”

“Last night. I would have come over then but I was way too tired.”

“Lucky me.”

Slowly, I dragged my legs onto the floor and pushed myself into a seated position. I forced my eyes open and tried not to look completely miserable. Zoe was sitting on the edge of my bed, grossly pregnant and annoyingly cheerful.

“What do you want?”

“Hello to you, too,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“I’m tired, Zoe. Why are you here?”

She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at me.

“Why the hell did you hang up on me?”

“What?”

“Two days ago, when I called you. You hung up. Why?”

It took me a few seconds to remember that I’d hung up on her in order to talk to Korinne.

“Oh, um…my battery died,” I lied quickly. “And I couldn’t find my charger for a while. Sorry.”

“You could have called me back.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

The annoyance on her face dissipated and was replaced by thinly veiled excitement.

“Well, hurry up and get downstairs.”

“Why?”

“Just do it!”

Once she left my room, I let out a long string of curse words and hauled myself into the bathroom to splash some water onto my face. Then I grabbed a clean shirt and tugged it over my head before trudging downstairs to see what was going on.

Zoe’s mom and my mom were seated at the kitchen table, chatting over cups of coffee and a box of glazed doughnuts. Zoe was sliding into a seat with three doughnuts piled on her plate. They all looked up as I walked in, and I got the distinct impression that they had been talking about me.

“Hello, Brian,” Mrs. Windham said.

“Hi.”

My mom gestured to the chair on her left. “Sit down, sweetie.”

Cautiously, I took a seat. “What’s going on?”

“Oh, we just have baby-related things to talk about. I thought you’d want to be around.”

“We’re naming it Victoria,” Zoe declared through a mouthful of glazed doughnut.

“…Okay…”

Mrs. Windham took a sip of her coffee. “We’ve been discussing what’s going to happen after the baby’s born. Obviously, if you two wanted to get your own apartment, that wouldn’t be a problem, but we feel it’s best for you to be around family. Plus, your mother knows more about caring for a baby than you two do.”

“So…what are trying to say?”

“We were thinking that it’d be a good idea for Zoe to move in with us for a while,” my mom said.

“What?!”

“It would make everything so much easier. A baby needs both parents, and it’d be such a pain for you two to keep commuting to each other’s houses every day. This way, you won’t have to just dump the baby on the other person. You can share the responsibility.”

Parts of my body seemed to be slowly going numb. Zoe, live with me? I could barely handle seeing her a few times a week. Residing in the same house would be three steps below slowly being tortured to death.

“How does that sound, Brian?”

Zoe looked at me expectantly. “Awesome, right?!”

Whatever bit of happiness I’d built up over the past few days crumbled instantly.

“Yeah,” I said tonelessly. “Awesome.”

“Oh, yay!”

“Then it’s settled, “ said Mrs. Windham. “We’ll start bringing Zoe’s things over, and once the baby’s born, she’ll move in here.”

The three of them exploded into excited chatter. I felt like the life was slowly being leeched from my body. I would have no more freedom. Nowhere to run when Zoe got annoying. She would always be around. And there was nothing I could do about it, either.

“Are you okay, Brian?” my mom asked.

“I’m fine. I just…have to go to the bathroom. Excuse me.”

I quickly departed from the kitchen, but instead of heading to the bathroom, I went towards the garage. Zoe’s presence was bleeding toxins all throughout the house, and for some reason, the garage felt the only place where I could be safe. I needed to be alone. I needed to think. I needed to somehow make myself okay with this. Or at least make myself think I was okay with it.

The garage, dark and gloomy, greeted me with a gush of warm air. Our cars sat in the middle of the room, empty, living their uncomplicated lives. I was jealous of them. They weren’t having the fabrics of their lives slowly ripped apart. They weren’t having their hearts shredded like fine cheese. I was. I knew I’d brought it on myself, that if I’d just listened to my ninth grade Health teacher’s abstinence speech, I wouldn’t be in this situation, but that knowledge only made things worse. I wished that I’d never met Zoe. I wished that I’d just dated Korinne, that we’d had sex at a normal point in our relationship instead of failing to control ourselves, being drunk and distracted, and being unsafe. My whole thought process was a mess of regrets and wishes that would never come true. So I dealt with it the only way I knew how—by grabbing one of my old guitars from a storage bin in the corner and starting to play the first song that came to mind.

I let my misery be dulled by the familiar, rhythmic motion of my fingers on the guitar strings. I let the outside world fall away as I drowned myself in the music, sorrowful notes wrapping around me in a cocoon of comfort. I hummed the words quietly to myself, torn between laughing at my own emoness and wanting to cry. I don’t know how many times I played the song, or how long I sat there. And just as I started to feel a little bit better, the door opened behind me. I froze, expecting Zoe, but after a moment I heard the familiar tenor of Zacky’s voice, accompanied by Jimmy and Matt. I relaxed and resumed playing.

“Dude, what the hell are you doing?” Matt asked.

“Practicing. I haven’t played anything all week.”

They moved into my line of sight, puzzled looks on all of their faces.

“What’s up?”

“Uh, not much. We just thought we’d come say hi. Maybe practice a bit, since we’ve been gone all week.”

“Okay. Where’s short shit?”

“Grounded,” Jimmy said. “He got into an fight with his parents. I’m not surprised—he’s been such a little bitch lately.”

“Huh.”

I went back to playing.

“Brian…” Zacky exchanged a look with Matt. “Is something wrong?”

“Nope. I’m fine. Just needed some alone time, that’s all.”

Matt snorted. “Dude, you’re sitting in your garage with the lights off, playing Papa Roach’s ‘Last Resort’.”

“So?”

“That’s one of the most depressing songs in existence. Something is obviously wrong.”

I deluded myself into thinking that if I didn’t talk about my problems, they would just fade away into nonexistence.

“Nope. I just like this song.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Zacky said exasperatedly. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I told you, I just—”

“Did you get someone else pregnant?” Matt asked jokingly.

My delusions disappeared. I put the guitar down, sighing as everything I’d been trying to run away from caught up with me again.

“I’m not sure yet” was my bitter reply.

Laughing, Jimmy started to mess with the light switch. “Are you being serious?”

“No, Jimmy, I’m joking. Because I just love to joke about pregnancy.”

“I don’t need your attitude, Brian.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t need yours.”

“Hey, I’m not the one sitting all alone in suicidal land—”

“Would you stop with the fucking lights? You’re going to give us all epilepsy.”

“Dude, back off. I’m bored. Take some Midol or something.”

Zacky must have seen how gradually pissed off I was getting, because he quickly slapped Jimmy’s hand away from the light switch and told him to stop being a dickhead. Then he turned to me.

“And you, stop being ridiculous. No one can help you if you don’t tell them what’s wrong.”

“Fine,” I spat miserably. “Zoe’s moving into my house.”

“Holy fuck.”

“That sucks.”

“Why?”

“Apparently, her mom and my mom decided it would be better for the baby to grow up constantly around both parents. So she’s moving in right after it’s born.”

“Oh my God.”

“I know.”

“Fuck, man, I don’t blame you for sitting out here all by yourself. If I found out Zoe was going to move in with me, I’d probably kill myself.”

“Thanks for the idea, Jimmy.”

Zacky shot Jimmy an annoyed look. “Just go sit in that corner over there.”

“Why?!”

“Because you’re not helping, that’s why.”

Jimmy obeyed, mumbling unintelligible but probably unpleasant things on his way to the corner.

Zacky joined me on the floor, while Matt leaned against the side of my mom’s car.

“So Zoe’s moving in with you? Like…forever?”

“Probably. Evil demons don’t ever die, do they? I’ll be stuck with her until the end of fucking time.”

“You could always just kill yourself first,” Jimmy suggested from his corner.

“Fuck off!”

We sat in silence for a moment, my anger fading into the darkness.

“Were you really being serious earlier?” Zacky asked.

“What do you mean?”

“When you said you weren’t sure if you’d gotten someone else pregnant. Were you being serious?”

“Yeah.” I let my head fall into my hands, resisting the urge to bash my eyeballs in. “Unfortunately.”

They stared at me.

“Who?” wondered Matt.

“Who do you think?”

“Korinne?”

I nodded. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jimmy leave his corner and move towards me, and I was suddenly so sure that he was coming to yell at me about how I was an asshole for ruining Korinne’s life and how he’d be so much better for her, or something along those lines, that I didn’t even think, I just punched.

Jimmy stumbled back a few steps, clutching his eye. “What the fuck?!”

“I don’t need your shit right now, Jimmy!”

“I was just going to—”

“What?! You were going to what?!”

“I was just going to come sit by you guys. And…and I wanted to apologize.”

“For what?”

“Because even though I know you and Korinne are perfect for each other, I’ve still been jealous, and I’ve been an asshole to you, and that’s not fair. So…I’m sorry.”

“Oh.” I felt like the world’s biggest idiot. Self-hatred bubbled up in my stomach—I was such a mess that I was going around punching my best friends on the basis of pure suspicion. “Sorry,” I said. “Sit down. I’ll get some ice for you eye.”

“It’s fine.” Jimmy gave me a pained smile, his eye slightly swollen already. “Really.”

“Sit the fuck down, Jimmy. I’m getting you ice.”

“All right then.”

He took my spot on the floor when I got up to get him ice.

Zacky started to laugh. “You have really bad timing, man.”

“Shut up,” Jimmy said, laughing as well.

As I found a plastic bag and filled it with ice from the extra freezer, I couldn’t help but laugh, too. Soon all four of us were chuckling and rolling on the floor like maniacs. When we regained the ability to breathe, Zacky found another old guitar and started playing the song I’d been playing before. I joined him, Matt started singing, and Jimmy rapped out a drum beat with the hand that wasn’t holding ice to his face. It was random, totally cheesy and at the same time really depressing, but it didn’t matter.

Even if my life was basically fucked, I still had my friends.

+++

1:03 P.M.
Korinne;;

If there was anything I hated more than having homework over a holiday break, it was when said homework involved Spanish verb tenses. My Spanish teacher had given us this killer workbook assignment that was supposed to help us start reviewing for the final exam but really only served to give me a headache and further increase my hatred of school. Delia was helping me, since we’d both forgotten about the assignment until this morning. It had been two hours, and we weren’t even halfway done.

Even though I really fucking hated Spanish verb tenses, they were, at least, keeping my mind off of other worries. Like possibly being pregnant.

“I am never procrastinating again,” Delia declared.

“Me neither.”

“Have you done number five on Exercise D yet?”

“Uh…no.”

“Is it talking about the subjunctive tense, or the conditional? Or future?”

Delia frowned at her workbook. “Maybe…conditional?”

“Super.” I stared at the sentence, willing it to make sense. It didn’t work. “Yeah, well, the conditional tense can go fuck itself, because I don’t understand it.”

Laughing, Delia put her pencil down. “Let’s take a break.”

“Yes, let’s.”

We abandoned our work on my bedroom floor and went downstairs. My mom was sprawled on the couch, her focus held intensely by a movie on the Lifetime Movie Network. Laughter floated out of the open basement door—I guessed that Elias and Maddie were down there watching movies. I closed the door to muffle any other noises they might make, and followed Delia into the kitchen. We invaded the cabinets and began rummaging around in search of lunch.

As glad as I was to be momentarily rid of the damn verb tenses, I wasn’t so thrilled about the worrisome thoughts that my mind now had room to freak out over. I tried putting as much thought as possible into the assembly of a ham and cheese sandwich, but it didn’t work. Inside my head, I practically screamed BREAD, TWO SLICES, HAM, CHEESE, MUSTARD, and the only thing that accomplished was making me feel slightly insane. I decided that fighting the paranoia wasn’t worth it. This was my punishment for drinking and having unprotected sex. I would just have to deal with it.

“Have you heard from Stevie today?” Delia asked. Since she actually possessed some culinary skills, she was making eggs.

I shook my head. “Surprisingly, no.”

Stevie had been in Colorado all week, skiing with her family, yet somehow she’d managed to find enough time to bombard us with overly-descriptive texts about her daily goings-on. It was quite entertaining, actually. I’d gotten used to it, and now that Delia had pointed out the text hiatus, I felt strangely deprived.

“Yeah, me neither. Last time I talked to her she said she’d call the second she set foot on California soil, though.”

“Maybe her plane got in late,” I said. I put the mustard back into the fridge, got a glass, and started to fill it with water.

“Or maybe she stopped by to see Matt and forgot about us.”

“That too.”

The doorbell rang shortly after Delia had finished cooking her eggs. My heart leapt into my throat. What if it was Brian? We weren’t supposed to be around each other. We couldn’t control ourselves. If he’d forgotten our agreement, I was going to kill him—

Again, the doorbell rang, more insistently this time. I put my water down with shaking hands and and went to go investigate. The second I opened the door, Stevie frolicked inside, wearing buglike sunglasses and looking like her usual jolly self. I let out a sigh of relief.

“Happy Thanksgiving!” she exclaimed, trapping me in a hug.

“Thanksgiving was three days ago, Stevie.”

“Happy belated Thanksgiving, then.” She took her sunglasses off and glanced around, her eyes settling on Delia. “Delia!”

She received a hug as well. Then Stevie stepped back and looked at us. “Damn, I missed you guys.”

“We missed you too.”

Stevie shut the door behind her and wandered into the kitchen, making herself at home. “So,” she asked, examining the contents of the refrigerator. “What’d I miss? Anything exciting?”

Delia looked at me. I immediately took an enormous bite of my sandwich.

“Why aren’t you talking?”

“Oh, no reason,” Delia said unconvincingly. “You didn’t miss anything.”

Stevie turned around to look at us, raising an eyebrow. “How could I not have missed anything? What about that party? And why are you so pale, Korinne?”

Shitfuck. I’m pale?! Why am I pale? Is it the sickly pallor of early pregnancy?!

“Korinne? Are you okay? Is she breathing, Delia?”

I forced myself to take a breath and did my best to stop panicking. “I’m fine.”

Stevie rolled her eyes. “Bullshit. You’re freaking the hell out about something. What happened?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?! I’m your best friend!”

“I know, but I’m already paranoid enough, and I know you’re going to make a huge deal out of it, and that’s just going to make it worse, and—”

“I promise I won’t make it worse. I promise.”

“You swear?”

“On my life.”

“Fine. Okay.” I sank into a chair, taking a deep breath. “I slept with Brian, but we were drunk as hell and neither one of us can remember using a condom. So I might be pregnant. There. Happy?”

As I was expecting, she broke her promise. After shrieking for about five minutes straight, she drowned me with questions—why were you drunk and how was it and was he nice to you and did it hurt and how the hell don’t you remember using a condom and even so, why are you worried; it’s only been two days, you paranoid freak.

“See, this is what I meant by making a big deal out of things.”

“How can you expect me to not make a big deal out of this, Korinne? You and Brian…just…ah! It’s so cute; I can’t stand it!”

“Yeah, ‘cause a possible pregnancy is just real fuckin’ adorable.”

Stevie rolled her eyes and sat in the chair next to me. “I’m going to ignore that, because I know you’re just angry and displacing that anger onto me as a defense mechanism.”

“Stop using my misfortune to help you study for Psychology!”

“Sorry. But Korinne…I really don’t think you have anything to worry about. At least not right now.”

“Oh, great. So I get to worry next week?”

“Just…breathe, okay?”

I tried to take her advice, but my lungs felt like they were crushing in on themselves.

“Not working,” I announced.

“Look, if you’re that worried, you can just get the morning after pill.”

I wanted to punch myself. Why hadn’t I thought of that before? Now it was probably too late. “It’s been two days, Stevie. I think it’s kind of late for that.”

Frowning, Stevie whipped out her iPhone and navigated to Google. “Are you sure? I thought you could get it up to five days after the erm…incident.”

“I don’t know. I never thought I would have to know anything like that.” I let my head fall down onto the table, wishing I could just sink into the wood and disappear. “And isn’t it like…an abortion pill, though? I don't think I can handle that.”

“No, it’s more like birth control,” Delia said.

Stevie and I just stared at her.

“My mom gave me this really in-depth talk right after I started dating Zacky,” she added in explanation.

“Your mom’s a smart woman.”

Chuckling, Stevie looked back down at the screen of her phone. “Yeah, Korinne, I think you would still work if you took it. It says up to five days on the website.”

I felt a glimmer of relief. “Really?”

“Yeah. And don’t worry—it says you have to be seventeen, but I’ll get it for you.”

“Oh thank God.”

It took every ounce of strength I had to keep from bursting into relieved tears.

“So, when do you want to go?”

“Now,” I said, so happy I was almost shrieking with maniacal laughter. “Let’s go now.”