Bite Your Tongue

12:34 A.M.
Korinne;;

Four days. It had been a full four days, and I was still miserable. I knew I’d be unhappy after the baby was born, but I hadn’t expected it to be like this. This was like hearing a weather forecast, preparing for a thunderstorm, and walking outside only to be knocked into a brick building by the windy slap of a forceful hurricane. When Victoria—the name they’d chosen for the baby—had still been in Zoe’s stomach, it hadn’t really seemed real. It had almost seemed like as long as there was no baby to hold, Brian could still be mine. But once she was born, once you could hold her and touch her, I knew any relationship with Brian would be impossible. There was no way he could maintain a stable enough relationship with Zoe to be a good parent and still be with me at the same time. It just was not going to happen. That was the conclusion I’d come to earlier this morning, in the midst of opening up presents. And now I hated life.

Merry Christmas, Korinne.

Stevie and Delia had both offered to come over after they finished opening their presents, but I’d declined. I didn’t need them telling me that things would get better, that everything would be okay, because it wouldn’t. Brian had a living, breathing responsibility to care for. I’d been stupid to think that I would still be important to him.

I knew I was being pathetic, but I justified my actions by saying that this was what people did when their relationship with a loved one came to an end. Brian was off basking in the joy of fresh parenthood, or celebrating the band’s success with the guys, or whatever. I, on the other hand, was almost entirely cocooned in a blanket on my couch, watching Sweeney Todd, stuffing my face with gingerbread cookies and drowning my sorrows in eggnog.

It was going to be a long day.

“Korinne?” Elias’s voice reached my ears through the thick cotton. “Is that you wrapped in that blanket over there, or is it a serial killer?”

“Serial killer. You’d better run. I’m gonna get you,” I joked tonelessly.

“Funny. What are you doing?”

“Being slowly suffocated by misery.”

“…Uh, okay. Why don’t you stop being emo and go spend the money Mom gave us?”

My mom had been too busy to do any Christmas shopping, let alone ask us what we wanted, so instead she’d given us each a five hundred dollar gift card to Amazon.com. Elias had been online all morning, shopping like a teenage girl.

“I don’t feel like it.”

“Are you watching Sweeney Todd? Jesus. You need to cheer up.” He seized a corner of the blanket and pulled. “The Christmas episode of Spongebob is on.”

“I don’t care.” I snatched the blanket and put it back in its previous position.

I heard him sigh. His footsteps walked away from me and over towards the light switch, and before I could protest, he’d stolen the darkness.

“You’re mean,” I said.

“I know.”

Rolling my eyes, I sat up and reached for my glass of eggnog. Elias’s face twisted into a mask of disgust.

“What?”

“That shit’s disgusting.”

“Whatever. I like it. Go away.”

“I’m not going away until you agree to watch Spongebob with me.”

“Elias….” I whined. “Can’t I just sit here and watch people get baked into pies?”

“No. That is not a Christmas-approved activity.”

I gave him the filthiest look I could possibly manage. “Fine. But I won’t enjoy it.” I gathered my blanket around me and shut off the DVD player. Then I put the TV back to normal and stuffed a gingerbread cookie into my mouth. Elias flipped through the channels until he found what he was looking for.

“…This Christmas feels like the very first Christmas to me…”

We watched for about ten minutes, and I was just starting to be distracted from my horrible mood when the doorbell rang. I glanced at Elias.

He rolled his eyes. “I’ll get it.”

“Thank you.”

I drank some more eggnog. A few seconds later, the door swung open, and I heard the delighted surprise in Elias’s voice as he spoke to Maddie.

“Maddie! Hey. Wait, why—”

“I have a little something to share with you,” she said, her voice abnormally tinged with anger.

Another voice spoke up timidly.

“Maddie, please—”

“Get in the house, Jonathan.”

“But—”

“Would you like to spend your Christmas with your brains splattered all over a wall? No? Then get in the house.”

I turned around, peering over the back of the couch, as Johnny sidled inside. Maddie followed him, slamming the door behind her.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Why don’t you ask Johnny? He knows. It is his fault, after all.”

“What’s his fault?” Elias looked just as confused as I felt. “What happened?”

Maddie glared at Johnny, her gaze like a hot poker against the side of a rather disobedient livestock.

“Cat got your tongue?” Maddie snapped.

Johnny flinched.

“Maddie…what the hell—” I started.

“Okay. Since the guys are probably going to get signed to a record label, I decided to do an article for the yearbook commemorating their success. I don’t usually write that much, but I figured that since I know you and you know them, I could get some interviews pretty easily. So when the time comes for Johnny’s interview, he shows up drunk.”

“Um, okay. I don’t see what that has to do with anything—”

“He essentially spills his heart out to me. Tells me everything. Things I really didn’t want to know. But there was one—” She punched his shoulder. “—particular bit of information I thought you’d like to know about. Take it away, Johnny.”

Johnny stared at the floor, his face as pale as a piece of paper. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Worthless sack of pig shit,” Maddie muttered. “Fine. Korinne, do you remember that party at which Zoe tried to get you date raped?”

The memory surfaced darkly in my mind. “It’s kind of hard to forget.”

“Well, Johnny here told me an interesting little tidbit of information.” She looked at him to see if he was going to jump in. When he didn’t speak, she rolled her eyes and continued. “He slept with Zoe at that party. Didn’t you, Johnny?”

No response.

“Johnny!”

“Yes,” he said in a gloomy whisper.

My jaw fell open. “…Are you serious?”

“Oh, yes. He’s completely serious. I called around and I now have multiple sources to confirm that they were seen together. But that’s not the real issue. The real issue is whether or not they used any form of protection.” Her eyes fixed Johnny with a murderous scowl. “Did you use any form of protection?”

Johnny was silent. Maddie pushed him against the wall, her hands grasping the neck of his shirt.

“Did. You. Use. Any. Form. Of. Protection!? Answer the question, you cretin!”

He shook his head. She released him, and when he regained his balance he continued staring at the ground. Maddie turned to me, her eyes bright and wild with what I guessed was the excitement of fresh gossip.

“Now, I don’t know what the intimacies of Brian and Zoe’s relationship were back then, but unless they did it right before the party—which I highly doubt, by the way, since he was dating you—then there’s a damn good chance that the baby isn’t Brian’s.”

The world seemed to slow to a stop around me. Any and all thought and feelings stopped and was transformed into a single, uniform desire: kill Johnny. Even though this whole thing was mostly Zoe’s fault, my hate for her had reached a point where it no longer increased, it simply festered and boiled into an acidic pot of anger. And before I realized what was happening, I was unleashing that anger upon Johnny.

“You…you fucking asshole!”

I don’t remember launching myself at him. I don’t even remember hitting him. Anger blinded me completely, and the next thing I knew, Elias was holding me back, my arms and legs flailing and attempting to make violent contact with Johnny, who was cowering on the floor, his hands covering his face.

“I hate you!” I screamed. Hot tears clouded my eyes. “You’re the reason Brian’s life is hell!”

His expression was one of miserable apology. “I’m so sorry. I just…I didn’t think anything would happen! I’d always kind of liked her and then she just started flirting with me and I couldn’t help myself and then Brian told me she was pregnant and I knew I should say something about him possibly not being the father but I just…I couldn’t…I didn’t…I’m so, so sorry, Korinne.”

“FUCK YOU! You let Brian think he’d gotten her pregnant! You made him think his life was ruined! What the fuck were you thinking?!”

Johnny slid down to the floor and put his head in his hands.

“He wasn’t thinking, that’s what,” Maddie said.

“Obviously,” agreed Elias.

My hands were shaking. “Let go of me so I can kill him.”

He released me. “Gladly.”

“No, wait.”

We looked at Maddie incredulously.

“Maddie, this pile of shit ruined Brian’s life and my sister’s life by extension,” Elias said. “Why the hell—”

“Death would be an easy punishment. I say we make him go to Brian. Make him tell one of his best friends that he’s the reason his life sucks balls.”

At that, Johnny looked up, horrified. “No. Please. He’s going to hate me.”

“Well, you’d better get used to it. No one’s going to like you after they hear about this.”

His face crumpled, and he started to cry. Somewhere deep down I felt bad for him, but at the moment it was all I could do not to point and laugh at his suffering.

“Please,” he begged. “Don’t make me tell him.”

“We’re not going to make you. We’re going to give you a choice.” Elias knelt down on the floor in front of Johnny. “Either you go tell Brian the fucked-up secret you’ve been keeping, or I will personally rip out your organs and give them to a stray dog as a Christmas present.”

“Oh, God,” Johnny cried. He started sobbing loudly.

“Have you made your decision yet? Good.”

Elias helped Maddie haul Johnny to his feet. “Get in the car,” Maddie ordered. “We’re going to go spread some Christmas joy.”

+++

1:01 P.M.
Brian;;

I was a daddy.

It was still hard to believe. Ever since I’d walked into the delivery room to see Zoe holding our daughter in her arms, life seemed to get more and more surreal with every passing moment. I hadn’t really given all that much thought to what being a parent would actually be like, so I’d been just kind of going along with whatever came along, and I had to admit that aside from the trauma of learning how to change a diaper and also being constantly deprived of sleep, having a kid didn’t totally suck. Zoe was continuing to make me suicidal, and nervousness spiked through me every time I saw Victoria in her psychotic arms, but things were better than I’d expected them to be. I was putting all of my focus toward Victoria—her crazy mother may as well have been invisible, for all I cared.

The hard part for me was feeling irreversibly separated from Korinne. I’d said a quick thank-you to her at the hospital, letting her know that I owed her big time for putting up with Zoe during labor, but I hadn’t seen her since then, and it was killing me. Part of me wanted to pack Victoria up and go over to her house for a bit to share my happiness, but I wasn’t quite sure how she would handle the situation, and I didn’t want to make things worse. Besides, I highly doubted that Zoe would let me take Victoria out of the house. She was convinced that Victoria could catch pneumonia in the thirty seconds it took to walk from the car to the house. She made everyone wash their hands thoroughly before touching her, and if you happened to sneeze, you weren’t allowed to even be in the same room as the baby for two weeks. This had happened to Zoe’s mother, who had been banished to the living room. It had taken a good fifteen minutes of begging for me to convince Zoe that Matt, Zacky and Jimmy were healthy enough to come and visit, and another fifteen minutes for her to let them into the house.

Yeah. The bitch was crazy.

I knew there was nothing I could do about it, though, so now I was just relaxing and skimming through the pages of a book my mom had bought me about caring for a newborn. Zoe was downstairs watching TV, waiting for my mom to get back from the store with lunch, and the guys were with me near Victoria’s bassinet, making idiots out of themselves as they tried to elicit some sort of response out of her.

“Your daughter hates me, Brian,” Zacky announced suddenly.

“Yep. That she does.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Zacky aim a halfhearted punch at Jimmy’s neck. Jimmy ducked out of the way, chuckling.

“No fighting around the baby,” I said, mimicking the spiel Zoe went through with every new visitor. “Not even play fighting.”

“We’re not fighting. That was just my nonverbal way of telling Jimmy that he’s a dick.”

“You guys are taking this way too seriously. She’s just a baby,” Matt said, laughing.

“A baby who hates me!”

Zacky’s exasperated voice prompted me to abandon my semi-reading. “She’s barely four days old, Zacky. I don’t think she knows how to hate yet. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“I’ll prove it. Watch this. Look at her. See how goddamned fuckin’ happy she is with Matt?”

I rolled my eyes and glanced at Victoria, who was staring blankly in Matt’s general direction as he leaned over her bassinet and made funny faces.

“See? She’s ecstatic.”

“She doesn’t even know how to smile yet—”

“Now watch this.” Zacky shoved Matt out of the way and gave Victoria his best smile. “Hi!”

She hiccuped and started crying. Matt and Jimmy burst into loud laughter.

“I hate my life,” Zacky said darkly.

I held back my laughter and got to my feet. “I think she’s just hungry.”

“Nah. She hates my guts.”

Shaking my head, I scooped Victoria gently out of her crib. I took a few seconds to make sure I was holding her correctly—there was a mental checklist I went through every time I picked her up; the last thing I wanted was to do it wrong and permanently fuck her up—before heading carefully down the hall. When I reached the top of the stairs, the doorbell rang, and I heard Zoe announce that she’d get it. I heard her voice go from relatively pleased to downright hateful, and I heard Johnny’s abnormally distressed voice pleading with her. Confused, I quickened my pace. The scene that greeted me when I stepped into the living room was distinguished by Zoe, face flushed with anger, Johnny, who looked like he’d either been high or crying, and the somewhat familiar presence of Elias’s girlfriend Maddie. I raised an eyebrow, glancing at them each in turn.

“What’s going on?” I asked hesitantly.

Johnny looked at me quickly and just as quickly looked away. He focused his pleading stare on Zoe, who turned away in disgust.

“Don’t fucking look at me like that.”

“Zoe, please! Think about someone besides yourself for once in your life. This is just as much your fault as it is mine.”

Zoe flipped her hair haughtily and returned to the couch. She glued her eyes to the television screen.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

A frustrated noise left Johnny’s throat. “How can you not know! You were there!”

“You’re delusional.”

“Zoe!”

“She doesn’t matter, Johnny,” Maddie growled. “Just tell him.”

“I can’t—”

“There’s nothing to tell! Get out!” shrieked Zoe.

“Um, okay, I’m confused,” I announced. I stepped into the middle of the room, trying to make eye contact with someone, and everyone averted their eyes except for Maddie. “What the hell is going on?”

Zoe rose from the couch and collected Victoria out of my arms. “I’ll get her bottle. Just go back upstairs, Brian. Forget that any of this ever happened,” she said firmly, hurrying into the kitchen.

“Oh, no you don’t.” Maddie seized my arm and Johnny’s arm and dragged us with her into the kitchen. “You can’t run away from this problem, Zoe!”

“Oh, yes I fucking can. The problem doesn’t even exist! Johnny’s crazy. Whatever he told you isn’t true.”

“Okay, seriously, would someone please just tell me what’s happening?”

Silence fell. The only noise was Victoria hiccuping and starting to cry again, which prompted Zoe to go searching for the baby formula.

“Zoe lied to you,” Maddie said. “Didn’t you, Zoe?”

Zoe snorted. “You’re crazy, too. I didn’t lie about anything.”

Crossing her arms over her chest, Maddie leaned against the refrigerator and tilted her head to the side. “Really?” she asked mockingly. “Then how come you never told Brian that Victoria might not be his baby?”

“What? What do you mean? What’s she talking about, Zoe?”

“Nothing,” Zoe insisted, narrowing her eyes. “She’s talking about nothing.”

“This is fucking ridiculous.” Johnny sank into a chair and let himself slouch miserably over the table. “You’re not the only one Zoe slept with before she found out she was pregnant.”

It took several seconds for the meaning of his words to fully sink in. I started to ask him who the hell he was talking about, but then everything suddenly clicked. Johnny’s strange behavior over the past couple of months, replayed from the fast-moving memory montage in my mind, made absolutely perfect sense. And when I looked at him to make sure I wasn’t just wildly over-speculating, the obvious torment on his face was enough to confirm my suspicions.

Anger simmered and boiled in my blood, curling my hands into fists. I turned slowly toward Zoe, who quickly looked away.

“How could you?!”

She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t! They’re lying! I’d never sleep with Johnny, regardless of how big of a secret crush he had on me. Korinne probably just sent them to mess with you. She wants you to hate me, Brian. She’s a fucking psycho bitch.”

“This has nothing to do with Korinne! This is about you lying to me and telling me that I was the father of your fucking baby when you didn’t know for sure!”

Zoe shrieked, exploding with fury and scaring Victoria to tears.

“THEY’RE THE ONES WHO’RE LYING!”

“I’M NOT LYING, YOU FUCKING LUNATIC!” Johnny screamed.

“YES, YOU ARE!”

I took a deep breath, reigning in my anger enough to speak normally. “Maddie, would you please take Victoria back upstairs? I don’t think she needs to be here for this.”

Zoe clutched Victoria tighter to her chest. “NO! GET AWAY FROM MY DAUGHTER!”

“Take the baby, Maddie,” I repeated.

“WHY?! SHE’S FINE!”

I couldn’t be calm any longer. “BECAUSE I’M GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU, THAT’S WHY!”

“Oh, really? I’d like to see you try,” she spat. She handed Victoria to Maddie and turned to face me, planting her hands on her hips. “Go on. Hit me.”

I didn’t hesitate to smack the taunting, smug look off of her face. She staggered backwards and fell to the floor, clutching her cheek and looking up at me with tears in her eyes.

“Oh my God,” she cried. “Didn’t your mom ever tell you not to hit girls?”

“She told me to hit the ones who deserve it. And, well, you fuckin’ deserve it.”

“But—”

“YOU’RE A FUCKING LIFE RUINER! YOU COULDN’T ACCEPT THE FACT THAT I FELL IN LOVE WITH SOMEONE ELSE, AND WHEN NONE OF YOUR OTHER CRAZY TACTICS TO GET ME BACK WORKED, YOU RESORTED TO THIS!? THIS IS THE LOWEST OF LOW, ZOE! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU!?”

“I’m sorry…I just…love you…”

“No, you don’t. If you loved me, you would have accepted me being happy elsewhere and let me live my life instead of TELLING ME THAT I GOT YOU FUCKING PREGNANT! HOW FUCKING LONG DID YOU EXPECT TO GET AWAY WITH THIS!”

Sobbing, she got to her feet and grabbed pathetically at my shirt. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t know how else to get you back! I love you, Brian! Please, don’t hate me; I’m sorry, I’m—”

“Get away from me,” I snarled, yanking myself out of her grasp.

“Brian, please—”

“I want a paternity test.”

“What?”

“Now. Take Victoria to the hospital and get a paternity test.”

“But—”

“I’m not fucking joking around, Zoe. If this baby isn’t mine, then there’s no way in fucking hell I’m ever speaking to you again.”

Watching Zoe realize and accept her defeat was just as satisfying as achieving victory in a video game during a huge boss battle. Her entire body slumped toward the floor, tears falling freely down her red, miserable face.

“Okay,” she agreed in a whisper.

Maddie gave her a cloying smile. “Want me to drive you?”

Zoe nodded. Moving like a zombie, she collected the things necessary for taking Victoria out of the house, and followed Maddie outside. Johnny and I sat in silence, listening to Maddie’s car start and leave the driveway. When I glanced at him, he was glancing back, his face hesitant and forlorn.

“Hate me?” he wondered.

“Not as much as I hate Zoe.”

“I’m so fucking sorry. I didn’t think anything like this was going to happen, and I didn’t even worry when I first heard she was pregnant. But then I started thinking, and by the time I realized it might be mine, everything was so fucked up. I didn’t want to make it worse.”

I sighed and dropped into the chair opposite him. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll figure it out.”

Footsteps sounded on the stairs. Matt, Jimmy, and Zacky joined us, looking confused.

“I thought I heard shouting,” Zacky said. He shot a dirty look at Matt and Jimmy. “But these two were too busy arguing over what type of music to let Victoria listen to first.”

“I say Metallica. Babies love Metallica,” Jimmy said.

“No. I say we introduce her to The Misfits.”

“You guys are both insane. She’s an infant. Sure, she hates me, but I don’t think she’s mastered the skill of music appreciation yet.”

I simply shook my head, unable to believe that they were arguing over something so trivial when the rest of us were worried about being parents.

“So,” Zacky wondered, joining us at the table. “What’d we miss?”

Johnny and I looked at each other, and promptly dissolved into dark laughter.