Bite Your Tongue

12:09 P.M.
Korinne;;

“I seriously hate you guys, like, you have no idea,” Delia grumbled, glaring at Stevie and I from underneath the interesting looking unibrow we had drawn on her face while she slept.

“Hey, you know the rules. You were the first one to fall asleep, therefore, your face gets drawn on,” Stevie said.

“But I’ve got a gymnastics competition later today!”

“It’ll wash off,” Stevie added. Delia rolled her eyes.

“And if it doesn’t…well, at least it’ll give the judges something to focus on if you mess up,” Stevie joked.

After the game of Truth or Dare last night, in which Zoe had been dared to lick the toilet seat—and refused, of course, many times—Delia had been dared to call Zacky and leave the ‘Peanut Butter Jelly Time’ song on his voicemail, and I had been dared to put one of Stevie’s mom’s enormous bras on over my clothes and run around the front yard for one minute, we had grown bored and decided to watch a movie.

Stevie and Delia fought for nearly ten minutes over what movie to watch before finally settling on The Grudge. Delia fell asleep about halfway through, and then the rest of us had grown bored again and decided to draw on her face. I was the next one to fall asleep, so I don’t know what happened after that, but at least they didn’t draw on my face. Thank god.

Delia gave a loud huff and leaned against the wall next to the door. The two of us were waiting to be picked up—Zoe’s mom had called earlier and said that she wanted her home for some reason, and then picked her up. To be quite honest, I didn’t really care why she left, I was just glad that she did. Now I would have the whole ride home to be alone in a car with Brian…which scared me and thrilled me at the same time.

A series of loud honks were heard from outside as the woman I assumed to be Delia’s mom pulled into the driveway. Delia grabbed her bag from where it lay on the floor and headed outside.

“Have fun at that gymnastics competition!” Stevie shouted as I waved. Delia turned around and gave both of us the finger, but then stuck her tongue out playfully before climbing into the car.

“So you’re just waiting for Brian, right?” Stevie asked. I nodded.

“Hmm, I bet that’s going to be one interesting trip…” she trailed off, grinning. I smiled and tried not to blush as Stevie laughed.

“Alright, I’ll stop. You’re probably nervous enough already.”

Oh, you have no idea.

I only had to wait for a few more minutes. Brian’s car pulled into the driveway, and I’m pretty sure that my heart skipped several beats. Stevie gave me a playful shove forward and I nearly tripped.

“Oops! Sorry!” she exclaimed. “Have fun!” She added a wink to the last statement. I waved at her and then concentrated on making it to the car without dying of cardiac arrest or anything like that. Brian smiled at me as I was climbing into the passenger seat after throwing my bag into the backseat.

“Hey,” he said. I smiled back at him.

“So, was it fun?”

I nodded. Actually, it was the most fun I’ve had in a while, despite your girlfriend’s toxic presence.

“Everyone was nice to you, right? Zoe can get a little…” he trailed off. “She doesn’t do that well with new people, but once you get to know her, she’s really cool.”

Zoe, nice? And the apocalypse is this week? Next week?

I nodded again. The rest of the ride went like that, with Brian asking me random questions. I’d nod or shake my head, and he’d ask me something else. It was kind of alarming how open I felt I could be with him; I didn’t feel like I had to monitor my responses to things for fear of what he might say, even though I did want him to think highly of me.

I breathed a sigh of relief as Brian stopped in front of my house. The driveway was empty; thank god. For a while I had been scared that my mom and Elias had come home early, and that would have been terrible. At least now I had time to make it look like I had been home all weekend.

I smiled at Brian in thanks again and then went inside the house—after pausing in the doorway to watch his car drive next door, of course.

You are such a stalker.

I’m not!

Yes, you are.

Yeah? Well…you’re annoying.

Is that the best comeback you can come up with?

Sadly, yes.

The house was absolutely silent when I stepped inside, just the way I liked it. I took my bag upstairs and dumped it out on the bed so I’d remember to put the contents away later, and after that, I went into the kitchen. I threw away two packages of Poptarts and made sure that their wrappers were situated on top of the garbage pail, washed some already-clean silverware and laid it out on a towel next to the sink to dry, and cleaned up a bit so my mom would think I had gotten bored and decided to tidy up the house.

I had just gone back upstairs to my room when my cell phone vibrated. I pulled the thing out of my pocket and flipped it open, only to come thisclose to dropping the phone as I saw that I had a new text message. From Elias. I hesitantly pressed the button to view the message.

Mom told me to tell you that we’ll be home later 2night
And she wants to know how the sleepover went too

I frowned once I was done reading. Why couldn’t my mom just text me herself? There wasn’t any reason for Elias to have to do it, and he probably would have refused anyways…unless…

Shit. What if he’s trying to trick me into admitting that I went to the party?

Well, that would be unfortunate.

That was extremely unhelpful, and if you weren’t a voice in my head, I’d shove you into an active volcano. An active volcano full of komodo dragons.

Love you too.

With shaking fingers, I typed a reply.

I didn’t go. No one was willing to drive me.

I closed my phone and set it down on my desk. Then I put on some music to help distract me from how terrified I was. I wasn’t sure if Elias would believe me, and even if he did, there was no guarantee that no one would mention it at lunch tomorrow. That is, if I sat with him at lunch tomorrow.

I sighed and collapsed onto my bed. There was nothing to do but wait.

+++

Brian;;

I turned the basket full of clean clothes upside down over my bed and let everything fall out. My mom had been bitching at me for several weeks now to do my own laundry, and I finally caved—not because I wanted to, but because I was out of clean clothes.

I stared at the clothes with disdain, wishing they would all grow wings and float to their appropriate storage locations. I hated putting things away; it had to be my number one least favorite pastime.

Anything would be more entertaining than this. I went to the window and opened the blinds, letting in some late afternoon sun. I could see down to the beach, where this rather large woman from across the street was laid out in a bikini. With a shudder of disgust, I looked away quickly and found myself staring into Korinne’s house not too far away. More specifically, what I assumed to be her bedroom. Her blinds were open as well, but the room was empty.

I sighed and turned back to my clothes. It wasn’t right to spy on people…anyway; she wasn’t even in her room.

I happened to glance up a few minutes later, after managing to put a few shirts on hangers and hang them in the closet. Korinne was just walking into the room, and I felt a small thrill at the sight of her, but that was only because she startled me a bit…right? I shook off thoughts of anything else and hung up some more shirts.

I had moved on to throwing my jeans into a drawer when my phone rang. The caller I.D. told me it was from Zoe, who started talking as soon as I picked up.

“Hello?”

“I fucking hate my mom! She took me shopping to get new clothes for spring, since I needed some new jeans and stuff, and I swear, she was the biggest bitch on the planet!” Zoe ranted. I half-listened to her talk, throwing in a few sympathetic responses when necessary, as I put away the last of my clothes and did a silent victory screech.

Zoe kept talking for at least ten more minutes before I could honestly say I had no clue what she was talking about. It didn’t seem that she was looking for a conversation, really, just someone to vent to. Without even realizing it at first, my eyes trailed back over to the window in time to see Korinne flop onto her bed. And as the minutes went by, I found myself more entertained by watching her lie there than by whatever Zoe was yammering on about. And that wasn’t right at all.

What is happening to me?