Bite Your Tongue

"Lindsey, there you are." Samantha announced my presence loudly to nearly the entire auditorium filled with about thirty or forty other members of the junior class. It almost sounded like they'd all been waiting for me from the tone of her voice.

"Thanks," I muttered to myself. I'd gotten to the prom committee meeting a few minutes late because of a lack of transportation: I had to beg Heidi to drop me off on her way to the movies with Chris. What sucked most was I had to walk home after this. I'd been hoping to just slide my way casually into the back of the scene, but it ironically didn't turn out that way. Glancing over who was here, I barely recognized a few select individuals. One person I focused on was Meredith Silve, the girl I vaguely knew because her locker was next to mine. Ok, so all I knew was she was into a lot of sports, particularly soccer. It was better than nothing.

"Hey," I called to her, waving a little. Not knowing where my voice was coming from, she looked around.

"Meredith!" I tried again, cupping my hands over my mouth. Unfortunately, it was one of those odd moments where the entire room fell silent seconds before I opened my big mouth. My voice boomed throughout the large room, only to be followed by giggles and snickers as everyone turned their attention toward me.

At least she knew where I'm calling her from, I thought as I felt my cheeks flush warmly, like everyone else in the room. Glancing at her, I saw her give a small awkward wave back. Almost as quickly, the room filled up with talking and laughing again. I sighed with relief and headed over to where Meredith was standing by herself.

"Hi Lindsey," she said cheerfully. I was glad to get a warm reception from at least one person here; most people here wouldn't think to give me the time of day. Glancing around, I took in lots of designer labels layered on very attractive people. Immediately I felt silly in my jeans and oversized Cougars hockey jersey, my favorite shirt. Zac had given me one of the few existing jerseys from his team last year and I wore it constantly. It was also enormous, falling around my body in layers like a tent. But just the feel of its soft nylon against my skin sent waves of reassurance through me. It was a feeling I usually felt in the presence of my best friend. Now, however, I felt completely out of place as I noticed most of the girls were wearing extremely short shorts, tank tops or T-shirts, or those ugly pedal pusher pants. Everything was also tight in size, much to my dismay.

Don't these people know anything about comfort?

"Hey, a few decibels softer." I replied with a grin.

"So what are you here for?" I expected her to be even less interested in prom than me, given her tomboy status. She was one of the few natural looking people in the room: her tall figure was lean and athletic, and towered over my lowly height of five-two. Her brown hair was highlighted naturally with blonde, quite an exception to the other blondes in the room. Her eyes were intruiging: they were a mix of blue and green.

She can't be interested in this junk too.. But I've been known to be wrong.

"I'm so looking forward to prom." She cried, her eyes flashing excitedly. She brushed her fingers through her hair, pushing a few strands over her shoulder, and smiled down at me.

"Are you serious?" I asked her in surprise.

"Yeah. I've already bought my dress." She gave me a funny look, as if me not being interested in the prom was unimaginable.

"Oh.. that's cool," was all I could think to say, after jamming my foot into my mouth and choking on it for awhile. Or so it felt like.

"Who are you going with?"

"Brett Thomas." She answered immediately. I began to wonder how many other people had already been paired off for this infamous dance. I still didn't understand what the big deal was, but I wasn't about to rain on her parade.

"Are you going?" She interrupted my thoughts.

"Nope. Zac's taking me to a hockey game that night instead."

"Cool! I forgot, he plays on the local team. The Cougars, right?" She grinned, pointing at my jersey.

"Yup," I replied proudly. Everyone knew I was his number one fan.

"I thought I'd seen him practicing at the rec. center the other day. I play on the girl's team." She informed me. I looked her directly in the eyes after hearing that. She now had one-hundred percent of my attention.

"There's a girl's team?"

Wow.

"Yeah, it just started up this year. Soccer's my real love, but my coach said it would be a good way to stay in shape during our off-season. But our hockey team won't really start playing until next year." She sighed and shook her head. "Which is good."

"Why is that?" I asked, also noticing an amused smile on her face.

"Because we really suck, that's why." She stated bluntly. "I'm ok because I used to play with my brothers and it's a little like soccer, but I can't say the same for the rest of our team, especially our goalie."

"That's kind of an important thing to have in hockey-" I started to say when Samantha interrupted the noisy crowd.

"Ok everyone!" she clapped her hands together loudly, showing us her hard-core dedication to cheerleading even in the off-season period. "Let's get into our groups now and start making plans."

"What committee are you in?" I asked Meredith. I crossed my fingers in hope she was on food with me.

"Decorations. You?"

"Food." I admitted.

"I think it's meeting over there." She pointed to a small group. I wasn't surprised to see it was mostly guys, but I was to Samantha was standing in the small circle too. Remembering her fawning over Zac earlier this afternoon, I threw a dirty look in her direction as I walked over to them, understanding how a prisoner must feel before execution.

"Lindsey, come on over here. Dale, Nathaniel, Julie, Brett, Shawn, Patrick, and Austin." She pointed to everyone in the group as she rattled off everyone's name. I raised my eyebrows at their names.

What ever happened to normal ones like Mike or John? I wondered. Not that I'd remember any of them though: they all looked the same to me. Julie, by process of elimination, was the other girl, but all the guys looked amazingly similar, all wearing varsity jackets adorned in purple and white (school colors- yea, go Falcons.. Yea.) and similar hairstyles. I also got the impression they all knew each other, for Samantha said next:

"Guys- Lindsey. She's the committee head. So listen to her." With that, she turned and joined another group. Seven heads turned in my direction for inspirational leadership. Unfortunately, I had no freakin' clue what I was supposed to say.

"Well.. ?" One of the guys spoke up. I tried to remember his name.

Mike? Shawn? Nate? Doug? I had no clue. "What do you want us to do?"

"Umm.. " Was my first intelligent response. After awkward moments of silence, with me racking my brain, Julie interrupted with a loud smack of her gum.

"I'm bored, Dale." She announced to the guy on her left. She then did something incredibly weird to me: sat down on the floor. Since everyone else here followed her lead like a row of dominoes, I sat down too. I noticed everyone sat facing me a few feet away so I could talk at them. It felt a little like exile though.

Is this what teachers have to put up with? I wondered, having a slight new appreciation for Metzner.

"So what food do you guys want to have?" I managed to ask. The silence was making me nervous; I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans after tucking my feet under me Indian-style. All I got in response were bored looks, shrugs, and 'whatever's.'

"Okay.." I said slowly, feeling even more nervous at their lack of enthusiasm.

"Anyone have any ideas?" Same responses followed.

"Hmm.." I thought for a moment. I surprised myself with a less-than-brilliant approach. "Is there a theme this year?"

"There's always a theme." Julie corrected me in a superior tone, cracking another bubble. I glanced at her and wished she'd blow a big enough bubble to get some stuck in her hair. Her light green eyes, no doubtfully fake from contacts, looked at me like JoAnn looks at a can of Spam: with pure distaste. 'Don't you know anything?' She didn't have to ask.

"What is it then?" I asked, remaining calm.

"The solar system." I almost burst out laughing. I didn't know which was funnier: the seriousness with which she spoke, or the fact such a stupid theme had been picked. However, it did give me a few good ideas. Other than having the whole dance go to hell, that is.

"Well, we shouldn't have too much food, so I say light stuff." Hearing no objections, I continued.

"How about cheese and crackers? With punch?" Typical party foods.

"Boorr--ring." Julie announced.

"Sounds boring, but it's easy." I pointed out, appealing to the lazy side of the guys. I figured it would get their support.

"Sounds good to me then." One of them stood up. Miraculously, the others echoed 'ok' and followed his lead. It was one of the weirdest group habits if I ever saw any, acting as one cohesive whole. Well, at least the night was quickly over for us. Now I could leave. I stood up as well and searched for Samantha. Although I didn't want to talk to her, I figured I should let her know what we'd planned, especially after all that serious discussion and everything.

"What?" she asked after I'd tapped her on the shoulder. She frowned, as if to indicate I'd interrupted something.

"Food's done. We're having cheese, crackers, and punch."

"That's it?" she asked, frowning.

"Well.." I brainstormed a minute. "We could make it cool though. Like, have cheese in a bowl, not pieces of it, and make it's surface look like the moon's."

"Why would we want the cheese to look like the moon?" she asked.

"Following the theme?" I explained slowly.

"Yeah.." She looked blankly at me.

"You've never heard of the saying the moon's made of cheese?" I asked, raising my eyebrows at her.

"Well, yeah. But we're not serving green cheese. That's gross."

"It doesn't have to be green." I rolled my eyes. "But we could buy little star-shaped crackers and my mom has some ice cube trays that make moon-shaped ice cubes. Oh, and get some cute printed napkins, plates, and cups."

Uh-oh. I realized something strange: was I starting to get sucked into this whole dance thing?

"Or whatever you want." I said quietly, blushing at the knowing gleam in her eye. She knew I was getting interested, and wouldn't have unless she'd asked me to be there.

"Ok, thanks. Hey, I want to talk to you about something."

"What? I need to get going." I said, noting the time on my watch. She glanced at the people around us before saying,

"Outside then." She pointed to the exit door. I glanced warily at her.

"All right." I couldn't think of anything she of all people would want to discuss with me. I tossed ideas around in my head as I followed behind her towards the door, only to come up with null. So instead, I kept my head down and watched her take steps in front of me. All I could notice were her ankles: they were so tiny.

Like the rest of her, I thought bitterly.

Like you'll never be, another voice said, just as bitter as the first.

"So what's up?" I asked her when we were outside in the back parking lot of the school. The night had passed sooner than expected, we found ourselves surrounded by darkness. The only sources of light were the small fluorescent bulbs in the street lights that blinked occasionally, leaving short shadows off everything. A small, cool breeze flowed past us as Samantha turned around and faced me, a look of anger on her face.

"I wanted to come right out and say this so we don't have any misunderstandings about it," she started.

"Umm, okay.."

"I like Zac. I'm going to get him to ask me to the prom. And I can't do that if you're hanging around him all the time. So I just wanted to tell you to back off or I'll make the rest of your days here a living nightmare." I stared at her in shocked silence. We stood a few feet from each other, her staring me down.

"What?" I finally said. She continued to stare at me darkly, her eyes nearly piercing through me. I couldn't believe she was serious.

"You heard me. Leave him alone, if you know what's good for you."

"But he's my best friend."

And has been forever, I added in my head.

"That's why it sucks for you. And why I'm telling you now."

You're way too kind, you utter, wretched bitch. I felt like I was going to explode with anger.

Who are you to say who I can and can't be friends with!? I wanted to yell at her. As she stood there, casually examining a fingernail, I wondered where she got enough nerve to think the entire world evolved around her. Not the entire world, just the entire school.. I reminded myself. Teachers adored her for her school spirit, although her grades weren't exactly Harvard material. Worst of all, the entire student body, save a few individuals like myself, adored her.

Look at how many people she got interested in this stupid dance.. face it, she owns the school.

There was no way I was going to agree to this arrangement. Hanging my head, I realized it probably wouldn't be the best idea to have scream all my anger out at her right now either.

"See, it doesn't have to get ugly." She patted my shoulder lightly, taking my silence as agreement. "I'm glad you see things my way."

"I don't." I managed to squeak out.

"One week." I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. "You have one week to get out of his life. But, to make it fair, I'll make it sure no one ever picks on you about being fat while you're here."

"What!?" You're the only one who ever does that- my mind objected.

"Think of it." She faced me, putting her face very close to mine. "No one will ever say 'fat slob,' or throw paper balls and trip you in the hallway, pick apart your lunches, nothing. Isn't that what you've always wanted?" Tears formed in my eyes as I stared back at her.

There's no way I could ever-

"This isn't fair." I whispered.

You can't-

"No, it's not." She agreed, speaking in a quiet voice. "But look at me, then look at you."

"I don't have much of a choice, do I?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

I hate you-

"Not unless you want every day you walk through the front doors of school to be complete torture, stay away from Zac. Next time, I won't ask so nicely." With that, she turned and walked back into the auditorium. I immediately burst into tears. Fortunately, I had a long walk ahead of me so they'd dry before I got home.

I hate you.