23. Bea
23
Bea
It takes me a minute to realize Charlie’s not in the room anymore. I look around and spot him in the butler’s pantry. He’s on the phone, onesie hood down and leaning against the counter. There’s a crease between his eyebrows that I watch deepen as the seconds tick by.
His mouth tightens. His fingers grip the phone so tightly they go white. Whoever he’s on the phone with is still talking, and Charlie’s shrinking with every word into someone that I barely recognize.
My stomach drops.
“Fuck,” he says, so quietly that I read his lips more than I hear the words. “Fuck.”
This time, the rest of the room hears him and goes quiet.
Charlie turns his back to us and walks away. An uneasy feeling passes over me, and my dad gives me a concerned look.
“Well, let’s get the kitchen cleaned up,” Mom says, “and when Charlie comes down, we can get started on pictures.”
With all of us working together, the leftover cinnamon rolls get packed away and the plates and cutlery go into the dishwasher. Dad gets his tripod and camera set up facing the gorgeous Christmas tree in the front room, and Charlie still hasn’t reappeared.
The uneasy feeling has turned into a ball of molten lead in my stomach. It’s Christmas Eve, and I remind myself that we’ve been in our own little bubble in a small town and that the outside world exists. We have jobs that sometimes can’t wait and in a parallel universe, my boss would have called me with some crisis.
When Charlie’s feet finally tread the stairs coming down, I’m leaning against the couch, arms crossed and half listening to Yvette and Mom talk. I look up and the molten lead freezes.
Charlie’s dressed in jeans and boots, and I see the suitcase he’s carrying down the stairs before I can see his face.
“I have to go,” he says.
Susan gasps. “Charlie. Really?”
“Yes.” His voice is a quiet cut, and then he clears his throat and says with more softness this time. “Yes. I’m sorry. Something’s come up and I need to get back to the city.”
He’s not looking at me, but it feels like the gaze of every other person in the room is on me.
“Charlie.” This voice is so harsh I barely recognize it. My dad. My affable, jokester dad is furious . “This isn’t right, Charlie.”
“I’m sorry,” Charlie repeats, and it’s wooden, nothing like the warmth in his voice, his gaze, his hands this morning. He swallows hard and finally looks at me. “Bea, can I borrow your rental car? I’ll pay for a driver to get you back to the city.”
The room is dead silent. The weight inside me pulls like a chain hanging down into a never-ending pit. And then someone takes my left hand.
It’s Lance, sitting on the couch. My quiet, sweet, soon-to-be brother-in-law, the newest member of our family, has taken my hand.
He gets it.
And Charlie never has.
“You don’t have to go. You’re choosing to go.” My voice is rising, like I’m having an out-of-body experience, like I’m falling right back into the past, where I’m not worth Charlie’s attention.
And for a moment, I see emotion cross his face—a flicker of something. Pain? Anguish? Everything softens, and my stupid little heart feels light as air for a moment. It’s just long enough that I think, No, of course not, this time is different. We’re all grown up now.
But then Charlie’s face hardens again. “Bea,” Charlie says, his voice cracking, as if the emotions that were suppressed have to get out some way and they’ll take any path they can get. “Please.”
I squeeze Lance’s hand and force myself to move. “Fine.”
Everyone knows this is anything but fine. I feel immensely stupid, and the looks of pity I’m getting from the rest of the room make me feel about two feet tall.
I let go of Lance’s grip and walk to the entryway. Next to the stairwell, there’s a shallow bowl where we’ve taken to keeping our keys so that anyone can shuffle the cars around and get out when they want to. I find the clicker, with its green rental-car tag, and drop it into Charlie’s waiting hand.
“I thought this time was different, Charlie.”
And I just keep walking. Past Charlie, who flinches and avoids my gaze. I’m an apparition floating by, up the stairs in my reindeer onesie and into the silence of the hallway.
Half an hour later, my phone rings. I’m lying on my bunk bed, staring up at the ceiling, and don’t even glance at the screen before I answer it. It’s Nash’s ringtone.
“Hello.”
“Bea, how’s your Christmas going?”
I stare up at the wooden bed frame. Something’s broken inside me. I haven’t cried. I guess I haven’t been up here long enough for my family to send a delegation (probably Mom), so I’ve been completely alone.
“Fine,” I say.
There’s a pause, and when Nash’s voice returns, it comes back skeptical. “You don’t sound fine. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have called. But is everything okay?”
“It’s personal.”
Nash snorts. “I think we passed personal a while ago, Bea. After all, you got me through the Great Food Poisoning Incident of 2023 and helped me woo Clara.”
I laugh. “I know. And you went out and bought tampons for me in Taiwan. I guess that makes us friends.”
“Definitely,” he returns without missing a beat. There’s a muffled shout. “Clara says she’s your friend too, whether you want her or not. I guess we are a package deal,” he says, teasingly apologetic. More shouting, and then Nash chuckles. “And everyone else here says Merry Christmas. Now, can you tell me what’s going on?”
I sigh. I was expecting one of my sisters or my mom to come up, but the universe sends me Nash? “You remember my ex, the founder of Rivrse?”
There’s a pause. “Yeaahhhh...he’s the reason I’m calling you.”
My eyebrows draw together. “What?”
“I take it you didn’t see the article yet?”
I sit up and immediately whack my head on the bunk bed and yelp. “Ow. Fuck.”
“Bea, you okay?”
I aggressively rub my forehead and give my brain a minute to stop reverberating. “Yes, I’m fine. What article?”
“I’ll forward it to you. Read it and call me back, okay?”
We hang up and a few seconds later my phone pings with a link. It’s an article in The Wall Street Journal titled “How These Virtual Reality Headsets Are Using Your Data—and Why You Need FTC Protection More Than Ever.”
I click the link and read. By the time I’m finished, my hands are shaking. I call Nash back.
“Did you read it?”
“Yes. So our advertising team was right.”
“Yup. This journalist was months ahead of us. If he’s right, either ImmUniverse or Rivrse is in a breach of terms of service not just with us but with Facebook, Google, any other advertising platform they’ve been using. There’s going to be an investigation and probably lawsuits. ImmUniverse’s stock value dropped fifteen percent today. This is huge.”
“Oh my god.”
“Bea,” Nash starts gently. “ImmUniverse might be big enough to get out of this in one piece because they’re one of the biggest VR manufacturers and they have a massive amount of resources. Rivrse is...”
“Oh my god,” I say again. “Rivrse is done for.”