Chapter 13
Karan
“Boys!” Rachel’s sharp tone cuts through the cacophony of Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport. “Stop running around people’s luggage!”
She grabs Corey’s hand as he’s about to dart between a elderly couple’s cart.
Understandably, she’s on edge. Mom texted five minutes ago to say they got stuck in traffic coming from Pointe-aux-Trembles. We still have plenty of time before our flight to Sydney, but Rachel hates cutting things close.
“But I’m excited!” Corey protests, while Cayce continues to bounce on his toes.
“I know you are, but—” Rachel starts right as my phone chooses that moment to start ringing.
The caller ID makes my stomach drop.
It’s my boss.
“I need to take this,” I tell Rachel, already stepping away.
Her face tightens, but she nods, turning her attention back to the twins.
“Hello?” I answer, walking a few steps away from my family.
“Karan.” My boss’s clipped tone immediately sets me on edge. “We have a situation.”
“What kind of situation?” I ask, dread already pooling in my stomach.
I turn back to Rachel, who’s finally gotten the boys to sit on a nearby bench, watching me with her green eyes narrowed with concern.
“Oliver pushed to live and broke the whole thing.” My boss’ words hit me like a punch to the gut. “The whole system is down. We need you here.”
Fucking Oliver. He means well, but as far as juniors go, he’s…
Well, I can’t sugarcoat this. He’s terrible.
“Wait, what happened at his code review?” I ask with my heart hammering against my chest, still in the bargaining phase.
This isn’t happening.
“Who reviewed it?”
My breath quickens, my heart going staccato against my ribs. We have systems in place for this. Everyone, no matter their seniority level, gets their code reviewed by someone else on the team before pushing their changes to the live version.
So Oliver isn’t the only who royally fucked up.
“Does it matter?”
“I’m at the airport,” I say, my voice coming out steadier than I feel. “I’m literally about to board a flight for Christmas vacation with my family.”
“I understand that, but this is an emergency. I’m calling both you and Bianca in. The entire app is unusable for our entire customer base.”
I press my fingers against my temple, a headache building. “Can’t someone else handle it?”
Bianca is a solid developer. Surely, she can figure it out if she’s paired with someone who’s at least mediocre.
“You know as well as I do that you’re the best on the team, Karan.” He pauses. “Look, the company will cover your rebooking fees. Just get here as soon as you can.”
The line goes dead before I can respond. I stand motionless for a moment, phone still pressed to my ear.
The ambient sound of the airport rings in my ears as I try to figure out how to tell Rachel.
“Karan?” Her voice is soft. Worried.
I turn to find her standing right behind me.
“What's wrong?”
“Shit went down at work.” The words taste like ash in my mouth. “The whole app is down. I need to go back and fix it.”
Rachel’s face goes through a series of emotions—concern, understanding, and then, finally, anger.
“No,” she says firmly. “No way.”
“Rachel—”
“We’re about to board a plane. Then the ferry.” Her voice rises slightly, and she glances at the boys before lowering it again. “They can’t seriously expect you t—”
“They’ll cover my rebooking fees.”
“Your rebooking fees?” She takes a step back, her eyes widening. “What about us? What about the boys?”
I swallow hard. “They’ll only cover mine.”
“Of course they will.” The bitterness in her voice cuts deep. “So what? I’m supposed to handle the boys alone on a ferry crossing? While your parents hover and question every parenting decision I make?”
The mixture of rage and despair in her voice sends me stumbling back.
“Rachel…” I try to catch her hand, but she pulls away. “I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place here. Trust me, I don’t want to go.”
She lowers her voice again. “You’re seriously going to leave me alone?”
“My parents will be here to help—”
“That’s not the point!” She runs a hand through her chestnut hair in frustration. “The point is that you’re choosing that fucking job over your family. Again.”
A choked back sob tears at the back of my throat. “I’m doing this for our family. Please, Rachel—”
“For our family?” She scoffs. “Please. I can’t even rely on you anymore. At all.”
Her words hit their mark with devastating accuracy, hooking into my heart like a thousand tiny daggers. For a moment, I can’t breathe.
All I ever wanted was to be the boulder on which the people I love most can rely on. Solid. Unmovable. Yet, I’ve failed at this one thing.
But if I don’t go, I’ll lose my job. And how can my family rely on me then?
“Rachel, I—”
“Go,” she says, stepping back. “Your boss is waiting.”
“I’ll be there before Christmas Eve. I swear.” I reach for her, pulling her close despite her resistance. “One day. Two max. I’ll just need to catch up.”
She doesn’t fight the embrace, but she doesn’t melt into it like she used to either. “The boys are going to be devastated.”
“I know.” I press my forehead against hers, breathing in her familiar strawberry scent. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Are you?” She pulls back just enough to look into my eyes. “Because sometimes I think you’re so afraid of disappointing literally everyone else in your life—your parents, your fucking boss— that the kids and I don’t even factor into your equation.”
Rachel’s words still echo through my brain when I make it to my desk several hours later. I can’t shake them off because I can’t convince myself that she’s wrong.
“It’s about time!” my boss, Antoine, nearly screams when he sees me take a seat.
“I took the first flight back I could.”
“Stop explaining and just start fixing this thing.” He smashes his hand against my desk, shocking me and Bianca to our feet as we flinch back. “Someone leaked my phone number, and now angry customers are blowing me up, as if I could personally fix this.”
Of course he can’t. Antoine co-founded True Keys with an actual developer. He brought the business and marketing brain, while the developer built the minimum viable version of the app. But when they had a falling out, Antoine bought out the developer and became the sole head of the company.
“We’re on it,” Bianca says to placate him. “I already found out what Oliver did wrong, so now it’s just a matter of Karan and me fixing it.”
“God damn it,” Antoine nearly screams again. “Is it so hard to do things right?”
My blood goes cold.
Is it so hard to do things right?
I can’t count the number of times my father screamed those exact words to me. I always had good grades, but there were times that I came home with a few Bs instead of straight As. The anger and disappointment in his eyes still burns into my chest.
I swallow back the primitive fear wreaking havoc on my nervous system.
I’m safe. I’m safe. I’m safe.
I run the familiar chant through my mind like a spell, desperately casting it to banish the panic clawing at my insides. I’m not sure if I’ll ever believe it, but for now, I’ve got to claw my way back to the surface.
For Rachel. For Cayce and Corey.
If there’s one thing I don’t want for them, it’s for them to feel fear.
I don’t want them to ever feel unsafe. Not just because of me, but because of the world around them.
The game is rigged against us, and the harder I work, the more I can tip the scales back in their favour, because they deserve the world.
So I bury it all and get to work.