The ride back was, somehow, even more awkward than the ride to the house. Charlie sat with her head against the window, and her eyes on the ground, though she did glance at her phone every now and then. Beatrice did much the same, but fidgeting uncomfortably in her seat the whole time.
Charlie suddenly spoke up, taking Beatrice off guard.
"You know, I don't think my dad would have told you that if he knew you were mad at me."
She said it almost to herself, her eyes still on the ground.
"I'm not mad at you." Beatrice lied.
Charlie looked at her briefly and grimaced, then turned her attention back out of the window. Beatrice grimaced as well, although it was mostly at herself. She was embarrassed about telling such an obvious lie. She was embarrassed at the fact that she was even mad at Charlie in the first place.
Her cell phone started to vibrate, and she clicked the button in the side to make it stop without even looking at the contact. She already knew without checking that it was probably her manager trying to contact her. She had been ignoring her calls for almost a week now anyway. What difference would one more day make?
She looked back out of the window, and tried to turn her thoughts back to something more agreeable, but the annoying buzzing returned again just a few seconds later. More than a little annoyed, she snatched the phone back up and answered it with a rather curt "what?"
"Uhm. Hey?"
It was Lin.
"Oh sorry," She said. "I thought you were my manager."
"That's how you answer the phone when your manager calls?" He asked.
"Why? How do you answer your phone when your manager calls?"
Lin let out an exasperated sigh.
"Okay, B. You know what, that's not even the point of this call—"
"What's the point then?" She asked.
"The point is, your brother is awake."
Beatrice had almost left the car, and took off on her own to the hospital. The only thing that had stopped her was Charlie's insistence that taking the car would be just as fast. Beatrice agreed, but only because Charlie was still so visibly upset, and despite still feeling angry herself, Beatrice didn't want to make things worse right now.
They parted from each other at the hospital. Charlie said she would see her later at home. Beatrice agreed, though the whole interaction left a somewhat bitter taste on her tongue.
She couldn't dwell on the awkwardness between them too long. There were other things on her mind at the moment.
She teleported straight to her brother's hospital room. Lin was already waiting outside for her. He looked like he had been crying, but somehow seemed noticeably less stressed than he had for the past few days. That, at least, made her breathe somewhat of a sigh of relief.
He cleared his throat before he spoke.
"Hey." He said.
"Hey." Was her quiet response. "Is he—"
"He's fine, considering." Lin said.
She nodded.
"Can I go in?"
"Of course."
She walked in.
TJ was sitting up in the hospital bed, his cheek resting on his hand as he watched the television in the corner. He looked better than he had in a while. His skin wasn't as pale, and he had gained some weight back, though he was still very thin. His hair was shiny again, and the blue circles under his eyes were a shade lighter.
At the sound of her coming in, he turned to her and gave her a smile.
"Hey, B." He said.
Beatrice felt her bottom lip tremble.
She tripped as she ran over to him, and hugged him tight. Everything on the table beside the hospital bed was thrown to the floor as the tears began to fall. Normally she would feel bad about losing control of her powers like that in front of someone, but at the moment, she couldn't find it in herself to care.
TJ gently patted her on the back.
"It's okay." He said. "Try and calm down."
She nodded as her tears continued to come.
"I'm sorry, TJ." She said through them.
"You sound like Lin." TJ said. At least he sounded amused.
"I should have known." She said, "I should have looked for you."
"You still sound like Lin." He said.
"Well he can't get all of the credit for apologizing." She huffed, breaking away from him to wipe away her tears. "That's not fair."
"There's nothing for me to forgive anyway." He said with a smile.
Beatrice couldn't say she felt the same, but she returned his smile, though she hoped he couldn't tell that hers was forced.
"So much has happened." She shook her head. "I don't even know where to start.
"Well I already know there's a lot I need to catch up on." He said with a smile. "Like, apparently you can just stream TV shows now. You don't have to plan your whole evening around when new episodes come out."
Beatrice managed to laugh a little and rub her eyes one more time.
"And apparently you have a job? And a girlfriend?" He continued. "Next thing I know you're going to tell me you have friends."
Beatrice felt her face grow hot with embarrassment.
"I mean, I do sort of have one friend." She said, thinking back to Harleigh. Their relationship mostly consisted of Harleigh sending her over fifty memes a day, while Beatrice laughed to herself about them and never responded. She supposed it was the closest thing she had to a friendship, probably ever.
"Well that's good. I'm proud of you."
"Did Lin tell you that I went to jail?" She asked.
TJ looked taken aback.
"What?"
"Nothing. Nevermind." She quickly said. "More importantly, what's going to happen to you when they finally let you out of here? Are they sending you to jail? Do you know who kidnapped you? How are you not dead?"
"I, well—" he quickly looked overwhelmed.
Beatrice immediately felt bad about bombarding him with so many questions and tried to back track.
"Sorry—I didn't mean– you don't have to answer all of that. I'm sure you should be resting anway."
"No. It's okay." He said. "I'll probably be out of here by the end of the week."
"Where will you go?" Beatrice asked.
"Lin wants me to stay with him." TJ said.
There was something in his voice that made it seem like he was trying to seem happy when he wasn't, and Beatrice quickly caught on to it. She raised her eyebrows at him.
"You don't want to?"
His face turned red.
"No! No, I do want to—" he stuttered out. "It's just— well, it's not that easy to just pick up where you left off almost a decade ago, and pretend like nothing has happened in all of those years."
Beatrice swallowed.
"What about for me and you?"
"B, that's different. You're my sister."
"Yeah, our mom is our mom, but I would stab her in the eye with a fork dipped in Louisiana hot sauce for the spare change in your pocket." Beatrice said.
He chucked and rolled his eyes.
"I'm not mad at you, if that's what you're worried about B." He said. "Well, except for maybe about the fact that you went to jail? Can we maybe, you know, circle back to that?"
She swallowed.
"Uhm—"
Thankfully, she was saved by her phone vibrating in her pocket.
"Sorry, I've got to take this." She said without even looking to see who it was. "It could be about my car's extended warranty."
Before words could come out of his open mouth, she answered the phone.
"Hello?"
"B, you have to come in and train today. You're on the verge of getting into serious trouble with the company."
"You know, I don't appreciate the fact that you always talk to me like you're just about to put me in time out." She snapped.
"I'm just trying to look out for you." He said.
"I'm literally just seeing my brother, who I thought was dead, for the first time in almost a decade. It can't wait until tomorrow?" She said.
"I came in today and I'm in the same position you are."
"But he's not your brother."
"No, but he is my—"
Lin abruptly cut himself off.
"He's your what?" Beatrice pressed.
There was a sudden shuffling, and hushed voices whispering in the background before Lin got a chance to respond. After a moment, their manager Alice came on the phone.
"How's my favorite hero?" She chirped. Beatrice opened her mouth to let out a string of explicatives, but Alice quickly kept going. "Anyway, I sure you've seen what's been on the new about your girlfriend, right?"
Beatrice frowned. She didn't usually pay attention to the news, or social media. If she did, she occasionally had the misfortune of seeing what other people were saying about her, and she couldn't deal with that very well.
"No, what do you mean by that?"
"Well, I'm not necessarily saying that you should break up with her, I'm just saying, you know, that maybe you shouldn't be seen in public with her anymore. You know, for your image."
"Wha—"
Before she could even fly into a rage, Lin started to wrestle the phone back from their manager.
"Okay Alice, I think that's enough for now." He said. "B, are you coming in or not?"
"Oh, I'm coming in alright, but only so I can kick everyone up there's ass." She spat. "Make sure you tell them to put on their running shoes."
Lin, for the most part, ignored what she had said.
"Okay, I'll be up there in ten to pick you."
She slid her phone into her pocket and sighed. TJ, who had been listening in on most of the conversation, gave her a sympathetic look.
"Sorry," She said, "I have to go in to work."
"It's okay." He said. "We have all of the time in the world to catch up."
"Can I ask you one last thing before I go?" She asked.
"Sure."
"How did you get my email address to email me for help?"
A puzzled look crossed his face, his pale eyebrows furrowed together, and he shook his head slowly. She returned his frown.
"What is it?" She asked.
"I never emailed you for help."
Beatrice made her way down to the lobby to wait on Lin to arrive end pick her up. It was surprisingly empty, as there was only an old man sitting in a chair in the corner with his eyes closed, who she hoped was just asleep and not dead.
An afternoon talk show was droning on the Television above her, and she had done a good job tuning most of it out, until the sound of her own name hit her ears, and she reluctantly looked up at the screen.
It was one of those shows where women sat around a big table, with a New Atlanta as a backdrop behind them, and they all bickered with each other until their chunky jewelry swung back and forth violently.
The blonde woman on the left seemed to be getting particularly worked up.
"I mean, it's kind of messed up, you know? She's a lot older than her girlfriend, not to mention it's been speculated that she was homeless before. It's just like, an imbalanced power structure and stuff, you know."
"Mhm. Mhm." The red headed woman beside her said. "I mean, it's not like she can just leave whenever she wants to. She doesn't really have any options."
Beatrice felt herself bristle at the woman's words.
Couldn't leave if she wanted to? What the fuck. I could leave if I wanted to. I've made it all on my own ever since I was a teenager!
"Rich people always want to date someone young anyway, just to prove they can. They're easier to control too."
Plus why are these people acting like I'm a baby? I'm twenty one years old. I'm and adult. I don't need people acting like I'm a child that needs to be taken care of.
"She probably faked the whole kidnapping anyway, just to get sympathy. You know the public's opinion towards large corporations has been changing lately, and it's not been changing for the good."
"Are you sure? That seems like a pretty immature thing to do."
"You know how people who are born in the public eye are. They never really mature, do they?"
I wish I could just fight all of these people. That would fix my problems for sure. My mother did used to say that some people just need to be punched in the face.
….
Wait, did I just internally my mother in a positive way? Shit, maybe I do need professional help...
"B?"
Beatrice jumped and turned around at the sound of Lin sneaking up behind her. His brow was furrowed as he stared up at the screen behind her.
"You okay?" He asked. She didn't like how concerned he sounded when he said it.
"Uh, yeah." She said. "I mean, are you okay?"
He glanced at the television, then back to her and raised an eyebrow.
"What does that mean?"
She sighed and crossed her arms.
"Nothing. Are you going to make me go to work or what?"