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1982 means a lot of things. It’s when Charlotte will finish her first year of middle school with Vanessa. It’s when Vanessa’s dad predicts they’ll make a ton of money. It’s when Charlotte will finally be old enough for a skateboard.
It’s when Charlotte will finally start over. She’ll be Charlie now.
She’s thought about this for a while, actually. Longer than most kids think about things, but that’s how it’s always been for Charlie. She doesn’t mind.
She brings up her brand new nickname on the way home from school. It was the first day back after winter break, and had gone fairly predictably. Vanessa greeted everyone with a warm smile. Charlie watched from the sidelines.
(She only had herself to blame, really. Charlie is a strange child, and Vanessa is not. Just like their fathers, most people say. The charming one, and the odd one. Vanessa is magnetic in the sense she attracts. Charlie is magnetic in the sense she repels.)
“I want to be called Charlie now,” Charlie tells Vanessa.
“Okay,” Vanessa agrees. Vanessa also uses nicknames a lot. Ness or Nessa to her close family and friends. Her dad calls her Vanny. Charlie thinks that’s a silly nickname. “Isn’t that a boy’s name?”
Charlie doesn’t really mind boys, even if Vanessa finds them annoying. She thinks it’s just because Vanessa has to live with so many. It’s just Charlie and her dad, and no boys her age to be annoying.
“I guess so,” Charlie says. It’s a girl’s name, too, but she doesn’t add that. “I like it.”
“Okay, Charlie.” Vanessa nods. “Yeah. It fits you.”
Vanessa is sunny. As in, she smiles so easily. Charlie forgets how to put on a face sometimes. She doesn’t always smile until she remembers that’s what you’re meant to do when you’re happy.
(If Vanessa is the sun, then Charlie is the rain. But Charlie quite likes rain, and rain and sun make a nice pair. Vanessa-and-Charlie. A unit more than anything else.)
Charlie loves Vanessa. More than anyone else in the world, probably, although she’s not sure how to measure. Still, Charlie can’t help but wonder as her footsteps fall in perfect tune with Vanessa’s.
She’s a sidekick, and she always has been. Or maybe Charlotte was, and Charlie is a cool sort of rebel. One who steps on the sidewalk cracks, a few strides ahead or behind Vanessa.
That’s silly. Is this all life is?
Cars drive by, paying little mind to the speed limits. The town is too small for traffic, but it’s just chilly enough that not many people are walking. Charlie has a new sweater, so she isn’t cold. It’s purple, with white stripes. Vanessa has on the same pink cardigan she always wears.
Charlie is used to the cold, mostly. Even without her sweater. She can’t remember the last time she didn’t walk to and from school. Maybe when Mom was around.
It’s more time with Vanessa, at least. Her dad has to pick up her siblings from the elementary school, and it’s too far away for him to make both pickups at once. On top of already homeschooling Vanessa’s brother. Charlie doesn’t know why anyone would have so many kids. Too much work.
Vanessa doesn’t even seem to like her siblings. She says she does, but they fight all the time. Vanessa says Charlie doesn’t understand siblings. Which might be true. Charlie doesn’t really want any, though. It’d just be more work for her.
Charlie’s gotten pretty good at being responsible, of course. She’s the one that taught Vanessa to make box pasta. And she learned that all by herself! She doesn’t need to take care of another, smaller person. Babies don’t even know how to sit up on their own. Charlie doesn’t know how they survive.
(It sounds miserable. To be trapped in a tiny body that can’t do anything at all. Charlie is pretty good at helping Vanessa watch her littler siblings, but babies freak her out.)
“You’re quiet,” Vanessa says, nudging Charlie by bumping their shoulders lightly against each other.
“I’m always quiet,” Charlie points out, matter-of-fact.
“No, you’re not! Just yesterday you were telling me all about Nancy Drew.”
“I just don’t think it’s fair,” Charlie says. “They keep acting like it’ll finally be ghosts or monsters or something, but then it's just some guy!”
“Why can’t some guy be scary?” Vanessa asks, frowning.
“I could beat him up!” Charlie insists, raising her fists. Vanessa laughs. Charlie mimes a couple of punches.
“You already got into a fight last month,” Vanessa points out.
“I know! It’s been too long!”
Vanessa sighs dramatically, but she’s smiling.
**
The Marionette doesn’t have shows nearly often enough. She’s the main attraction! The animatronics dance and sing at her command. Dad let Charlie help design her. Charlie visited her a lot when she was still in development. She’s a great listener.
Charlie can’t really think of anything better to do at Freddy’s than wait for the Marionette. Vanessa has her little gaggle of friends, but they’re all loud and rude and Charlie doesn’t really like them.
(And she can’t ask Vanessa to hang out with her alone, because Vanessa will say yes.)
“Hey,” Vanessa says, appearing behind Charlie. She holds two paper plates, each with a slice of mediocre pizza. “Hungry?”
Charlie shrugs. “I could eat.”
Vanessa hands her a plate. The pizza is greasy and cool, but Charlie is used to it at this point. No one comes to Freddy’s for the pizza, despite its title as a pizzeria.
“I don’t want to hang out with the other kids,” Charlie says, anticipating Vanessa’s question.
“I couldn’t today, anyway,” Vanessa says. “I’m on babysitting duty. I just wanted you to come sit with us.”
Charlie flexes, trying to crack a smile. “Because I’m their favorite babysitter?”
“You wish.”
Vanessa is the oldest of four, so she’s basically a babysitter all the time. Charlie isn’t their sibling, so she doesn’t have to be as bossy. Her status as the better babysitter is secure.
Elizabeth is scribbling on one of those placemats with the word searches and coloring pages. Cassidy is doing what can only be described as giving her notes. He’s a bossy little man, but Elizabeth is an expert at ignoring him.
Michael is staring into space. He does that.
Charlie takes a seat in between him and the chair with the white rabbit mask slung over the back. Vanessa’s. Vanessa sits next to her.
“Nessie said you’re called Charlie now,” Michael says, fixing his weird stare onto Charlie.
Charlie doesn’t really mind. She has a weird stare, too.
“Yeah,” Charlie says.
“But your dad calls you Charlotte.”
“Yeah.”
“So why do you get to be Charlie?”
“Because I like being called Charlie.”
He frowns. “Why does that matter?”
Charlie looks at Vanessa helplessly. Vanessa shrugs and just mouths, homeschooled, like that explains everything.
Charlie never gets to spend time with her dad. She spends all her time with kids she doesn’t like who don’t like her. Homeschooling cannot possibly be that bad. It sounds nice.
“Liz, Liz, that’s not how you spell pizzeria,” Cassidy says, pointing to the placemat. Elizabeth ignores him.
Charlie leans back into her chair. “Chill out, Cassie. She’s spelling it the cooler way.”
“Don’t call me Cassie,” Cassidy snaps.
“Cassie,” Elizabeth jeers.
Cassidy snatches one of her crayons and snaps it in half. Elizabeth shrieks.
“Shut up!” Michael orders, kicking her under the table. Elizabeth pouts and crosses her arms.
“Cassidy, don’t break her crayons,” Vanessa says.
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“I’ll tell Dad.”
Cassidy glares at her. Vanessa smirks at him, satisfied. Yeah. Babysitting is easy.
**
“Charlotte,” Dad says, “it’s time to go!”
He calls Charlie Charlotte, even though she told him about her nickname. He said, You’ll always be my little Charlotte, and Charlie thinks that’s dumb but doesn’t care enough to argue.
Charlie throws on her black jacket and walks up to Dad at the front door.
Dad frowns when he sees her, reaching down to remove her dark brown hair from her eyes. It’s gotten longer, but Charlie doesn’t really bother to go through the motions to take care of it.
“I can’t see your face,” Dad says.
“I’ll ask Vanessa to tie it up,” Charlie says.
“What about that new hairclip I got you?”
Charlie doesn’t like it. It looks like it belongs to a doll—sparkly, pink, and covered in a pretty white bow. Charlie had wanted the hairclip with the skull on it.
“It’s not my style,” Charlie says eventually.
Dad seems genuinely confused.
“It’s fine, Dad,” Charlie assures him. “Vanessa’s not very good at braiding hair, but she can do ponytails.”
Dad doesn’t reply. He just makes a move for the front door, taking her off to the restaurant.
**
Vanessa’s house is big. It’s two stories tall, and it’s full of long hallways lined with doors. The walls are covered in photos, some of the family, but mostly of Vanessa. Vanessa’s dad has a very clear favorite.
Vanessa takes Charlie up to her room to chat.
“How come we never go in there?” Charlie asks, pointing to the wooden door at the end of the hallway. She’s been in just about any other room during childhood games of hide and seek.
Vanessa gets a sort of faraway look in her eyes. “That’s Dad’s office. No one’s allowed in there without his permission.”
“Your dad has so many rules.”
“I mean, I guess,” Vanessa says.
Which means, No, he doesn’t. Which means, You’re the weird one because your dad has no rules.
Well, he does, but he never enforces them. At least Charlie’s not as uptight as Vanessa because of it.
Vanessa’s room is the second one on the right. The walls are a pale blue, but most of the decor and bedding in the room is pink.
Vanessa’s bed is covered in stuffed animals. Every month or so, she seems to have a new one.
Vanessa pats a spot on the rug before sitting on her bed. “I want to practice hair braiding,” she announces.
Charlie sits at the foot of the bed, just in front of Vanessa.
“I think you’re getting better,” Charlie says. “Your braids looked great yesterday.”
Vanessa withers. “Michael did those…”
Charlie snorts, mostly in surprise. “He can braid? And better than you?”
Despite facing ahead, Charlie can tell Vanessa is pouting. “If you’re going to be mean about it, then maybe I’ll mess up your hair on purpose.”
“Sorry,” Charlie says, not bothering to hide her smile.
Vanessa tugs a strand of Charlie’s hair. Not enough to hurt, but the mock threat gets across.
“I’ll get it,” Vanessa says. “I’d practice on Lizzie—her hair is a bit thinner—but she can’t sit still.”
“It’s like braiding on hard mode,” Charlie suggests.
Vanessa snickers. “And she bites me if I pull too hard.”
“I respect a girl that can defend herself.”
“Excuse me, she attacks me.”
“I respect a girl that can attack.”
Charlie doesn’t mind letting Vanessa practice on her. Vanessa can braid strings, but she can never quite tuck hair tightly and neatly enough to braid hair. Worst case scenario, Charlie’s hair gets too tangled she’ll have to cut it off. Vanessa would lose her test dummy, but Charlie could make it work.
Vanessa is quite gentle, at least. She doesn’t pull—save for the occasional playful threat—and she goes neatly and slowly.
“You need to stop washing your hair,” Vanessa jokes. “It’s too silky and it keeps slipping free.”
“Am I just a head of hair to you?”
“Now you’re catching on!” Vanessa chirps.
Charlie can feel the hands in her hair twisting strands into place. Vanessa will occasionally mutter a childish version of a swear under her breath. Charlie is pretty sure Vanessa knows swears and simply chooses not to use them.
“Why do you want to learn to braid hair so badly anyway?” Charlie asks when Vanessa continues to fumble. “You rarely wear your hair like that.”
Vanessa doesn’t reply for a few moments. Eventually, she says, “There isn’t a purpose. I just want to know how to do something because… I want to.” Hesitantly, she adds, “Is that okay?”
The question eats a pit into Charlie’s stomach, but she isn’t sure why.
“Sure?” Charlie says. “What reason is there to do anything, right?”
Vanessa’s silence is disconcerting. If not for the hands on her hair, Charlie would turn around to look at Vanessa.
Not that Charlie is sure she could read her.
“I wish I was more like you, Charlie,” Vanessa says eventually.
Charlie presses her lips together.
Vanessa shouldn’t want to be like her. No one likes Charlie, not even her own dad. Vanessa’s popular, and her dad’s favorite, and she’s just… generally likeable.
(Charlie is, to put it simply, mean. She’s rude and brash and doesn’t know how to get along with most people.)
Charlie doesn’t want to respond. There’s no answer that works.
“I wish I was as nice as you,” she eventually settles on.
Vanessa’s laugh is melancholic. “No,” she says, “you don’t.”
**
“Ness is so gonna regret chickening out,” Michael says as they leave the theater. It wasn’t hard to pass as thirteen and get into a horror movie a bit scarier than the average piece of children’s horror.
“Is she still gonna regret it when you’re waking her up with your nightmares?” Charlie asks. Will the movie give her nightmares? Michael doesn’t need to know the answer to that question.
“Hey!” he says, reddening and clenching his fists. “I’m not gonna have nightmares.” With a smile, he adds, “I’m not scared of anything!”
“Sure,” Charlie replies, dragging the word out to make it clear that she doesn’t believe him.
Her dad waits outside to drive them both home.
“So, uh,” he asks when he opens the door to the backseat, “how was the movie?”
“It was awesome!” Michael gushes. “There was blood everywhere, and they were all like, Aaaaaaa! and the monster was like, Rawwrghh!” He rambles his way through an explanation of the movie, and Dad looks more and more concerned.
“I assumed you’d be watching a cartoon,” he says.
“I like scary movies,” Charlie tells him.
He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
“What happened to princesses? You used to love princesses,” he mutters, clearly more to himself than to Charlie.
Charlie doesn’t really know what happened, either.
**
Mr. Afton has the type of smile that Charlie thinks is supposed to be charming. It’s too wide, there are too many teeth, and it’s frankly more disconcerting than it is comforting.
Creepy, the childish part of Charlie’s mind supplies.
“Hey, Mr. A,” she says with feigned nonchalance, “where’s Vanessa?”
“Ah, Charlie.” At least he uses her nickname. Dad doesn’t. “Vanny’s home sick today.”
Charlie frowns. She had wanted to hang out. She bites back a damn, because adults lecture her when she swears. “Are her siblings here at least?”
Mr. Afton chuckles, putting a hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “You don’t need to humor them, you know,” he says. “You’re Vanny’s friend, aren’t you? You don’t need to pity the younger children by pretending to be their friend.”
“What? I’m not doing that.”
Mr. Afton just chuckles again.
**
“Sometimes,” Vanessa says, on the swings in the park, “I dream that I’m grown and I move away. Somewhere far, far away.”
Charlie’s never been anywhere else. “Away from here?” Away from me?
“Somewhere bigger. Cooler. Where I could start over.”
Charlie doesn’t want to start over. Here, she has the Marionette, and her life, and all the same miserable places and people. Vanessa wants to leave here.
Vanessa wants to leave you.
The swing surges upward, and Vanessa leaps off, giggling.
“She’s going to leave us all behind,” Cassidy whispers to Charlie where Vanessa cannot hear.
“Does it bother you?”
“No,” he says. “I’m used to it.”
He looks too sad to be used to it.
“There are better things out there,” Cassidy muses. “Better than us.”
And Charlie knows logically that’s true. But it doesn’t hurt any less. “Yeah, maybe.”
**
“Can I have ice cream?” Elizabeth asks.
Charlie waits for Vanessa to finish helping her dad with something. Elizabeth isn’t bad company or anything, she’s just kind of young. She looks like a mini-Vanessa almost, if you take away the playfulness and replace it with undiluted snark.
“I’m not your babysitter,” Charlie tells her.
“But can you give me ice cream?” Elizabeth asks again.
“Are you allowed to have ice cream at…” Charlie checks the clock, “…four in the afternoon?”
“Yes,” Elizabeth says without hesitating.
Charlie squints at her. “I don’t believe you. Ask Vanessa when she gets back.”
“But Vanessa will say no!” Elizabeth whines.
Yeah. So Charlie was right not to believe her. Devious little kid.
“No one lets me have anything,” Elizabeth bemoans, trying to sound dramatic. It’s just kind of adorable, with that kiddish way she slurs her words.
“Yeah. We made a deal not to let you have anything when you were born.”
“Nuh uh!”
“We did,” Charlie insists.
Elizabeth glares at her. “You’re lying.”
Charlie tries not to giggle. “I would never.”
Don’t laugh, Charlie. Come on.
Elizabeth looks furious at Charlie’s new charade. That’s one of the fun things about little kids. They get so angry when you tell obvious lies and refuse to let up.
“Liar,” Elizabeth accuses again.
“Who’s a liar?” It’s Mr. Afton.
He has his arm around Vanessa. Her arms are crossed tightly over her chest, and she looks like she’s not entirely there. Like she’s sick, but just her head.
“Daddy!” Elizabeth chirps, running up to hug his leg. “Charlie’s the liar!”
Charlie rolls her eyes, more out of fondness than anything else. Vanessa takes a stiff step forward, out of her father’s grip. She turns to face him.
“Dad, Charlie and I were gonna play outside.”
Charlie was hoping to play on the Atari, but Vanessa speaks so carefully that Charlie figures she shouldn’t contradict her.
“Of course,” Mr. Afton says. “Be good, Vanny.”
Charlie doesn’t really notice until she’s out the front door, but Vanessa is kind of shaking.
“Hey, uh, Nessa, is everything okay?” Charlie asks.
Vanessa’s smile is hollow. “Y- Yeah, Charlie. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“It’s just… when you came back with your dad-“
“Nothing happened with my dad,” Vanessa snaps.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You thought it.”
Did she?
Charlie never knows what to do with an angry Vanessa. Charlie is supposed to be the short-tempered one.
(It’s selfish, is what it is, the way Charlie prefers to be explosive while Vanessa is implosive. Because Vanessa’s inner workings are something Charlie can’t handle. She doesn’t understand Vanessa. She probably never did.)
“Can we not talk about this?” Vanessa says. Imploding.
“I’m just… worried.”
Vanessa smiles. Imploding. “You don’t need to worry about me, Charlie. I’m fine.”
“Okay,” Charlie says. “So, what do you want to do?”
(Vanessa is shackled by many people. And Charlie is fully aware that she is one of them.)
**
“Sorry, kid, you’re ten tickets short,” the person at the prize counter says to a little girl.
“No! Please!” the girl begs. “I used up all the tokens my momma gave me!”
“I, uh…” The employee clearly doesn’t know what to do.
“I’ve got ten tickets to spare,” Charlie says, ripping them off one of her longer rolls of tickets. She spends a lot of time in the arcade.
The girl stares at the strip reverently. “Are you sure?”
“Of course,” Charlie says. “Everyone deserves to get a prize.”
**
It’s Charlie’s twelfth birthday. Vanessa’s isn’t for a few months, and Charlie fully intends to lord it over her head.
The party is at Freddy’s, if you can even call it a party. The only real guests are Vanessa and her siblings. Charlie is hardly what you’d call popular.
Vanessa and Charlie sit in the boat ride. Charlie loves it. Especially looking at the mini-Marionettes posed around the tunnel. Charlie has taken to affectionately calling them the puppetlings.
As the boat bobs along the track, Vanessa pulls a second gift out of her pocket. She’d already gotten Charlie some comic books. This is a bracelet, with a bunny charm not unlike the mask Vanessa wears. Vanessa reveals a matching bracelet around her own wrist, this one with a skull.
“Is my symbol supposed to be the skull?” Charlie asks, putting on the bracelet.
“Do you not like it? I thought-“
“No, I love it. It’s metal.”
Vanessa smirks. “I knew you’d say that.”
The cake’s out when the brief boat ride ends. The birthday cake at Freddy’s is better than the pizza, but still not very good. Still, cake is cake.
Charlie waits for everyone to finish singing when she blows out the candles.
I wish for everything to stay exactly like this.
Charlie gets the first slice of cake. Chocolate. The superior cake flavor.
Her dad disappears into the kitchen and returns with a box wrapped in green paper.
When Charlie was ten, she asked for a skateboard. Dad said she could have one when she was twelve in a couple of years. So, yeah, Charlie has been counting down for this day.
“Happy birthday, Charlotte,” Dad says, holding it out to her.
Charlie sets her slice of cake down onto the table and accepts the box. She loves the sensation of tearing into wrapping paper, matched only by the joy of seeing what’s underneath.
But the box doesn’t, in fact, contain a skateboard. It contains a doll, with brown hair pulled into twin braids and a dainty blue dress. Not unlike the animatronic doll Charlie’s dad once made for her, Ella.
“I saw it and I knew you’d love it,” Dad says proudly.
And Charlie doesn’t want to be the bad guy, so she tries to smile.
“Thanks, Dad. I love it.”
She can always bring up the skateboard some other time. Dolls are fun. Kind of.
Vanessa shoots Charlie a sympathetic glance. It’s not much, but Charlie feels a little better.
“Well, uh, Will and I better set up the show. With extra tricks from the Marionette, as requested,” Dad says.
Charlie doesn’t want to be the ungrateful type. She sets the doll on the table, trying not to stew in her own disappointment. She takes the paper plate with her slice of cake in one hand and drags Vanessa up to the stage with the other hand.
There’s nothing cooler than watching the Marionette delicately conduct the band. She’s the one on strings, but she’s still in control. It’s just one of the many things Charlie loves about her.
The Marionette is perfect, and Dad made her just for Charlie.
(It feels wrong to want as much more as she does. Sometimes, Charlie hates her dad. More than sometimes. But that’s not really something she can do anything about.)
Charlie doesn’t want to be ungrateful. But she thinks she is, anyway.
**
Everyone always asks Charlie why she just waits for the Marionette to perform.
Even if Charlie didn’t have to be at Freddy’s all the time, she’d probably still choose to go. It has the boat ride, and an arcade, and, most importantly, the Marionette. And the Marionette is the main reason Charlie loves Freddy’s.
She’s seen families on TV eating dinner together each night, but Dad works late almost all the time. It’s really the closest she’ll get to a family dinner—eating pizza while the Marionette performs. Charlie’s dad made it, so they’re practically family anyway.
(Charlie has Vanessa, too, but there’s something about seeing Vanessa in her element with the other kids. Like Vanessa was meant to be so much more than the buffer between her weird best friend and the popular kids. Charlie can’t take that away from her. She’d never forgive herself.)
Charlie’s a loner and that’s something she’s okay with.
My closest friends are robots is an objectively cool sentence anyway.
Charlie fiddles with the rabbit charm on her wrist.
It occurs to her then that Vanny is a combination of Vanessa and bunny. Charlie hadn’t considered that. Weird.
**
“Charlie.”
“Vanessa, let go.”
**
They’re so, so stupid, and cruel, and arrogant, and- and- and…
Charlie’s back hurts. It’s burning, and the fire spreads from her back to her shaky arms to her wobbly legs.
She pushes through the curtains and the blurry faces of the audience stare back at her.
They ignored her. They let her and this boy die. They don’t care. Don’t they get it? Don’t they get what they’ve done?
Charlie screams, but she doesn’t know if it’s because of the burning, or the frustration, or the rage unlike anything she’s ever felt before.
**
Charlie realizes that she is no longer… herself when she sees the crowd watch her lift her own body.
**
Charlie is in the box, and she hasn’t been allowed to leave. They took her body away, so she can’t do much more than sit on the steps around the large gift box.
How dare they? How dare they?
They’re treating her like she’s some sort of unpredictable tragedy, and not like this is something they could’ve prevented. That anyone could’ve prevented.
Thick, black tears rush down Charlie’s cheeks.
She wants to tear everyone who watched and did nothing apart. Rip them open and see what the hell was going on inside their heads.
The Rabbit killed her. But so did they.
They think they’re innocent.
When has a parent done anything for anyone? When has a parent done anything for anyone?
They leave you alone to rot.
They leave you. They leave you all alone.
Charlie is going to destroy them all personally. The world would be better off. She would’ve been better off.
**
The Rabbit comes in and Charlie screams at him, trying to pry the metal box open so she can tear him to pieces.
Set those stupid springlocks off so they can bring him a slow, painful death, while Charlie watches. It’s the least he’d deserve.
But the Rabbit just laughs and runs away when he sees Charlie’s face, giddy and horrible and awful.
I want to kill him so bad. I want him dead I want him gone I want them all gone they’ve never done anything good I hope he dies I hope they all die I’m going to kill him.
**
“Charlie?”
Charlie remembers her best friend, even if her life is hazy. The good memories are harder to recall than the angrier ones.
“Dad said you tried to attack him.” Sounding like she’s on the verge of tears, Vanessa adds, “But y… You’re already… I- I saw…”
“He killed me.”
Vanessa gasps, even though, of course, she knew, she tried to warn Charlie. But now she has the nerve to look sad, like she’s about to cry, and Charlie still feels bad for her.
Charlie wants to hate her so badly.
“Ch- Charlie, I never wanted…” Vanessa’s cries cut off her own speech.
Vanessa stumbles up to the box. Charlie places her palm against Vanessa’s. She’s surprised they can touch.
“I’m going to make him pay,” Charlie swears. “Him, and all the others.”
“Others?”
“Parents,” Charlie spits.
“…All parents?”
Vanessa thinks she’s crazy. Of course she does. She doesn’t want to help Charlie. She didn’t save her. Charlie should blame her. Charlie doesn’t blame her. She wants to. Why can’t she?
“Let me out of the box,” Charlie orders.
Vanessa flinches away. The warmth from her hand is gone, and Charlie is freezing.
“Let me out, let me out!”
“You’re not… yourself,” Vanessa says.
No one believes me. No one ever believes me.
Charlie is more herself than she’s ever been. She gets it now. She does. She understands why Vanessa wanted to run, and why Charlie felt so empty. It’s simple. It’s parents. That’s what they do. They ruin you. They ruin you.
Charlie isn’t going to let that happen. She won’t.
“Charlie, it’s okay. We can… You- We can figure things out.”
“Leave me alone.”
“Charlie-“
“Leave me alone!” Charlie shrieks, louder than she thought she had the ability to. Loud enough to shake the walls. To shake Vanessa.
Vanessa, who now looks at Charlie like she’s a monster and not a friend. That’s how Vanessa looks at her dad.
What’s his excuse?
“O- Okay,” Vanessa says. “I will.”
**
She isn’t gone for long. Vanessa returns carrying a small box.
“I told you to leave!” Charlie shouts, hoping the force will work like it did last time.
You don’t believe me. You’re just going to leave. Why bother staying? Why? Why?
“Your dad said this used to help you sleep as a baby,” Vanessa says, holding up the box.
“I don’t want to sleep.”
“You’re angry,” Vanessa says. “This will help you feel better.”
She’s right. Charlie is angry. With a cry, she lunges for Vanessa so she can pry the music box from her hands. But Vanessa simply opens the box and presses a button.
My Grandfather’s Clock.
Charlie feels heavy. Tired. Defeated.
“It’s okay now, Charlie.”
She doesn’t want me to be okay. She wants me out of the way.
Just like a parent would.
**
(Twenty years later.)
(Charlie pounds on the door.)
(“Welcome back, Charlie.”)
(She screams.)
(Michael presses a hand to the door on the other side. “I’ll come back in when you’re willing to negotiate.”)
(Charlie screams at him again.)
(“I know you’re alone. I’m alone now, too. Everyone forgot about us. But it’s okay.”)
(“Don’t you get it, Charlie? We don’t have to stay out of the way any longer.”)