Chapter 43: Consequences

Nothing hurts more than feeling like you've let someone down, someone who believes the best about you, thinks the world of you, loves you even. To have them look at you with an almost broken-hearted look of disappointment is enough to nearly kill you inside. Now add to that feeling a steady build up of other stresses and tragedies, and you've got the recipe for a nervous breakdown.

And I almost did snap too. I felt something in my brain throb and crackle and there was a bright flash of light behind my eyes. My body detached itself from my head, or seemed to, and I drifted away for a moment, deep inside myself, watching myself standing there, moaning, whimpering, letting out these weird humming sounds like a man who thinks he can just close his eyes and make it all go away.

Charlotte had fainted beside me, but I didn't even notice. I was staring at the floor, trying not to look at the tears in Stephanie's eyes, or the fierce look of betrayal in Ron's. It looked like betrayal anyway. It may have just been disbelief, or even confusion.

"Charlotte!" Stephanie called out, jumping from the couch to hurry over to her. I turned to look. Everything seemed like it was in slow motion, far away and echoey. All I could hear was the strange buzzing in my ear, like a bomb had gone off next to me, stunning me and striking me deaf. I later realized it was simply a panic attack I was going through. My blood pressure shot off the scale, throbbing hard in my ears, and my breathing shut down to short sharp gasps like I was drowning. That explained the stars I was seeing. That explained the feeling of being crushed in a bear hug until my head would pop. Somewhere in the distance I heard a ringing phone.

Ron got up just as quickly and carried Charlotte over to the couch. I remember slurring something at him, something about how it was all supposed to be secret, just for fun, just for us. I must have sounded like a drunk. He looked at me, confused once again, and turned back to Charlotte. I finally felt my legs give out and I sagged down to the floor, bumping the back of my head into the counter that divided the kitchen from the main hall.

Then I closed my eyes and everything faded away for real.

When I opened them I was lying on the other couch, and Ron was dabbing my face with a wet cloth.

"Just breathe, Anthony. Take a deep breath. Don't try to talk. Just breathe. Deep and slow."

"It was just for us. I didn't mean to-"

"Just breathe..."

"Charlotte! Charlotte, wake up, honey! Charlotte!"

Ron looked over at her. I just stared up at the ceiling above him, trying to remember what had just happened. Everything was blurry and fuzzy.

"Just relax. We'll get this all sorted out. Just relax. You kids have done something really ... bad ... but we'll get it sorted out."

"They must have done this while we were in Canada, just a few days ago. Oh my god! How could it have spread so quickly!?"

That was Stephanie again. Her voice was shaken with emotion. The phone paused for half a second in its ringing and started up again.

"When did you do this?" Ron asked me.

"You were away ... on your trip. We ... downstairs..."

"Who else was involved? Who was working the camera? The audio?"

"A friend. She directed ... She edit ... We did the ... acting."

My mouth felt numb, like I couldn't make it work.

"How could it spread all over the world so fast!?" Stephanie repeated.

Ring ... ring ... ring... I wished the phone would shut up. It was making my head hurt.

"Did you upload it to the internet?" Ron asked.

"No. It was just for us. We didn't want any-wuh see it, ever. Someone musta stoled it. Someone muss..."

"Charlotte! Charlotte, wake up! She's waking up, Ron! Charlotte?"

I looked over at her, lying on the other couch. Her eyes opened. She blinked a few times, moaned long and loud as though realizing she was still in hell, and then she started crying, helpless, piteous, pathetic sobs, the cry of a girl for whom all hope was lost.

"Momma..."

Stephanie hugged her hard. Then sat up again, feeling her forehead for fever, checking her head for bumps.

"Did you hit your head, baby? Are you hurt?"

"Momma, I'm sorry. Please don't hate me."

Charlotte covered her face with her hands, weeping. Her ring sparkled like sunshine. Stephanie's eyes widened when she saw it.

"Momma doesn't hate you. Don't say that."

"I'm sorry, momma. I don't know how it got out. I don't know what happened. It was supposed to be secret. It was... uhhhhhhhng..."

Then she turned toward the edge of the couch and threw-up strawberry Slushy and ice cream all over the carpet.

"Oh my god! Charlotte! Ron, I think she hit her head! I think she has a concussion."

I shook my head, closing my eyes for a moment.

"She didn't hit her head, Stephie," I said in my slurring, drunken voice. "She's pregnant."

Stephanie had been hurrying over to get a towel from the kitchen and she suddenly slipped and fell on her ass. Charlotte turned some more, and more messy colors came out of her. "Bleeeehhh!"

Ron stared at me, then at her, then turned away and put his head in his hands. I think maybe he was having a panic attack of his own. Stephanie just sat there, stunned, and then she lay down on the hallway floor. All was quiet, except for the ringing phone, until I spoke.

"We were gonna tell you. We were gonna tell you all about it. That's what we came in here to say just now. But when we saw the news on TV..."

Ron got up slowly. He walked over to the phone, ripped it out of the wall and threw it overhand into the fireplace where it shattered like glass into dozens of pieces. I think it was made of glass or something. Pieces of it flew everywhere. It was the first time I'd ever seen him angry. I should have been afraid, but I just felt really, really remorseful. He was such a peaceful man. Look what I'd done to him.

He took a deep breath, calmed down, walked over to Stephanie and helped her to her feet. He led her up the spiral staircase to the second floor and disappeared down the hall toward their bedroom. He didn't say anything to me or Charlotte. Neither did Stephanie, once he took her arm.

I lay on the couch, finally coming back to my senses, not feeling anywhere close to being okay, but at least the world seemed to reattach itself to my head. I rolled over and slid slowly onto the floor and crawled to Charlotte. She was holding her stomach and whimpering, with her eyes shut tight and her hands clutching her stomach. She was shivering, overwhelmed by stress. Her lip was quivering like she was cold. But her face felt hot. I just hugged her, feeling a strange sense of joy that she was really real, and here she was for me to hug in the darkest point of my life. She was the only thing in my world that wasn't complete and total hell.

I kissed at her tears and held her hand to my face. Then I just closed my eyes and laid my head down upon her chest. Her hand moved to caress my hair. Her heart seemed to be beating slowly. It reminded me of the heartbeat in the movie. I almost expected to hear that beautiful song.

Ron and Stephanie talked for a long time upstairs. They didn't yell, but I heard Steph crying every few minutes. I just held Charlotte until she stopped shaking. Then I got up and decided to clean the throw-up as well as I could. I mopped it up with a sponge, a bucket of water, and some cleaner I found under the kitchen sink. It wasn't a perfect job, but it didn't smell anymore.

Then I knelt beside Charlotte again and kissed her once more.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"No," she replied, barely whispering. "I've broken daddy's heart."

"Who could have done it, Char? We were so careful! Steve? Mick and Janine and Sheila were the only other ones there."

"I don't know. What does it matter though? It's out. We're fucked. What are we gonna do now?"

"Those girls at the store ... they must have seen it..."

And Charlotte fell to sobbing again.

"Our lives are over. What are we gonna do?"

"I don't know. I just wanna run away and never show my face in public again."

"I just wanna die," Charlotte said, and for the first time I felt a real sense of my responsibility in this whole mess. I'd planned it. I'd lied to so many people to make it happen. I'd carried it out. I could have stopped at any time, but I didn't. And now it was done. Now it was out and there was nothing we could do to take it back. Now the woman I loved wanted to die. And it was all my fault.

"Charlotte, don't say that. You don't mean that. This is bad, but our lives aren't over. We're in this together. We're gonna get through this."

"I just wanna die. Why can't I just die?"

Her weeping was killing me inside. It was making me wanna go to the kitchen, get a knife, and stab myself in the heart. I would have died right there and then without a second thought if it could have taken her grief away. Instead I just petted her hair.

"Oh, Anthony, why does everything have to happen all at once? What did we do that was so wrong?"

"We didn't do anything wrong. We just..."

I didn't know how to finish that sentence though. Maybe we did do something wrong. Maybe we did a lot of things wrong. We'd certainly made a mess of things for the Lawsens, for their business, for their private personal lives, for their peaceful happy home.

But how could we have known this would happen? We took every step to be careful. We took every precaution. We only made one copy.

Oh, yes. One copy...

The bitter realization hit me right then. I'd stashed the disc under the front seat of my truck on Sunday night. I'd completely forgotten about it and sold my truck yesterday afternoon with the DVD still in it. That salesman must have found it, copied it, released it to the world. It was all my fault after all.

No. There's no way it could have gone all over the world overnight. As strange as everything was, that truly was impossible. The movie had to have already been out when he found it. The world was already looking for us. He probably just helped them find us. He probably just-

"Anthony."

It was Ron, standing behind the couch behind me. I was on my knees beside Charlotte cuddling and kissing her hand, lost in thought. I looked up at him. Steph was standing with him. They didn't seem angry. They didn't even seem sad. They just looked very calm.

"We want to show you something, Anthony. It's very important. Charlotte, you too. Can you get up?"

Charlotte sat up slowly. I helped her to her feet. She wobbled a bit but I steadied her. Stephanie offered her the wet cloth Ron had used to wipe my face with, and she cleaned up around the edge of her mouth. Then she went to the sink and got some water. She walked slowly, on shaky legs, tears still streaming down her face. She looked like she didn't want to look into her parents' eyes.

"We want to show you what you've done with your lives. I hope you're prepared."

I looked at him, confused. He wasn't holding anything. He didn't lead us upstairs or downstairs. He just stood there staring, waiting for Charlotte.

"What is it?" I asked.

He picked up the remote from the couch and turned the TV back on. There was a shot of a small suburban neighborhood taken from a helicopter where a single house was thronged by a massive crowd in the street. "Besieged!" the caption read. The sound was muted. I couldn't tell what I was looking at right away, but as the helicopter swung around I recognized a red car in the driveway.

Ron nodded at me. Charlotte covered her mouth with her hand.

"Go look outside," he said.

We walked hand-in-hand toward the door and as we approached we heard the faint chopping of a helicopter. I pulled it open and heard the murmuring of voices, a whole lot of voices. We opened the door and stepped out onto the front step. There were hundreds of them, thousands maybe. They filled the entire street. They suddenly fell to an awed hush when we stepped out. The helicopter fluttered above.

A moment later the mob went wild. The roar was deafening. They all erupted at once as we stepped onto the front stairs holding hands. I got chills. Every hair on my body stood on end all at once. I tingled all over. I shuddered. They whistled, they screamed, they pumped their fists in the air and they hollered at the top of their lungs. Girls were weeping, jumping up and down, squealing and swooning, shouting things at us between hands cupped around their mouths. I couldn't make out what they were saying, but it looked like something joyous. There were so many tear-streaked faces, so many hands clutched against hearts, or holding other hands above each other's heads. Charlotte and I just stood there in shock, shaking like we were standing on the fault line of our own personal earthquake. Ron and Stephanie stood behind us in the doorway, just as stunned as we were. They had apparently looked out the window upstairs and seen what was going on, flicked on the television, and then come down to tell us.