All dreams of snuggling on Jasmine dashed, I’ve spent the last two hours sitting here, clutching the unicorn pillow to my chest, legs bouncing nervously, watching the clock on the wall tick closer and closer to nine while frantically trying to put together some sort of explanatory monologue to tackle Caspian with when he arrives.
Two hours of desperate pondering, and you’d think I’d have something better than bursting into tears and wildly waving my arms by means of clarification, but every time I picture his face upon hearing the news, I can’t come up with anything beyond the Muppet flail.
When I hear the elevator bell ding at 8:45 sharp, I fall into a full-fledged panic, thinking that if I just had those extra fifteen minutes, the perfect answer would have come to me.
The door opens, and in he walks. I fly up off the couch, still clutching the pillow.
“I have to talk to you about something important,” I blurt out as the door closes behind him.
He’s frozen in place, staring at me. “What are you doing here?” he asks flatly.
“You told me to meet you here,” I say, confused. “But seriously, I have to tell you something.”
Caspian stands there for an endless moment, just looking at me. No emotion. No response. My stomach drops to my feet.
He knows.
Peeling off his scarf, he walks over to the nearest chair and drops it and his coat, still expressionless and silent.
“Cas?”
He looks back at me, and the deadness in his eyes tells me I’m definitely too late.
“What did you think would happen by coming here?” he asks. “That somehow retroactively confessing would undo it?”
“I’m not here to confess anything, because I didn’t do it,” I say, my voice pleading. “I didn’t out that senator. And I came here because I was hoping you hadn’t seen it yet, so I could warn you.”
“Warn me? Warn me that you’d—what? Finally found the highest bidder?”
“No!” I throw the pillow on the couch and try to make my way closer, but the tension wafting off of him stills me. “To warn you that, somehow, the information got out. I can’t imagine how awful it felt to see that out of nowhere. I was hoping that if I could tell you before you saw it, maybe it wouldn’t freak you out as much.”
“Is this honestly the angle you’re going with?” His voice is rising, and his eyes are no longer dull, but filling with rage. “That you’re merely playing the Good Samaritan, here to spare my feelings?”
“Please, please listen to me,” I beg, growing frustrated. “I didn’t sell that information. I never even saw anything about the senator in the stuff we went through! And even if I had found it, I wouldn’t have done anything with it, Cas. Come on. I would never do that to anyone, but more importantly, I wouldn’t do that to you. I know how terrifying any of this getting out would be for you.”
“Oh, come off it,” he scoffs. “You expect me to believe that, somehow, by some magical coincidence, the exact kind of information you found on me, almost certainly from the same files you dug me out of, just ended up being publicly distributed, and you had nothing to do with that?”
I use everything I have in me to try to appear as calm as possible, but I’m a raw nerve inside. “Honestly? Yes. Because that’s what happened. I don’t know how that information ended up with TMZ and CNN and everyone else who probably has it, but it wasn’t me. I am begging you to believe me, Cas, please. Please, just listen to me.”
“No, enough!” he shouts, and I jump a little. “Whatever this is, whatever sick game or twisted plot you have going, I’m done being the fool who falls for it!”
“Please, oh my god,” I say, feeling tears pool in my eyes, spurred by anger now as much as the stress of it all. “There’s no plot, you’re not a fool, and I didn’t do this.”
“Are you even capable of not lying when you speak?” he chides, wholly unconvinced by anything I’ve said. “I spend my life surrounded by people pretending to be anyone but themselves, and I’ve never come across anyone with your skills. I’d be impressed if it weren’t so disgusting what you’re doing. At least the rest of us know when we’re playing a part.”
“Look,” I snap, “if you’ve reverted to that Evil Cas villain character of yours, you’re taking it way too far.”
“Did you call that senator, too?” he asks, his voice dripping with disdain. “Did you even give him the chance to try and keep you from ruining his life, or did you just go right for the easy sell?”
“Oh my god, I didn’t—”
“Was I your practice run?” Caspian pulls his hands through his hair. He’s pissed, for sure, but he seems to be rapidly shifting from anger to fear to hurt. It’s like he can’t land on an emotion as he starts pacing in front of the kitchen area. “Was this all your extortion starter class? When you saw it wasn’t as easy as you thought, you just went right for the kill with the next one?”
“Cas, I know you don’t know me very well, but I swear to you I would never—”
“Know you very well?” He laughs a forced, quick, bitter laugh. “Don’t act like I have any goddamn clue who you are.”
The first tears start to fall, and I clench my jaw. I know he’s in pain, but he’s also being a monster, and I want to tear into him claws first. But as much as I want to draw that metaphorical blood, I know he’s wounded, and if I have any chance of getting him to listen, shouting back is probably not the wisest approach.
I square my shoulders and try to keep my voice from shaking. “I have never been anyone but myself with you. Even when we were at each other’s throats, I was honest with you the entire time. You know that’s true. Please, please hear what I’m saying. I know how scared you must have been to see that on the news, but I’m trying to tell you I didn’t have anything to do with this, and you don’t have to worry about your stuff coming out. I gave you all the papers we found on you, and we took the rest of the Cranson files to the dump.”
For a moment, his mask of anger falters ever so slightly, and I catch a glimpse of reason, but just as fast, he regroups. “Where’s your phone?”
“What?”
“Your phone!”
I reach into my pocket and hold it out. “Of course you can have it back.”
He stomps over, all concerns of accidentally being physically imposing gone the way of the dinosaurs, and grabs the phone out of my hand.
This doesn’t feel like his attempt at being intimidating gone wrong. In fact, the more I watch him, the more I’m convinced this isn’t a character he’s playing in the hopes of scaring me straight. This feels more like witnessing an injured animal that’s been backed into a corner. As angry and overwhelmed by his reactions as I am, I still have an undeniable urge to try to find a way to soothe that injured part.
“I don’t want the bloody thing back,” he snarls, trying to unlock my phone. Quietly, I give him the passcode. “I want to see what you’ve recorded.”
“Wait—what? What does that even mean?”
“How fucking idiotic was I to fall for any of your play,” he says, scrolling through things on my phone. “When we’d talk, how much of that were you videoing? What pictures do you have? Do you think you’ll get more money now that I was a complete fool and confessed every detail about my time at Cranson?”
“What? That’s demented! I didn’t record anything!”
“Stop lying to me!” he barks. He’s losing his icy exterior and slipping into actual panic now. I want to reach out and calm him, find whatever words will fix the terror he’s feeling, but he’s so emotionally all over the place, I don’t know where to start.
“Where is it?” Caspian demands. “Did you already upload it somewhere else as a safeguard?” He curses and flings the phone back at me, and I just manage to catch it, out of sheer reflex. “Of course you did. You wouldn’t want to lose your biggest payoff yet, would you?”
“Please stop,” I say, tears falling freely now. “I know you’re upset, but you’re scaring me.”
“Oh, really? What’s that like? To have someone you foolishly started to trust suddenly fuck you over and be terrified of what they might do next? I can’t possibly fathom how that would feel.”
“I’m telling you I didn’t fuck you over, and you don’t have to be afraid of what will happen next, because nothing will!”
“Why did you do this?” His entire posture shifts suddenly. His voice breaks, and tears pool in his eyes, and I feel like a huge crack rips through my chest. The pain is so sudden, I wrap my arms around myself. “Why? How could you do something like this, after all of it? I thought we... I thought—”
He stops himself and shakes his head. It’s like he thinks if he can just shake hard enough, whatever words he had forming will fly out of his mind.
When he looks up at me again, the suspicion and hate aren’t there anymore, but what’s left feels so much worse. It’s all betrayal and pain. “Just tell me when,” he pleads. “When is it coming? Please, Clara. Give me enough warning to speak with my parents first. Can you at least be decent enough to give me that?”
When his tears begin to fall, everything in my chest shatters at once, and I can’t control my sobs. “Nothing is coming,” I say, begging with every syllable. “I swear to you, nothing is coming. Please, Cas, please—”
“Stop calling me that,” he shouts, the fire returning as he angrily brushes the tears from his face. “And fine, if you can’t be human enough to give me even the slightest bit of warning, then to hell with you.”
I don’t know what to say or how to get him to hear me. I look around the hotel room in desperation, but find nothing to help me convince him of the truth. “I’m sorry,” I say between gasping sobs. “I’m sorry this is happening. I’m sorry you’re so afraid. I don’t know how to make you understand I had nothing to do with this, but I wanted you to know you don’t have anything to worry about. You’re safe.” I stop for a moment, as the tears are coming too fast for me to speak through them. I pull in a shuddering breath through an impending wail and try to carry on. “You never have to see me again, I promise. But please believe me that you’re safe. I promise.”
“Your words mean nothing to me,” he says, locking his expression down again. His eyes are still rimmed red with lingering tears. “But no, you don’t get to just walk away while I wait for you to destroy my life.”
I try to wipe my own tears away, but they’re coming too fast to manage. “I don’t understand what that means.”
“You conned me into this nightmare, and you’re going to finish it,” he says, his voice an audible threat. “Thanks to you, I have a team who thinks you’re part of my life. And you’re going to follow through with our deal, or so help me, I will ruin you in every way I can possibly find to do so.”
I desperately bounce in place and pull my hands through my hair. “How? Nothing about you is even out there to be sold to anyone. If there’s no story about you, why would you try to make one?”
“Enough with the utter bullshit that there won’t be a story,” he growls. “When it comes out, I will tell everyone my girlfriend turned out to be nothing but a fame-whoring liar who tricked me into opening up about a painful past so she could make a fast buck from Page Six.”
I wring my hands, shaking my head. “But it’s not true. None of that is true, Caspian. I know you know it’s not true.”
“Like you give a good goddamn about what’s true.”
Another pitiful sob escapes me, and I want nothing more than to somehow calm him and pull my own self together, but there is no control to be found in this room.
“But I do,” I say quietly. “I do care about what’s true. You and me? We were—”
“We were nothing. Nothing,” he says with more conviction than any of his other declarations. I don’t know which of us he’s trying to convince more. “Don’t ever think otherwise.”
I nod, the tears still flowing. I don’t know what else to say. What to do. How to fix any of what’s happened.
“Fine,” I say, a numbness spreading through my entire body. “What do you want me to do?”
“What do I want you to do?” he repeats with a spiteful laugh. “I want you to suffer the way you thrive on making others hurt.”
“Okay,” I say, my voice a cracking squeak. “If that’s what you want, just tell me what I have to do.”
“You’re going to follow through with the rest of our deal,” he commands. “You’ll be at my final show and the event after. And then at the premiere, you will stand there as I end this pathetic sham of a relationship.”
I bite my lip to keep the sobs in. “Fine.” I shake my head and try to control my body, which is now practically convulsing all over. “What else do you want?”
“For you to get out,” he says coldly. The icy veneer has returned, and I’m once again looking at the character I met that first night in Tom’s living room. “Leave. Now. I don’t want to look at you a second longer than I absolutely have to.”
I quietly pick my coat up off the arm of Jasmine the couch and make my way to his door, pressing the elevator’s down button.
While I wait for it to arrive, without looking back at him, I say, “I am so sorry, Caspian. I’m sorry for how afraid you are, and for bringing this back into your life.”
As the elevator pings, he snarls, “Fuck you and your apologies.”
The door opens, and the elevator operator goes from smiling to concerned upon seeing my face. As I step inside, I murmur, “Goodbye, Caspian.”
The doors shut, and the operator and I head down in silence.