Real Challenge (Atlanta #2) (31 page)

His own “strut and charm” was one hundred percent bravado and not really a part of his true personality. That façade was the calculated role he played at the office. Before Cassie, he was that way with women, too. The biggest problem was that even though he dropped the act with her, he had no idea how to be anything else at the office. In that place he was surrounded by people he felt the need to impress. He had to be completely on his game.
 

Cassie was the only influence that made him feel confident enough to be real and in the moment. He felt like a weak fool, and he owed Cassie an apology. He walked back to her room and knocked softly at the door. “Can I come in?”

“It’s not locked,” she answered flatly.

He walked in and closed the door behind him, leaning heavily against the frame. He stared at her laying flat-backed on the bed in her Minnie Mouse shirt. She was the picture of beauty and fun, but also she was the only woman ever to see him straight through, accept him, and call him out. She actually loved him, without all the bravado. She was oxygen.

“Cass, I’m so sorry.”

“For what. Do you even know why I’m so upset?” Her voice was still flat and devoid of any emotion. Hearing her like that nearly killed him. She was so distant. She didn’t even care that he called her Cass. He kept himself against the door, not wanting to approach her until she invited him over. He desperately hoped that she would.

“I know exactly why,” he said quietly. “You were right. About all of it. I am different when I’m with you, but then on Monday I go right back into the old me. It’s easier that way and I’m too damned chicken or stupid to do anything about it. And it never seemed to be much of a problem until today when I made you feel like that.”

Cassie didn’t say a word. She just continued to stare at the ceiling. Scott, still hoping for a soft reaction from her, continued trying to explain.

“I think I understand now why you were upset, but I think you got it wrong. You have to know I’m not ashamed of you. But I think what I did was worse. I fell right into corporate-Scott mode and I guess I sort of forgot you were there. I’m never with you when I’m like that. I was too busy kissing that guy’s ass to even consider you at all. God, I’m so sorry. You’re the most important thing to me, and I didn’t show it.”

“You’re so full of shit, do you know that?”

“Cassie, I’m trying to be honest with you here,” he said pleadingly.

“
Corporate
-Scott?”

“Yeah, I guess it’s what you would call who I am at the office. It’s why I got promoted as early as I did.”

Cassie got up on her knees and pointed directly at him. “That’s crap. You got promoted because you are an intelligent, dedicated, hard worker. I’ve seen you like that, and you didn’t have to be
corporate-freaking-Scott
to do it. If you were just honest like you are with me, you’d get promoted just as quickly. Quit hiding behind excuses.”

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say here, Cass. I’m sorry I treated you that way. Isn’t that enough?” Scott was starting to get angry. “I don’t know what you want! Do you expect me to change who I am?”

“I want you to be honest! God, I even think you believe yourself. I want you to BE who you are, not CHANGE who you are! Don’t you get that? And if I really were more important than acting all puffed up around that guy from work, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. We’d probably be sitting for a few minutes with that guy’s family having a nice chat. His daughter probably would have loved my damn shirt and we all could have had a smile about it. It may have even helped your career more than your pathetic fake laugh. No, impressing people is your number one. Not me. I’m done being your weekend plaything just so you can go be the impressive corporate-douche-bag-in-training the rest of the week. Get out.”

She crashed back down on the bed, this time in tears. Scott had no idea what to say. There she was, the woman he loved, crying on the bed they so often shared, and he couldn’t think of a damn thing to do about it. She truly was the most important thing to him. So why didn’t he act that way? Defeated and unable to fix the situation or take back what happened, Scott went back to the living room and packed his computer bag. He slammed her front door in frustration and drove home. Cassie stayed in her bed and sobbed.

Cassie let herself cry for a while before she called her brother’s girlfriend at work, knowing she’d be there on a Saturday afternoon with the big audit most of the department was working on. She really wanted to talk to Marcus, but as angry as she was at Scott, she didn’t want him beaten to a bloody pulp.

“Erin Connor,” Erin answered the office phone.

“Erin, it’s Cassie.”

Erin could hear that Cassie was crying. “Oh, God, what’s wrong, Cass?” She had never heard her boisterous friend sound so sad.

“Scott and I had a fight. I screamed at him because he was horrible to me, but I said even worse things to him. God, I don’t know what to do,” she sobbed into the phone.
 

“Cass, just sit tight. I’m going to pack up and get out of here. I’ll be at your place in a half hour. Do you want me to call Marcus? I’m sure he’d leave the gym if you needed him.”

“No, he’d just get pissed and probably just question Scott’s need for oxygen. I don’t want to have to worry about keeping him calm.”

“Ok, I’ll be there soon. Oh, crap. Scott just walked in. Let me talk to him before I come over. I’ll get there as soon as I can.” Erin hung up before Cassie could argue with her.
 

Erin walked right up to Scott and fell into step with him on the way to his office.
 

“What.” He said that word flatly. Erin could hear the anger in his voice.

“I just talked to Cassie. She said you guys got in a fight. You ok?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm. Obviously. Want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Well, Cassie didn’t tell me anything except that you were horrible to her but she was worse to you.”

“She said WHAT?” He was fuming and Erin took a step back. “She was not worse to me. What the HELL!” He slammed his office door in Erin’s face and threw something at the wall. Erin just stood there unsure of what to do and felt the eyes of everyone on the eighth floor boring into her back.
 

She turned around with a sugar-sweet smile and said, “Back to work, everyone. This ends our dramatic interpretation of the IRS audit process.” She looked in the window of Scott’s office and saw him sitting with his head in his hands. She had never seen him look so down. Things had been going so well between him and Cassie, but now both of them were miserable.
 

Erin hoofed it out of the office and drove straight to Cassie’s little cottage house. She knew she’d get the story from her. The first thing she noticed when she let herself in was the new table with the pink scarf tablecloth. The second thing she noticed was the crying sound from Cassie’s bedroom. Erin went straight back there to comfort her.

“Cassie, honey, I’m so sorry,” Erin said, handing her friend a tissue and moving to sit beside her friend. “If it helps, Scott’s a mess too.”
 

That only made Cassie cry harder.
 

“Ok, I guess that doesn’t help,” Erin said. “What happened?”

Cassie told her the entire story, beginning to horrible end. Erin just looked sad for her. “Wow. I guess if you think about it, this was bound to happen eventually. If Scott really was acting like two completely different people, then he never could have kept that up. It’s kind of amazing that it didn’t happen before now.”

“Erin, I was so awful to him. I called him a corporate-douche-bag-in-training.”

Erin had to suppress a laugh at that one. At times, that was a perfect description of Scott’s behavior at the office. He and Erin had always gotten along, but she was never as impressed with Scott as Scott was. She really liked who he was when she saw him with Cassie. Now that she thought about him so specifically, she realized how big a difference there was in him between the two settings.
 

“Cass, I need to tell you what happened when I saw him at the office. I told him what you said to me on the phone, exactly. He was furious that you thought you were worse to him than he was to you. He actually slammed the door and threw something at the wall. Everyone in the office was staring. No one had ever seen him like that, and it was all because he was worried that you felt guilty. Before I told him that, he was at least calm enough to talk to me.”

“So, what does that prove?”

“It proves that he knows he screwed up, and that he doesn’t want you to feel bad about your part in it. He understands this is
his
problem. Doesn’t that help a little?”

“Not really.” Cassie’s tears were flowing freely again and Erin just scooted over and hugged her friend while she cried.
 

“Think about it this way, too. He was finally a bit real at the office. Even if it was just anger about your fight, you still inspired him to drop the façade and be himself. That’s big.”

“Still doesn’t help. He doesn’t want me near anything that matters to him. I hadn’t even realized that he never took me anywhere where he knew people. Even at the pool he only took me on a Sunday morning so early there were no other swimmers. I never even realized it before he completely ignored me in front of that guy. I’ve never felt so low in years, Erin. I don’t let people make me feel like I’m less. But I let Scott do it, and it pisses me off that much more. This is as much my problem as it is his.”

“What can I do?” Erin asked quietly.
 

“I don’t think there’s anything to do at all. I just have to cry it out and get over it.”

“That’s it? You’re not going to fight for this?”

“For what? Half a relationship? That’s not me.”

Erin knew there was nothing more she could say. “Do you want me to stay with you tonight?”

“No, go home to Marcus. Hug him for me and tell him very specifically
not
to go kill Scott.”

“Ok. Take care and call me if you need me.” Erin kissed her on the head and left. She used her key to lock the door for Cassie, knowing she probably wouldn’t leave her room for quite a while, maybe for days based on the depth of sadness she saw in her eyes.

Scott sat in his office, trying to concentrate on the work in front of him, but the effort was wasted. The only thing he could concentrate on was the replay of the ugly scene from Cassie’s house. He had no idea how things got so screwed up so quickly.
 

Only since February did he have that force of nature in his life. He had changed so thoroughly with her. He was genuinely relaxed and could have fun being himself. She never wanted anything from him but that. But that was the point —
with her
. Never did he feel relaxed away from her. He was the same driven, goal-oriented guy he had always been. Being that guy took minimal effort. He was an expert at playing every role he needed to play.
 

But despite his self-analysis, he couldn’t get the two sides of himself to meet. He couldn’t imagine life without Cassie and all of the love and fun she brought him. But he couldn’t let go of the drive he’d had since before high school. That drive had made him an Olympic champion. How could that be wrong? He was getting a headache trying to explain/justify the entire mess to himself. Every ugly moment from the afternoon was pounding through his head along with his confusion. The pain was too much.

He finally gave up and left all his work scattered across his desk. He grabbed a bag from his office closet and headed to the pool. He wanted to exhaust himself physically and get into the zone where all he could think about was stroke, kick, flip-turn, repeat. He needed the oblivion of the pool so he could get lost. He needed to feel like he belonged somewhere, because he no longer belonged at work, and he couldn’t be with Cassie right now.

Scott drove to the pool, changed in the locker room, and dropped straight down into the water. He adjusted his goggles and shot out into the lane as hard and fast as he could. He kept his insane pace for lap after lap, barely able to breath in rhythm with his long strokes for working his body so hard. He finally fizzled out and grabbed the edge of the pool at the deep end of the lane. He hung on to the side, trying to catch his breath, but all he could think about was the look on Cassie’s face when she cried. He took a deep breath and swam hard again.
 

He did that every day before work and every night after work for two weeks, and he never heard from Cassie once. Not one damn text or phone call. He didn’t have the guts to contact her first. Things were really over. If he didn’t beat himself up at the pool every night, he probably would have cried.
 

The audit was over, and all he had left was work and swimming and absolutely no joy. His entire sense of self was lost and a sense of loss took its place. He had no goal to attain. And he still kept picturing that tattoo on her hip. She voluntarily branded herself with an icon of
him
, and he was sick to know he wasn’t worthy.

Cassie tried desperately for nearly two weeks to pick herself up and choose joy again. Unfortunately, her body acted as though joy didn’t exist and her brain forgot how to look for it. She thought back to her teens and tried to remember if she’d been this low then. Certainly those years had been worse, but a feeling lower than this didn’t seem possible in that moment. Cassie was empty.
 

Like the bold, determined woman she wanted to remain, Cassie forced herself to go to work. She even did some minimal yoga every day, but she never found the sense of inner peace she craved…only gut-level hurt from the park and their terrible fight after. Her own life went on without her, because she was still stuck on last Saturday and hadn’t moved an inch forward.  
 

Erin and Jenna even tried to help with shopping invitations, but Cassie wouldn’t go along. Every time her two friends protested, Cassie would come up with a lame excuse. When they finally pushed her too far and tried to drag her out anyway, she told them both a little too harshly to back off, and then cried for speaking to her friends that way. Erin and Jenna simply stayed and hugged her anyway.