The World Crumbles
“How’s Christian?”
Cadence repeated Aaron’s question, perplexed. She stared at him for a long moment as she tried to figure out why he would ask that, of all things, when he was clearly upset about something terrible. "He's okay," she managed with a shrug. “Why do you ask?”
His eyebrows moved slightly as he asked, “You’re pretending you don’t know?”
“I don’t know,” Cadence admitted. He didn’t even blink.
Did this have something to do with the way Christian had been chasing after her? Had Aaron noticed, too? Or did he know that she’d just had coffee with him?
“Listen, we just went for coffee to talk. I mean, I know he likes me, but he also knows I’m in to you, so even though I don't think he's happy, he'll live."
Finally, Aaron gave a bit of a reaction. He nodded a few times before he spoke. "Good," he said. "I'm glad he's okay with this. Of course, he probably knew all along what was going on, so he's had some time to adjust."
Tipping her head to the side, she studied his face. "What are you talking about?" she asked quietly, leaning slightly forward. "Adjust to what? It was coffee…. It wasn’t a big deal."
Aaron leaned back in his chair, slumping and interlacing his fingers, as if he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She’d never seen him act that way before. "True," he said shrugging. "That's not a big deal. No... no, coffee is not a big deal."
Leaning even further forward in her chair, Cadence said, "Aaron, you're scaring me. Do you want to tell me what the hell is going on?"
There was another long pause before he said, "That's fair. I do think you should definitely know what's going on. After all, you know how important honesty is to me, right?" She nodded, but no words would come out of her mouth "How many times have we talked about that, Cadence? About how important it is to be completely honest?"
"Lots of times..." What was he getting at?
"Right, lots of times," he agreed. "And how many times did I ask you if something was going on with Christian?"
"Also lots of times... and I told you—"
He cut her off, lowering his hands to look more closely at her. "Yep, lots of times. Because something just didn't seem right, and, in my experience when something doesn't seem right, it isn't."
It was clear then that he had gotten the wrong idea stuck in his head somehow, but she didn’t understand how that could’ve happened. Chrsitian didn’t say anything to him—did he? Why would he?
"Aaron, what the hell is going on? Are you accusing me of something?" Cadence asked, panic mingling with defensiveness as she fought to sort this all out.
"No, no," he replied. "I'm not accusing you of anything. Because, in order to accuse you, there'd have to be some doubt in my mind as to what is going on, but since I know exactly what's happening... well, it's really more of a confrontation than an accusation."
The pounding in her chest intensified, and beads of perspiration broke out along her forehead. Was he serious? "Aaron, there's nothing going on between me and Christian. I promise you," she replied emphatically.
"Really?"
She knew that look. It was the same one he’d given Giovani right before he shot Jack.
"Really!" Cadence declared, emphatically.
"Okay, then," he replied tersely, "explain this to me." Sitting up so that he was no longer touching the back of his chair, he flipped the switch on his wristband and projected a video for her to see.
Cadence didn’t know what she was watching at first. Just listening to the noises, it sounded like a porn movie, but then she realized the woman lying on her back with her shirt pushed up was her—and the man on top of her, kissing her, was Christian!
Her hands flew over her mouth as she gasped, her eyes bulging. "Oh, my God!" she exclaimed. It was extremely unnerving seeing herself from that angle, her eyes clearly puffy from crying over Aaron as Christian's hands and lips explored her body. "Turn it off!" she yelled, turning her head.
"What, you don't want to watch it either?" Aaron replied, not looking at it himself, his voice full of anger and betrayal. He flipped the switch and the image went away.
But even without watching it all, Cadence thought there was no way that was actually what had happened. The video had been altered. Who would do such a thing?
"Where did you get that?" she asked, her voice a hoarse whisper.
"Does it matter?" he replied, slamming his hands down on his desk.
She could tell by his expression that there was nothing she could say to explain the situation in a way that was going to make him understand. Clearly, he was about to yell or throw something, maybe both. She could no longer fight the tears herself and began to try to brush them off of her cheeks, barely holding herself together. He crossed his arms and spun his chair a bit, a sign that he no longer wanted to look at her. Finally, after several minutes she calmly said, "I can explain, if you'll listen."
"I'm done listening," he replied quietly. “You told me Jack was the only other man you’d been with, when in actuality, you’d just fucked Christian a few days before you asked me to fuck you, Cadence.”
"That’s not true!” she shouted, moving so that she could try to get into his line of sight, but he wouldn’t look at her. “I didn’t fuck Christian! He just kissed me a few times! It was the night I killed henry, the night you told me you didn’t want to see me anymore! I was upset—he was waiting for me!”
He didn’t believe her. He was slowly shaking his head and only mumbled, “If only I'd stuck to that decision..."
"Aaron, please! I didn't tell you because I didn't think it mattered! I didn’t fuck him! I don’t even care about him. You know how I feel about you—I told you!" Was he really going to trust some obviously doctored video instead of believing what she had said to him, how it had felt when they were together?
Or was this just part of what her mother had told her would happen—was this just an excuse?
An excuse for him to run….
He spun around then and looked at her. "I asked you, Cadence! I asked you specifically about Christian, and you lied to me!"
"I didn't lie!" she insisted, slamming her hand down on her leg. "I just... omitted the part about us making out. Because it doesn't matter!"
He was quiet for a moment before, with his blue eyes narrowed, he said, "It matters to me, Cadence. It matters a lot.”
She shook her head. "Why? We weren't together then. Even if I had fucked him, why does it matter? Did you list of to me every woman you’ve ever fucked? No! Because I don’t care! I just want to be with you now. It's not like you haven't ever--"
"This isn't about me!" he interjected. "I didn't lie to you! I'm not accusing you of cheating on me, although I wouldn’t be surprised if another video didn’t surface in the next day or two revealing that your alleged trip to Starbucks was more like a trip to star fucks. No, Cadence this is about the fact that I asked you repeatedly what was going on with Christian, and you lied to me. And you said Jack was the only man you’d ever been with. YOU LIED TO ME!"
A cloud of silence descended upon her as an overwhelming flood of sadness took over. It didn’t matter what she said to him. HE was too angry and upset at the moment to listen to her. After a very long pause, she finally said, "I'm sorry. I didn't think it mattered that we had kissed. I should’ve told you the truth so you would know that’s all that happened. But it didn’t seem important. It didn't matter to me."
"I don’t believe that you didn’t fuck him. I’ve seen the whole video, but even if you hadn’t, even if you’d just kissed him, it would still matter to me," he replied, re-crossing his arms and leaning back as far as he could, as if trying to escape her. “I can’t ever trust you again.”
Tears began to stream down her face, and even though there was a full box of tissues on his desk, she didn't ask for one, and he didn't offer. Cadence swiped the liquid from her cheeks, angry that he was seeing her cry.
"So that's it then? We're done?" she blurted at him. “You’re just going to call it quits because of that stupid video and what other people are telling you instead of what you know is the truth about how I feel about you?” Was she even making any sense at this point?
She must’ve been because he just nodded, his eyes looking beyond her.
Yet, she kept going, her words coming out between angry sobs.
"I guess it doesn't matter, then, that I told him to stop kissing me and kicked him out? That I've barely spoken to him since? That what you are really seeing is Christian taking advantage of me when I was heartbroken over you?"
He said nothing, and so she knew his answer. His mind was made up.
After a moment, she finally stood, absently smoothing out her jeans. "Fine," she said. "If there's nothing I can say then so be it." He still wouldn't meet her eyes, and she took one more glance in his direction before turning to walk to the door.
Once she had crossed the expanse, she turned again. "I hope you know you're making one hell of a mistake."
The silence was deafening so she pulled the door open, flying through it, and slamming it behind her so hard the pictures on the wall all tumbled to the floor, the sound of shattering glass filling the office space.
"Have a nice day, Mrs. Carminati," Cadence said as she passed the trembling woman, her hand clutched to her heart.
