“Where is this coming from?”
“I just need to know.”
“It’s more complicated than—”
“It’s not complicated!”
The shout makes me blink, wanting almost to step back — and though I don’t see it thrown, I flinch as a coffee cup detonates against the wall.
“What’s wrong with you?” I ask. It’s not my seminar voice. It’s not the tone I’d use to pacify a person who’s come to me for help. This is pure Anthony. Pure me. Pure reaction, digging at my gut. My eyes catch the flowers I was holding, now in a heedless mess on the floor. I might have dropped them when Caitlin threw her cup, but my mind saw neither occur.
“Nothing’s wrong with me,” she says. “Isn’t that what you tell everyone?”
“Why are you angry?”
“I’m not angry. I just want an answer.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Just the truth.”
I watch her, trying to decide how to handle this. Something has gotten under her skin, but I kind of doubt I’m going to learn what it is. As with anything, whatever is bothering her likely isn’t the real issue. The real issue is deeper, but something has triggered her. I can’t treat the symptoms. I can only treat the cause.
I won’t do that by playing into her anger. I have to break her pattern first. So rather than playing meek, I summon my own anger against her.
Which turns out to be easier than I’d expected.
“Stop bullshitting me and say what’s on your mind,” I tell her.
“What’s on my mind is being lied to.”
“Why do you think I’m lying to you?”
“It’s not your fault, Anthony,” she says, her words like venom. “You don’t even know you’re lying.”
“How am I lying?”
“Tell me about your billionaire friends again,” she says.
It’s such a non-sequitur that now she’s broken my pattern. It takes me a moment to recover.
“What about them?”
“Cole. Aiden. Onyx. Caspian. All those names we’ve all heard and that you whispered to me when we were ‘just fucking.’ Tell me how you’re so much more enlightened than them. I think I’m finally ready to hear it for what it is.”
“I don’t think I’m more enlightened.”
“Really. And yet they all ‘needed a woman’ to balance them out. Every one of them.”
“Most of the rich men I know are still single.”
“Not the ones you tell people about, though, right? The ones you use as examples were all selfish bastards until a woman taught them to feel. And that’s fine for the Caspian Whites of the world, because they arrived broken. But not you. Not the great Anthony Ross. You’re whole in and of yourself. You’re a lone motherfucking wolf, and happy about it.”
She’s got a smile on her face that I don’t like, and I wonder again what’s turned her so suddenly against me. She’s absolutely furious, but the root of anger is always fear and pain.
So what’s scared Caitlin? What’s hurt her?
“I simply know my priorities,” I say. “I’ve made my choices to align with my highest purpose.” It comes out a tad more defensive than I intend, but that’s only because it’s true. She wants to question my direction? I’m not going to sit here and stand for it, no matter what else I feel.
“And that’s why you’ve always just fucked girls rather than having a relationship with any of them.”
“I don’t do that anymore. Not since—”
“—since you started fucking me rather than having a relationship with me,” she finishes.
“Is that what this is about? We both agreed, Caitlin. We agreed what this was.”
I cringe at my use of the past tense. And I cringe at my words’ implication that nothing has changed, that once a fuck would always be a fuck. The past 48 hours are gone in a blink. But didn’t we have our moment? Didn’t I make a new decision, then arrive with flowers and renewed intention?
Didn’t I decide, just yesterday, that Alexa was wrong and that I’ve been right all along?
And didn’t I further decide that if it came down to a choice between Caitlin and the Eros/Syndicate deal, I wasn’t quite as certain of the winner as I used to be … and that part of the mission be damned?
Maybe I didn’t decide that. And maybe this discussion we’re having is proof that Alexa and the board were right. When you’re solo, you don’t have drama. When you’re solo, you answer only to yourself.
“You’re right,” she says. “We did agree.”
I see that furious tears have started to leak from Caitlin’s eyes, but she swipes them away with a grudge. Mentioning the tears would be folly. She’ll think I’m taking them as weakness — when clearly, in this moment, they’re anything but.
“And you know what?” she goes on. “Maybe you were right. Maybe you are whole and complete and perfect as you are.”
“Now, hang on just a—”
“Who can blame you for wanting to come back to me a few more times than you went back to the others? You might almost say I’m a real ‘trophy piece of ass.’” The way she says it, it’s like it’s a reference I’m not catching. “I’m comfortable saying that about myself now. Some big guru taught me how to have confidence.”
I reach for Caitlin. She snatches her arm away. But then I try again, because I can see that she’s trying to stay mad as much as she actually still is. That’s the thing about anger: it’s a shield that can only hold its integrity for so long. Sooner or later, you have to stop being angry and see the pain behind it instead.
This time, she lets me touch her. The way she averts her eyes and the way she’s cringing beneath my fingers break my heart in two. Yesterday, I decided I loved this woman — and now she hates me. I don’t know what’s soured between us, but her pause is giving me pause.
Yesterday, I loved her. But today I wonder if that love was a mistake. It’s fragile. It’s already causing me more hurt than joy.
“Caitlin,” I say softly. “Talk to me.”
She’s crying more freely now. The anger is leaving her like a traitor. I don’t know what I did to hurt her. I want to fix it, but without her help, I can’t.
She looks up at me. And she says, “Do I still distract you?”
“Do you … No, shhh—”
“Do I still make you second-guess your purpose?”
“Of course not.”
She looks away. And she says, “You’ve made me second-guess mine.”
My face melts from compassion to something worse, something ugly. It’s like she’s stabbed me in the gut.
“I only want to be with someone who wants to be with me,” she says. “I only want to strengthen someone, not hurt them.”
“You don’t … Caitlin, you don’t hurt me. You do strengthen me.”
“Do I?” She shakes her head. “I can’t strengthen someone so unwilling to look in the mirror.”
“What do you mean?”
“What’s the difference between you and the billionaire friends you talk about so much? What’s the difference between Onyx Scott’s damage and Anthony Ross’s? What’s the difference between how well Hunter Altman knew himself before he found his soulmate and you right now?”
“I …”
“Do you need me, Anthony?”
“Of course I do.”
“Don’t answer so quickly,” Caitlin says. “Really look deep inside yourself. Be as honest as you can possibly be. I’m not asking you to make me feel needed. This isn’t about me at all. I just want you to ask yourself, at your core, if you are complete and realized right now on your own … or if you are unable to function without me.”
I shake my head, not understanding. I get the question. It’s so literal that I can’t not get it. What I don’t understand is the bluntness of what she’s asking. Am I literally unable to function without her? Of course I’m not.
I built this business without Caitlin. I give life-changing sem
inars all around the world without Caitlin. I’m about to embark on an endeavor that will change the world, together with the Syndicate and Eros, without Caitlin.
What she’s asking is an impossible ultimatum. What she’s asking puts me in a position where I can choose to save her feelings or lie about the very core of who I am.
“Caitlin …”
“Answer the question, Anthony.”
“I’m whole and complete without you,” I tell her. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t be together.”
I get a sad little smile. I see new tears form.
And she asks: “What’s the difference between how incredibly fucked-up Caspian White used to be and the fully-realized man that is Anthony Ross, today, as the world knows him?”
The answer is right there in her question.
“Caspian was fucked up,” I tell Caitlin, “and I’m not.”
She leans forward. She wraps her arms around me, and we hug. At first it’s nice, and I feel the poison aura in the room dissipate. But then it goes on too long, and I realize the hug is something different. Something that brings tears to my eyes the same as they came to hers.
She pulls us apart. She smiles.
Then she takes her purse and walks toward the door, leaving me open-mouthed at her desk with flowers strewn at my feet.
And Caitlin says, “Goodbye, Anthony.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CAITLIN
THE SCENE REPLAYS IN MY dreams every night for the following week. After that I have the dream once or twice a week, then less and less.
In the dream, Anthony can be honest with himself.
In the dream, Anthony answers my question correctly, finally seeing the truth.
What’s the difference between how incredibly fucked-up Caspian White used to be and the fully-realized man that is Anthony Ross, today, as the world knows him?
In my dream, Anthony looks at the floor, then into my eyes. And he says, Nothing. There’s no difference at all.
Anthony tries to call me. He visits me at home. I don’t pick up the calls, and when he comes to me I’m polite but firm, turning him away. I can’t talk to him, though my heart wants to. It’s over. I don’t want it to be. But it has to be whether he understands my reasons or not — for both our sakes.
Then I cry.
And I cry.
It’s incredibly, incredibly hard to turn Anthony away, to accept that on a long enough timeline I’ll never see him again. No part of me wants to leave him. I keep waiting for the day I’m too weak to say no, or he catches me unaware.
When that happens, I’ll cave. I’ll let him into my home, my arms, my bed. I’ll justify that there’s no harm in any of those things, so long as I don’t let him into my heart. But I know how I am and I know how Anthony is … and most of all I know that Anthony doesn’t have a clue how he actually is. His circuits are fried, but it’s not the sort of thing I can explain to him.
The irony is that the guru of self-honesty isn’t being honest with himself — and there’s nobody whose word he’ll believe other than his own.
If I sleep with Anthony again, his mind will again mix love and lust. He doesn’t know the difference. He’ll weaken me and I’ll weaken him. Even a long discussion would break down my walls, and I can’t afford to have them broken down.
He thinks I’m mad at him — and at first, I was. But this isn’t about Alexa; it’s not about what he once said or once did when I wasn’t around. It hurt me deeply to hear him say that I was just a fling, that I meant nothing at all to him. But even that, I could get over. The real problem between us is one layer deeper.
After I listened to that Disclosure recording, I asked Anthony the same questions as Alexa had, more or less.
Did he need me?
Was he whole and complete without me?
Whereas his driven, billionaire friends needed love to be whole, was Anthony truly different? Did he not need love? Was he on solid ground all by himself?
Of course he wasn’t on solo ground all by himself. Of course he’s not, and never will be.
Regardless of whether he needs me specifically, he’s lying to himself if he believes he doesn’t need anyone. Nobody is an island, especially not the truly obsessed. For all of Anthony’s life, his business has been his baby. He’s single-mindedly pursued his “mission” because he feels he has to — because he owes a bright future to Young Anthony Ross, who used to have to steal to survive.
He’s driven himself relentlessly toward changing the world for the better, so that the world won’t have to suffer as he did. And while that may be noble — and while a part of me will forever love him for it — it’s not all there is for Anthony, if he were able to open his eyes and be honest.
The truth is, he wants more. He needs more, to be complete. But he doesn’t see it. It’s one blind spot that even the world’s best self-help man cannot see.
Until Anthony can be honest with himself, I can’t be with him. I’m too fragile. I’m too new upon my new chosen path. With Anthony, it would be too easy to slip and become co-dependent. I used to deny my true feelings the way Anthony does now. But whereas I’ve come to grip with my feelings (I’m angry with my father; I understand my mother but wish I didn’t; I’m guilty in my own right, hating myself; I do need Anthony even if he doesn’t need me), Anthony doesn’t even see his feelings.
He thinks he doesn’t need help.
He thinks he knows himself.
I could argue with him all day, but until Anthony can look himself in the mirror and realize that himself, I can’t be with him. I’m not strong enough. I have to be able to love myself, too … and I deserve someone who can admit he loves me fully and with all his heart.
Anthony thinks he can love me without needing me.
But to love is to need.
To love is to be incomplete without someone.
To love is to open the doors of your heart and let someone in, knowing they might gut you.
I can’t be gutted again. I can’t take it.
So I decide to be the strong one. I shut him out. I focus on me, whom I can at least control.
Two weeks pass.
Three.
Anthony is relentless. He believes he did something to anger me, so finally I cave and tell him the truth just to get him to leave me alone: he did anger me. He said incredibly hurtful things. I tell him about the Disclosure recording and invite him to search it out for himself — but I do so reluctantly, sure he’ll take the wrong meaning from it.
And he does. He apologizes for what he told Alexa. He tells me he was just trying to pacify Alexa, to smooth things over so the deal could go through.
When that doesn’t sway me, Anthony tries a different approach. He stops saying that he didn’t mean what he said on the recording, and starts admitting that in the moment he meant it plenty. He tells me he meant it then, but changed his mind later.
That hurts more, but at least it’s a step closer to honest.
But in the end, the things he tells me to try and make it right are always the same.
You don’t mean “nothing” to me, he says.
You mean everything to me.
I change the topic. I ask about work, and I think Anthony believes the topic has actually changed when in fact it hasn’t changed at all.
How are your seminars?
They’re fine.
Do you still have your nightly dates? Does Amber still find you women while you’re on the road?
He answers immediately: No. Because I love you, Caitlin.
I tell him he can’t have me. I ask him what he’ll do once he accepts my denial.
I suppose I’ll go back to how things were, he finally says.
Will you be happy that way? Were you happy before?
I imagine I can be happy again, he says, in time.
But it’s not true. He wasn’t happy before me, no matter what he told himself, so he won’t be happy again once he forgets me. He wasn’t complete back then and
won’t be complete once he moves on.
This isn’t about me; it’s not that I am some special flower that presumes to be Anthony Ross’s one and only. This is about Anthony. It’s about the way he stares right at his reflection and tells himself the same things I used to tell my reflection: that everything is just fine, and that the problems he has exist outside himself.
I used to blame my mother.
I should have been blaming myself.
It’s weeks before he gives up. I keep working for the foundation, but I take myself mobile, hunting out charity opportunities away from home. Maybe I’m running away. God knows I’m blaming myself all over again for everything that went wrong, mainly because I’m the one who stepped on the brakes and brought us to a grinding halt. Mainly because when Anthony tried repeatedly to apologize, I wouldn’t even listen.
But this isn’t all me.
The more time passes, the more I read Anthony’s thoughts in the course of doing my job for the foundation. With distance, I see more and more in his writing and his philosophies that I never saw before.
For instance:
Anthony is generous. He’s easily the most generous person I know. He gives and gives and gives to everyone he meets. The problem is, he’s so generous that he’s lost the ability to receive. Anthony thinks this is a good quality: that martyrs make for good heroes. But I see right through him. Anthony doesn’t give because he wants to give. He gives, deep down, because he wants the world to love him in the way his mother and father never did.
Anthony is kind. But he’s kind because kindness engenders kindness, and his heart needs kindness.
He’s morally upstanding — always doing the right thing — because the world did the wrong things to him in his childhood, and he’s terrified that the world will snap back and start doing it to him again.
The more I think of Anthony — and I think of him a lot, always with a pit of loss in my gut — the more I see that he’s a beautiful, wonderful man. But I also see that he’s a tragic man. He clings to his mission because he’s afraid his life might turn out meaningless. He’s confident because he’s afraid of being mortal — of life ending one day, his work here unfinished.
The Guru (Trillionaire Boys' Club Book 6) Page 18