was an understanding in his eyes then, and he nodded. “Alright. Come on.”
It felt like the slowest elevator ride of my life, and when it hit Gemma and Zach’s floor, he paused, holding the door open.
“Just be honest, explain why you kept the truth from her. Belle… she’s not as hard up as she wants everyone to think. She’s soft just like the rest of us, but she’s been hurt badly enough to know to hide it.”
“I never meant to hurt her.”
He nodded. “I know. But you did.”
I swallowed down the truth in those words like acid.
I promised I’d never hurt her, but I did.
“Thanks for your help.”
Zach tapped the doors where he held them before stepping out completely. “Good luck.”
My heart thumped in my ears like a drum when the elevator reached Belle’s floor, and I stepped out into the hallway in a sort of haze, something between a nightmare and a drunken stupor. My feet felt sluggish and heavy, the adrenaline fading.
And then I was at her door.
I knocked without hesitation, shifting my weight from side to side as I waited, and then the door opened, slowly at first and then in a whoosh, and Belle stood there on the other side of it looking like absolute hell.
Her eyes were bloodshot, puffy and swollen, morphing her face into something barely recognizable. Auburn hair sat in a pile on top of her head, falling out of the hair tie that tried to wrangle it, and she looked so small in the oversized sweatpants and t-shirt she had on. Her little nose was pink, too, and she sniffed, shaking her head with those blue-green eyes glaring at me like I was evil embodied.
“You’ve got a lot of balls showing up here.”
“Belle, I can explain.”
“You can explain that you lied to me? For months? Literally from the first day I met you?” She shook her head, eyes trailing over me like a bug she was about to smash with her heel. “No, thanks. I figured that out all on my own.”
She went to slam the door, but I stopped it with my palm, stepping my sneaker against it for good measure. “Please, Belle. Just hear me out.”
“What could you possibly have to say right now?” She thrust her hands out, mouth open as if to hammer home the point that I was an idiot for thinking there was any explanation that would undo the pain I’d already caused. “You lied to me, Makoa. You’ve been hiding this… this huge part of who you are, telling me you’re in fucking real estate?” She scoffed, shaking her head.
“I didn’t mean for it to go this far.”
“No? Just how far did you plan for it to go?”
I shook my head, desperation fizzing in my bloodstream like bubbles. “I was going to tell you. Many times before, but every time it just didn’t feel right. But tonight, I was absolutely going to tell you — no matter what.”
“Guess I beat you to it.”
She tried to close the door again, but I pushed against it.
“Belle, just… let me inside. For five minutes. Please?”
She inhaled a hot breath, blowing it out with a wave of her hands as she abandoned me at the door and walked inside. I followed her, gesturing for her to sit on her couch but she denied me, standing with her arms crossed, instead.
Everything inside me longed to hold her. I knew if I could just get her in my arms, if she could feel the way my heart beat only for her, if she could see the sincerity in my eyes when I told her I never meant to hurt her — this would all go away.
But one look at her from across the room told me there wasn’t a shot in hell that I was getting close to her right now.
Here goes nothing.
“I have a complicated record with women,” I started, knowing there really was no perfect way to say everything I needed to. “When I was younger, every girl I tried to give my heart to stuck me firmly in the friend zone. I was too goofy looking, too sweet, too nice. They all wanted men who treated them like they didn’t matter, and I didn’t have it in me to do that.”
I thought I saw Belle’s eyes soften just marginally, but it happened so fast I couldn’t be sure I’d actually seen it at all.
“By the time I got to college, I’d been burned so many times that I