Page 62 of The Red Zone
“Are you crying?” I wriggled the doorknob once again, but it wouldn’t budge.Fuck. What kind of utility closet locked from the inside, anyhow?“Open the door.”
“I’m not crying.” I heard a faint sniffle through her broken words. Man, she was a horrible liar. Wiggling the thing again, I let out a stream of expletives when it still didn’t move.
“Yes, you are. Now open the door for me.”
“No. You’ll just make fun of me.”
Her words were like a sucker punch straight to the heart.
That’s what she thought? Instead of assuming that I’d want to help her through whatever was going on, I’d barge in there and make some sort of joke to hurt her even more?
Fuck.
Until this point, there weren’t many things I’d regretted about Mae and I’s previously deranged relationship. Now, I’m not going to sit here and pretend like I’ve been a damn saint—there were more than a handful of things I’d said over the years that I wished I could take back—but at this moment, I wanted nothing more than to reverse it all. Go back to the beginning and start over with her on a clean slate.
Do I think it would’ve completely prevented us from despising each other? Not a chance.
However, I knew that starting over clean wasn’t possible. Which meant I had to do everything in my power to show her that we were done with these insulting remarks toward each other.
We could joke. Fuck, we could even argue until we were blue in the face. But there was too much at stake to risk losing her—the possibility of us—to continue on with our hostile jabs.
“Fuck.” I cursed under my breath, taking a step back to run my hands through my hair as I sized-up the door, contemplating my chances of breaking it down without injuring myself.
I felt like a failure.
Like I’d let her down once again, and it tore at my heartstrings. Not only that, but it unleashed an overwhelming desire to prove her wrong—to show her that I could be the exact opposite of how she thought I’d act in this moment. Not because I wanted to win some intangible achievement I’d created in my head, but because I wanted her to see that I wasn’t the bad guy anymore.
I’d spend the rest of my days reversing her perception of me if that’s what it took.
“Open the damn door, Mae, or I’ll break it down myself.”
The lock on the door sounded, but nothing could’ve prepared me for what I found when I whipped it open.
The most stunning girl in the world with her face in her palms. My fucking heart couldn’t take seeing her like this.
“Come here.” Before I had time to think, the door to the small room slammed behind me, drowning out the outside noise as I dropped to the floor and gathered her into my arms, pulling her snuggly against my chest.
To my surprise, she wrapped her arms tightly around me so firmly that it almost knocked me over. A long while passed as she sobbed against my chest while I stroked her hair. I could feel the wetness from her tears soaking through my suit, but I couldn’t have cared less. I’d walk out onto that runway naked if it helped her feel better.
As she sobbed, in my arms, I felt helpless.
Like nothing I could’ve said or done would have been enough.
“Baby, tell me what’s wrong? Talk to me.”
“He’s—he’s here…” she managed through shaky breaths, tightening her grip on the back of my shirt. “And I feel like I can’t breathe.”
I tipped her head up to look at me. “I need you to breathe with me, okay?”
She gave me a weak nod, pulling in a breath at the same time I inhaled, and pushing one out of her nose when I exhaled. We did that for a few rounds, until she was noticeably relaxing. Her shoulders were no longer tense and her breath had returned to a normal pace.
“Who’s ‘he’?” Irritability dripped in my words. I couldn’t take it any longer. My blood turned to a boil as the thought of an ex of hers being here flickered through my mind.
Hell, it didn’t even have to be an ex. A crazed fan? Some fucking weirdo from her Socialgram direct messages who refused to leave her alone?
Either way, I didn’t give a fuck who ‘he’ was because ‘he’ was going to be on the receiving end of my wrath two seconds after his name spilled out of her mouth.
Anyone who was asshole enough to make a woman hide in a closet with tears streaming down her cheeks in fear would quickly become public enemy number one in my book.
