Chapter 102: I let him stay
"I cannot speak of my past, but I need you to know that I never meant to harm you," he said.
"Why can you not tell me?" She demanded, frustration spilling from her lips. "Do you not see how unfair this is to me? To suffer for a past I know nothing of?" She had tried to hold back, to be patient but she could no longer contain it. How could they coexist if they kept secrets from one another?
"You do not understand," he murmured. "My past is not one I take pride in. It is a stain upon me, one I wish I could wash away...but I cannot. And just when I believed I had left it behind, it returned to haunt me. How can I bring myself to speak of such shame?"
Belle saw the pain in his gaze, and it unsettled her. What could his past hold that it tormented him so deeply? That he could not even share the weight of it with the woman he claimed as his own?
"I am not here to judge you," she said, her voice softer now. "We all carry wounds from the past. You know mine, I never shied away from them. I let them strengthen me, drive me forward." She searched his face, reasoning with him. "Our past does not define us, Hezekiah. It is what we do next that matters. But if you keep burying it, how will you ever be free of it?"
He studied her for a moment, then asked, "And if I told you that I have hurt a lot of women? That I am not the noble man you believe me to be? Would you still not judge me?" His voice had hardened, as though daring her to turn away.
She met his gaze unflinchingly. "Did you hurt them for fun?" She asked.
The question caught him off guard. She did not recoil, did not ask who they were, only why. Should that not have been her first concern? The identity of those he had hurt?
"Yes," he answered, watching her closely, waiting for disgust to flicker in her eyes.