𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐡 | 𝐫𝐚𝐟𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐧

０２８．

Rafe leaned back on his elbows, squeezing his eyes shut as the rising sun warmed his face. He drew in a long, steady breath. Held it for a second. Let it out.

He'd been there for hours, just sitting on the hill in front of his house. He'd taken two steps inside, enough to discard the keys to the cruiser and think about going to bed, before he decided that he couldn't bare it. Sitting in that claustrophobic room with the image of Ren kissing another man playing in his head over and over and over – it would drive him insane. Actually insane.

So he'd turned around and walked back out. After an hour or so of frantic pacing, he'd found himself sitting on the crest of the hill, watching the water. He kept thinking about the night, retracing his steps from beginning to end, analyzing every second of it.

He knew where he went wrong. He was so painfully clear on which point it was where he truly fucked up. And he knew that after all of the pain he'd caused Ren, her reaction was mostly reasonable and definitely understandable. Lacking the willpower to keep his hands off of her, being too honest with her about how he felt and giving her false hope when he knew he'd just have to go again... Rafe's behavior was selfish and unforgivable. He knew that.

But god, he just couldn't stop seeing it, every instant after she'd left him standing there in the storage room, and it was breaking his fucking heart.

Before, he'd kept thinking that nothing about leaving her could have gotten any worse. But here it was, in all of its glory – the worst part of it.

It wasn't even the kiss she'd shared with Cain that he found so gut-wrenching. Of course, that image made him sick to his fucking stomach. But it was the way Cain had looked at Ren when he realized that she and Rafe had been together, appalled and angry and so disappointed in her, that got to Rafe the worst.

After what he did to you?

Rafe couldn't even fathom what he'd done to her. He'd never seen her cry, never seen her crack. The closest he'd ever gotten was when she thought he was going to die, and that was panic above all else. Seeing her eyes welling with tears earlier in the night had nearly brought him to his knees, and that was when she was fighting tooth and nail to blanket her emotions. The thought of not being there for her when they were so heavy that she couldn't hide it, the fact that Cain was... Rafe hated it. All of it.

Getting on the cruiser was the hardest thing he'd ever done. He wanted more than anything to turn around, to march back into that club and knock Cain on his ass, to promise Ren that he'd never leave again and to mean it. But Rafe wasn't the man he'd been when he left the Outer Banks. He didn't make promises he couldn't keep anymore. And although he loved Ren more than he'd ever loved his father, a fact of which he was completely certain now, he still couldn't bring himself to abandon his family.

Rafe kind of hated himself for it.

He kind of hated himself for a lot of things.

He wanted to do a line, take the edge off with the coke he'd ruined his own night for, but something about it felt wrong. Something about it made Rafe want to never touch it again, in spite of the constant feeling as though his head was spinning. If he was being honest, he might have been a little scared that the anxiety and the unsteadiness was just because he was losing his mind again, and not because of the cravings. He didn't want to find out, to know for sure, so he didn't touch the coke and allowed himself to believe it was just cravings.

He pulled in another ragged breath, fighting to steady himself as he laid back entirely on the grass. The sun was blinding now, and Rafe rested his forearm over his eyes. Partially to hide from the sun, and partially to hide the stream of frustrated tears that he was helpless to stop at this point.