Drowning » Rafe Cameron & JJ Maybank

038

(chapter thirty eight)

Rafe gripped the roots of his hair, the sweat coating his forehead. The worse about the high was the after. The lack of adrenaline pulsing on his veins, the confident exterior he seemed to have missed almost instantly, the short comfort — or happiness — leaving him void of any feeling. His brain tells him to do only one thing: lay down another line.

But he still hadn't known about the lack of the drug in his system. The abstinence was way worse.

He felt tired, his body thrown over the toilet as he couldn't keep any food in, and even with nothing, he found himself emptying the bile on his clear stomach.

And he wanted to cry, his eyes burning and he was so, so cold.

"Why are you ignoring me?" The angry, yet confused voice made him press his eyes even tighter than before, his teeth gritting.

"Leave me alone!" He yelled at nothing, his hand slamming on the ceramic toilet, and he hissed in pain right after.

The scene replayed in his head like it was mocking him, as his tall body felt so small under the invisible eyes as he curled his knees close to his chest, but Rafe would rather be dead than let anyone see him like that.

"Rafe-"

He closed his eyes once more, fingers pulling on his hair.

"I'm not ignoring you."

"Yes, you are? You haven't answered my texts in a week and even Topper noticed something is off," Clara's stressed voice was the only thing in his bedroom, and he barely even look up from his phone. "C'mon, at least look at me."

His electric eyes, as cold as blizzards left the home screen that he was pretending to be even more interesting than the girl before him and landed on the younger girl at the end of his bed. Her hand at the handle of the door she opened with force.

"Happy now?" He rolled his eyes as a frown appeared on her face. Don't do that.

"What happened?" She tried again, her voice a lot more quiet now.

"Nothing happened, Clara. I just need a break from you," Rafe shrugged one shoulder, forcing himself to ignore the way her face fall.

He needed to play indifferently. He couldn't have any distractions in his life at that moment, Ward needed for him to stay focused. Rafe was in the work to be the head of the company, he needed to focus — to study so he could get into the UNC.

He had everything in his life planned already, and Clara was distracting him, even if he caught himself just remembering when she sat on his lap at the Cameron party three months before. How the rays of the moon reflected on her eyes, and the sweetness of her lips- Don't.

Clara was a distraction.

And before she could even say something, he got up from the bed, taking calculated steps towards her.

"We're not kids anymore that our parents forced us to be friends, we don't need to keep pretending that we are," his words cut her deeper than a knife, her heart aching at that.

"Pretending we are friends?" Her voice was so quiet, and he could hear it breaking so clearly that he almost wanted to take it all back. "You were pretending..?"

"Yes," the cold in Rafe's voice made her look at him with betrayal — heartbreak. "Now we're settled, you can go."

"Rafe-"