RIPTIDE | Rafe Cameron

34. 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘩𝘶𝘳𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴

"You can have five minutes." Shoupe sighs, standing up.

"Are you sure about this?" John B asks me with a concerned face.

"No," I smile, standing up, "But I need to do it."

Shoupe leads me out of his office and through one of the staff entrances through the area I recognise from when I gave my statement after the shooting, "Just wait here." Shoupe instructs me, leaving me in the waiting area before speaking to Officer Plumb and gesturing towards me.

She approaches me tentatively, with a small smile, "Come with me, Sidney."

She leads me through a basic door, and we walk down some steps to another, heavy locked door. She unlocks the door and walks through it, calling out, "You've got a visitor, Rafe."

"Who?" I hear him shout as we walk around a corner, my hands trembling as I lay eyes on Rafe behind bars.

"You've got five minutes, I'll be outside." Plumb tells me as Rafe looks up at me in disbelief, staying close to the back wall, and even from here I can see the grazes on his skin.

As soon as we hear the door slam he rushes to the bars to be as close to me as possible, despite me standing about a metre from his cell, "You're here."

"Yeah, I am." I whisper, my heart racing as I attempt to navigate this conversation.

"Your hair, it's different," He replies, observing my freshly dyed hair.

"Yeah," I nod, looking down at the floor, "It kind of felt like time to bring some of the old me back."

"Are you okay?" He mutters, holding onto the bars of his cell, "The hospital let you go?"

"I didn't tell them, I discharged myself." I reply, fighting the desire to rush towards him and let him back into my life.

"But what if you're not ready? What if something happens to you?" He asks.

"Don't act like you care." I exhale, driven to destruction by what I heard in that tape.

"What do you mean? Of course I care about you!" He exclaims, startling me slightly.

"You know, Rafe," I sigh, folding my arms across my chest, "You're such a good liar, that I struggle to understand what was real and what was fake between us, because lying is something that seems to come so easy to you."

"The way I felt, feel about you is true, all of that is real." He attempts to reassure me as I blink away the tears waiting to escape from my eyes.

"It was real, was it?" I scoff, "Are you sure you weren't just hoping that Daddy dearest would finally take notice if you were fucking a pogue?"

Growing up, I quickly learnt that anger is an incredibly effective mask to disguise grief and upset. It will also make it a lot easier to let Rafe go if he despises me the way I despise myself, I can't continue to be the version of me that he says he loves.

"Do you think I enjoyed hiding this from you?" He attempts to reason with me.

"I don't know, because I don't know you anymore." I mutter.

"I was trying to protect you, Sid." He exclaims, smacking his hand against the bars of his cell.

"I didn't need protecting from anything except what you did!" I shout, finally let all the pent up anger explode, turning to face the wall behind me as I recompose myself.

"I hate what this has done to you, Sid." He sighs.

"So do I," I turn back to face him, approaching him slowly, "But at least you taught me to grow a fucking backbone."