.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.
↴rafe's point of view
I practically storm through the entryway of Tanneyhill, everything that happened in the last hour still a blur in my head. My future with Juliet is completely unraveled and unclear.
A brief shuffle of papers sounds from the dining room, so I step inside, finding my father sitting at the table.
"Dad," I pant. "I need to talk to you."
He doesn't even look up at me.
I take a few steps forward to sit in the empty chair across from him before inhaling deeply. "It's about the case."
This catches his attention. "What about the case?"
"I don't think we should..." I sigh, clearly struggling to get the words out. "We can't put the blame on John B."
He stares in disbelief before chuckling lightly. "It's a bit late for that, son."
"I know that, Dad, but... there has to be something else we can do."
"There's not," he says firmly, looking back down at the papers. "Unless you want to get us both thrown in jail."
I purse my lips.
"What's with this sudden interest in being morally correct?" he asks.
"Juliet won't talk to me knowing that John B is being blamed for something I did."
He freezes. "You told Juliet?"
"She found out," I interject quickly. "I wouldn't outright tell her, Dad."
Panic lights up his eyes. "You have to bring her here."
I jerk back. "What?"
"Son, we cannot risk her going to the police to testify against you. Testify against us," he says with anger. "Get her here."
"No, no, no. I can't do that."
"It's an order."
"She's not gonna do anything, Dad. If you're gonna worry, worry about Sarah!"
"Worry about your sister? Our family?"
"Yes, my sister!" I practically shout. "You know as well as I do that she would just... rat me out as soon as she got the chance, and—"
"—I don't know that," he interrupts.
"But one of us has to go down, that you do know, right?" I stare at him, a new thought suddenly taking over my mind. "Who would you pick?"
He's silent, avoiding eye contact.
"Dad, who would you pick? Between us?"
"Son, I don't pick between my children. I love you both." He blinks. "I love all my children equally."
"But dad, dad... if you just had to—"
"I don't have to."
"Okay, well you are going to have to." I raise my voice. "Alright? You realize that. Sarah went off with our enemy, right? Someone who tried to steal from us? And, and... I tried to protect our secret from my girlfriend, because... I value that between us. Dad, I'm here with you! I'm helping you, I'm putting you before everyone else!"
He stands up abruptly, but before he can walk past me, I grab his shirt.
"Dad, I saved your life," I remind him, thinking back to when he told me this in the Bahamas. "I just need to know who you'd choose."
"Stop it." He grabs my face with his hand. "I need you to stop it," he says, letting his words sink in for a moment before walking past me.
I feel a hot rush of anger surge through my veins, along with the immediate and intense urge to throw something. So, I stand up quickly, grab the chair I was sitting in, and loudly throw it against the wall. "You just can't do it, can you?" I laugh, walking toward my now frozen father. "You can't do the hard thing."
"I can't do the hard thing?" he says, his voice deeper.
"No, you can't do the hard thing. You can't even look at me when I'm trying to talk to you!" I shout. "I'm over here, trying to have a real conversation, and you—"
I'm interrupted by the blunt force of his hands against my chest, causing me to stumble backward. When I focus my gaze back on him, his eyes are dark and angry as he charges toward me again. He grabs my neck and slams me up against the dresser, causing glass dishes to clatter to the ground. I try to push him off of me, but he takes ahold of my shirt with one hand and slaps me across the face with the other. I fall onto the dresser and just barely catch myself, staring at the hardwood with a blank expression on my face.
"How many times did I bail you out before that, huh? How many?!" he screams, getting close up in my face.
Petrified, I keep my gaze on the floor and gently hold onto my now burnt-red cheek.
"You saved me?" He laughs maniacally. "Rafe, you fucked us! All of us!"
I cringe as I finally meet his eyes, gaping at him in fearful awe, unable to hide my tears that start to form.
"Go find your sister and make sure she's thinking straight," he hisses. "Man up, Rafe. Be a fucking Cameron," he seethes before finally walking out of the room.
✧ ˚ · .
I stand on the dock at Deachs Point as I wait for Sarah to arrive, the cold night air brushing against my skin. I stole Wheezie's phone and pretended to be her, which I know is wrong, but it's the only way I could get Sarah to agree to meet me. But I don't exactly have a plan.
"Wheeze?" Sarah's voice asks from around the corner.
I step forward, meeting her eyes. "Not Wheezie."
She visibly tenses up. "Where the hell is Wheezie?"
"Don't worry about it, listen..." I take another step toward her, which makes her move backward. "Woah. It's all good, I just... I just needed to talk to you a little bit, is that okay?"
"Don't come near me," she threatens, still moving backward with every step I take.
"What you do affects me, Sarah," I say, ignoring her demand. "You don't think of that, do you?"
"You shot me, Rafe."
I throw my hands in the air and sigh. "That's it, right? It's always my fault." I start to pace around the dock. "I protected our father from being shot by your boyfriend, but it's my fault, right?"
"Dad was running after me!"
"And he's in the wrong for wanting to see his daughter, who everyone thought was dead?" I shout, but quickly try to relax my demeanor after noticing the fear in her eyes. "Listen to me, okay? The cops are going to talk to you at some point, and..." I take a deep breath in. "I need to make sure the story's straight, because—"
"—You killed Peterkin."
I clench my jaw and try to ignore the urge to throw something again.
"My story's straight," she insists, making me immediately roll my eyes. "Listen, this would go so much better for you if you would just—"
"—Who are you trying to protect here? Huh?" I get close to her face. "Your stupid boyfriend? Or your family?"
"I'm trying to do the right thing," she mutters.
"You're trying to do the right thing? You doing the right thing—"
"—you're not hearing yourself—"
"—No, you're not listening to me!" I groan. "You doing the right thing is the reason that you got shot. Because you were following John B."
"John B might get the death penalty because of you!" she screams.
"That!" I snap. "That right there. That's exactly what I'm talking about, Sarah." I walk backward and sit down on the ledge behind me. "You've always been against me."
Her eyes well up with tears. "No I haven't."
"Don't lie to me," I demand. "And you still are. You're not just against me, you're against us. You're against your family."
She doesn't respond but continues to watch me with a defeated look on her face.
"But you know dad always takes your side? Right?" I stand up. "Because you're gonna cry in front of him like you cried in front of me." My voice gets angrier as I continue to speak. "But listen to me. I'm a proactive type of person, Sarah, and we have a problem, and I gotta solve that problem tonight. Do you understand?" I ask shakily. "Do you understand?!" I scream.
She jolts backward and attempts to sprint away, but I follow closely on her heels. After a few twists and turns, I feel a strong hand yank my arm and pull me back.
Topper doesn't even let me get a word out before his fist collides with the side of my face, knocking me to the ground. I groan in pain as he continues to smack my face a couple more times. When he finally stops, I can feel blood drip out of my nose, onto my mouth, and soon onto my clothes, too.
He hovers over me and grabs my shirt in his fist. "If you ever mess with her again, I'm gonna kill you. You got that? You got that, Rafe?" he yells before letting me go.
Through blurry vision, I watch as Topper comforts a terrified Sarah. "Are you okay?" he asks. "Did he hurt you?"
As his voice gets quieter in my ears, and a cloud of black fills up my eyes, I slowly drift out of consciousness.
☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ
↴juliet's point of view
Instead of driving to school in the morning, I head straight for the Chateau. I haven't seen my friends since John B got arrested, or since I half-way hooked up with Rafe, and I haven't even seen Pope or Kiara in days.
When I step out of my jeep, I see Kiara, Pope, and JJ sitting in the shop. They all look at me, but only JJ greets me with a smile.
He stops waxing his board to run over to me. "Hey, Juli," he says, wrapping his arms tightly around me.
I breathe in his calm scent. "Hey."
He waits before pulling away, but when he finally does, he looks at Kiara and Pope. "Guys, she apologized, it's all good."
"She didn't apologize to me," Kie says bluntly.
I look at JJ before swallowing. "Kie, I'm sorry. Not just because that's what I feel like I should say right now. I really am."
She looks at me, clearly not believing the words I'm saying. "You've cut off all connection with Rafe?"
I glance away. "I mean... yeah."
Her eyes dart between JJ and Pope before settling on her ukulele. "The hickey on your neck says otherwise," she mumbles.
"It's old," I instinctively say, though I have no idea if it is or not.
She takes a deep breath in, still not making eye contact. "Fine."
Pope hesitates before finally deciding to hug me, too. "JJ told me us what happened the other night. I'm glad you're safe."
"Yeah," I say into his shoulder.
"Down to help me wax, Juli?" JJ asks.
I pull away from Pope to look at the number of boards lined up in the corner.
JJ stands back in front of his surf board, grabbing the wax in one hand. "I'm doing mine right now, but yours could use it, too."
"Yeah." I shrug, walking to the empty wooden stand next to JJ. I prop my pink and orange board up and grab the closest chunk of wax to add more traction to it.
After a few minutes, Pope walks up behind JJ's shoulder. "That's a lot of wax on your board," he says judgmentally. "Put too much wax, and it's gonna be slippery."
A laugh slips out of my mouth that I quickly try to cover.
"Are you telling me how to wax my board, Pope?" JJ asks in shock.
"I'm just saying that's a lot of wax," he says, lifting up his hands. "Look at Juli and use the amount she's using."
JJ rolls his eyes. "I don't have to follow what Miss Daughter-of-the-Surf-Shop-Owner does. There are other ways to wax boards."
"But that's actually a colossal waste of wax, JJ," I add in.
"Guys, really?" Kiara says, trying to focus on tuning her ukulele.
A familiar horn starts to blare from the street, making us all freeze.
"Do you hear that?" JJ asks.
It's very obviously the exact sound that the Twinkie makes, but they all look like they might as well have seen a ghost.
I whip my head around to see the Twinkie barreling through the grass and stopping abruptly in front of the shed. Inside the driver's seat, with a big-ass smile on his face, is none other than John B.
JJ, Kiara and Pope sprint over to bombard him with hugs, while I follow slowly behind them, my jaw on the floor.
"Guess who's out of the clink, man!" John B cheers.
JJ slaps him on the back. "My boy's out of the can!"
After a moment of gleeful laughter between the four of them, John B looks at me.
"I know what actually happened, JB," I say quietly. "I'm sorry."
He nods solemnly before a smile cracks on his face. "They dropped the charges, guys."
My heart slightly sinks, knowing that that could only mean they've been placed on Rafe.
"They dropped the charges?" Pope repeats.
Kiara throws her hands over her head. "Dude, that's phenomenal!"
"What did they say?" I ask, not hiding my obvious curiosity.
John B swallows. "They said to, um... be prepared to tell them everything I know about Rafe and Ward."
"Oh—Okay. Yeah, that's good."
Kiara scrunches up her nose, making it clear that I'm not convincing her of anything.
"Yeah." John B nods awkwardly. "Where's Sarah?"
While the Pogues fall silent, I speak up. "I saw her on Topper's dock this morning."
Everyone looks at me.
"On the way here," I add. "Yeah, I was driving through the neighborhood, and when I passed his house, I saw them back there."
"She said she was meeting Wheezie last night but we haven't seen her since," Kiara says.
"She's with Topper?" John B asks me, his jaw tight.
"Maybe something happened." I shrug. "I can go look for her?"
He nods slowly. "Tell her to call me if you find her, alright?"
"Yeah, of course."
I stand awkwardly before walking to the jeep.
For my entire drive around the island, I can't stop thinking about Rafe and what's going to happen to him, to us. Once it occurs to me that I'm not gonna find Sarah without a boat, I head back to the Chateau, but not without fighting to urge to find Rafe, too. I don't owe it to him to tell him that the cops are out for him, but it still feels somewhat like betrayal to just sit by and do nothing.
✧ ˚ · .
After waiting around the empty Chateau for an hour, the Pogues finally roll up in the Twinkie.
I open the screen door and jog out to them. "JB, I tried to call you earlier. I look everywhere, but I couldn't find..."
Sarah steps out behind Kiara and smiles at me.
"Sarah," I say.
John B kisses her cheek. "We got her."
"Where were you?" I ask, holding my arms out to hug her.
She pulls me toward her, rocking back and forth. "Topper dropped me off here, I guess after you left."
"Yeah, and a lot of shit went down," JJ says with a breathy laugh.
I pull back and follow the oddly joyful group over to the house. "Like what?"
"Remember the funder from Charleston?" JJ asks. "Turns out she's batshit crazy, and she had her guy jump Heyward."
Sarah plops down on the porch couch, but the other four step inside. I close the door behind me. "What?"
"Yeah," Pope says.
"We gave her a fake key to make her happy, and she gave us the tape that clears my name," John B says, now searching through the fridge and pulling out beers.
Kiara smiles, taking a can from John B. "It's literally undeniable evidence that Ward and Rafe are to blame."
"Ladies and gentlemen, Ward Cameron is going to jail!" JJ cheers as he shotguns his beer.
The four of them burst into loud celebration, not even looking at me anymore. I take this opportunity to join Sarah on the couch outside.
"Adios! He's out of there!" Pope shouts happily from the kitchen.
I sit down next to Sarah. It's clear that she's trying to be happy for everyone else, but I can't imagine what she's going through.
I smile softly. "Hey."
She looks up at me. "Hey."
"You okay?" I ask.
She nods. "Yeah, yeah. My dad deserves everything that's gonna happen to him. I know that."
"But he's your dad," I almost interrupt. "I get it. I bet it sucks to be in the middle."
She's silent for a moment before looking at me. "How are you feeling?"
I shrug and shake my head. "I'm fine."
She doesn't take my answer. "Your boyfriend turned out to be a murderer who lied to you and you're fine?"
I close my eyes and sigh. "No, I'm not fine. But it doesn't matter anymore. He's going to jail."
"Listen, I know he's insane, but feelings don't just disappear that fast," she insists. "I know how you felt about him. I know how he felt about you."
As I process her words, her phone buzzes with a message.
Sarah briefly frowns, and then any expression drops to a panic.
"What?" I ask, now concerned.
"There's a warrant out for my dad's arrest," she says before swallowing dryly.
This catches the attention of the rest of the group, who all gradually walk out onto the porch.
"I should... I should go say my goodbyes, right?" she asks hesitantly.
"Yeah," I say, now standing up. "Let's go."
"Woah." John B holds his hand out. "We're just gonna go have a chat with Ward Cameron at Tanneyhill?"
"If we wanna beat the cops to him, yes, we have to go now," Pope insists.
John B visibly considers it, but I waste no time and grab my keys from the side table, already opening the porch door. "I'll meet you guys there."
Within seconds, they're all piling into the Twinkie as I jump in my own car. If Ward is going down today, does that mean Rafe is, too?
✧ ˚ · .
Once we arrive at Tanneyhill, swarmed with police cars, Sarah immediately hops the fence, closely followed by everyone else.
It's when she sprints toward the dock that I see the cops a few feet ahead of her. Ward's boat, My Druthers, is planted at the end, and you can just barely see him at the top.
"Dad!" Sarah screams once she's gotten close enough.
A few officers try to block us from passing, but Shoupe takes his eyes off of Ward to look at us. "Hey, that's Sarah Cameron! Let her through!" he yells.
As the police fall back, we all walk closer to the Sheriff.
"What are you doing here, Sarah?" Ward shouts across the water.
Sarah cries out to him. "Dad!"
"You gotta get her out of here, Shoupe! She can't be here right now!" Ward panics.
"Just come on in and you can talk to her!" Shoupe pleads.
Ward starts to lift the anchor up from the water. "Sarah, I'm so sorry, baby! I can't!"
"What are you doing?" she screams, but he runs down to one of the lower levels. "Dad, no, no!"
"I love you!" he shouts before slamming the door shut, locking himself inside.
As officers on water boats start to swarm the dock, and there's no longer any communication from Ward, everyone stares at the yacht in confusion.
Until it unexpectedly explodes, and every piece of the Druthers shoots into the air, causing it to erupt into a giant ball of fire. Something in my stomach sinks, or maybe it's my heart, or every part of my body. Ward just killed himself right in front of our eyes. His daughter's eyes.
Through the ringing in my ears, I can hear Sarah start to gasp and choke. "No," she wails. "Dad!"
It's as if nobody can move. Sarah falls to the ground in tears, but the only thing anyone else can do is stare at the aftermath of the explosion. My chest burns, and I wish so badly that I could reverse time and prevent any of this from ever taking place.
Because I'm closest to the house, I'm the first to see Topper run past me. He immediately comforts Sarah, but the only thing taking up my mind is Rafe.
I force myself to move, and as I run back down the dock, I grab one of the officers. "Where is Rafe?"
His mouth is still open in shock, but when he looks at me, he blinks.
"Rafe Cameron? Where is Rafe Cameron?" I yell, tears stinging my eyes.
"We arrested him a few hours ago."
I let go of him and run back to my car as fast as my body will allow. I barely have time to think before I'm already speeding down the road to Kildare County Jail. Topper's comforting Sarah, Wheezie and Rose have each other, but Rafe doesn't have anyone other than me.
Just as I'm pulling into the parking lot, Rafe is walking down the front steps, his clothes covered in mud. Even from a distance, it's obvious that he must've just been told what happened.
I slam my car door and look at him, still keeping distance between us. His expression is completely vacant, as if his soul has left his body and I'm looking at the empty shell of a person.
I cover my mouth to try and slow my now staggered breath, the adrenaline wearing off to make me finally realize the heaviness of the unimaginable situation at hand. I walk closer to him and leave only about a foot in between us.
"Rafe, I sped over here from Tanneyhill. Your..." Tears burn my eyes again. "Oh my god."
He can't pull his gaze away from me, but he also can't move his body. He's just frozen, staring at me.
"I'm sorry." I hold onto his face with both hands to try and coerce him into comprehending what I'm saying. "I'm so sorry," I say with practically a whisper as I pull his head into my shoulder.
One of his hand's instinctively holds onto my back, his brain left to rely on muscle memory.
Still stiff, he sighs next to my ear. "I can't..."
I tighten my arms around his neck, going up as high as I can on my tip-toes. "It's okay."
His other hand just gently touches the empty space on my back. "Juliet, you shouldn't have come here."
I shake my head and squeeze him harder as if that's going to block out everything in our past and force him to only think in the present. "Who else would've?"
Another heavy sigh from him makes my neck flutter with heat. "It's not your job to worry about that," he says, his voice sounding like it's been taken from him and he's been left with only a rasp.
"I know," I say, now running a few fingers through his hair. "But I love you."
His stone-cold demeanor finally cracks, and I feel his back rise and fall as he silently sobs. I rub the top of his back with my free hand, leading him to finally pull me up and closer to him.
In the middle of the parking lot, we stay clinging onto each other for a while. Every shake of Rafe's body makes my heart ache. I can't imagine what's going through his head right now. Not only having to grieve the sudden loss of your father in such a morbid way, but also finally having a heavy burden lifted off of your shoulders. I know he wanted relief from his dad's harmful influence, but I doubt he would've ever chosen it in this way.
✧ ˚ · .
Rafe stares out of the window as I drive us to the beach. It's not the most practical place to sleep, but there's no where else we can go right now.
I park next to the sand and climb into the backseat. I pick up some pillows and blankets that I've had in my car for a while and lay them out across the back. Since the seats are already down, I only have to move a few things out of the way before a make-shift bed is ready for us.
I lay down on one side as Rafe strips down to his boxers, throwing his muddy clothes on the asphalt. He briefly goes into the ocean to rinse off, and once he's back, I let him put on one of my Dad's t-shirts that I already had in the car. After, he settles next to me, but not too close.
He sniffles in an attempt to clear the aftermath from his crying, but it's clear that his sinuses won't budge. He leans his head back into a pillow and takes a deep breath in through his mouth.
After a moment of silent thinking, I turn on my side to face him. I settle my thumb on his hand and start to run it over his rough skin. "Hey."
He immediately closes his eyes, as if he has to cut off at least one of his five senses in order to interact with me.
"What's going through your head right now?" I ask.
He instantly sits up at my words, burying his head in his hands. "Juliet, I regret going to your house yesterday. I'm sorry I took advantage of you."
I sit up with him, now almost offended. "I didn't say no or tell you to stop until the very end, and when I did, you got up and left. I wanted it just as much as you did in the moment."
"No, before that, too. I complained that my dad was a manipulator while also literally manipulating you into giving me what I wanted."
His sentence makes me catch my breath.
"I'm just like him, oh my god," he mutters into his arm before crying again.
He's not wrong. There are parts of him that seem to mirror his father, which he clearly hates, but I imagine another side of him also currently misses his dad. I don't feel qualified enough to help him unravel the confusing thoughts going through his mind, so I just put my hand on his back and start to rub it in slow circles.
He half-cough half-chokes in the midst of his tears. "Juliet," he says, as if it hurts him to even utter my name.
"I'm here."
He works hard to calm himself down enough, and when he does, he moves my hand away. "I don't deserve your sympathy."
Instead of trying to convince him he's wrong, I swallow any rebuttal. "I know."
He looks at me, cheeks fully tear stained and face drained of color. "Then why did you drive to the jail? Why are you here with me right now?"
I shrug helplessly. "I wouldn't want anyone to be alone in a situation like this. But especially not you."
He shakes his head like he's disappointed.
"I guess I have a soft spot for you."
"You shouldn't," he says roughly.
"You're basically my first everything," I remind him. "I can't help that I feel differently about you than anyone else."
"God," he groans, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes. "I wish I could start over with you, for your sake. I fucked it all up," he says frustratedly yet softly. "You don't deserve how I've treated you. Like, at all."
"I know, Rafe, but that's not important right now."
"It is," he insists.
I hold his face in my hands. "Then let's start over."
He tries to shake his head as more tears sting his eyes.
"I'm not saying that I forgive you yet, because I still hate what you did. But I'm willing to try to fix it. Fix us."
A single droplet falls down his cheek, so I pull his forehead against mine.
"Let go of everything in the past, everything in the future, just for today," I whisper. "Focus on the present. Focus on me."
His lips part, so I run my nose down his and close the gap between our mouths. He hums softly, letting the pleasure of the moment soothe him. His hands soon pull me flush to him so that there aren't any gaps between our bodies. I thread my fingers through his hair again, and when I start to scratch, he sighs into my mouth. An electric current lights up inside me every time I discover something that Rafe likes, especially when all I want to do right now is make him feel better.
His hands stay just on my back, seemingly too scared to cross any lines by touching where he usually does, but I don't mind.
We gradually untangle the knot of tension with every taste of each other. As time passes, we fall to our sides on the blankets, still kissing, until I turn around and nestle my back into Rafe. He rests his chin on the top of my head as he gently holds onto me. Once I've made sure that he's fallen asleep, I let myself drift off, too.
☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ
↴rafe's point of view
After making the short drive to Tanneyhill in the morning, I park Juliet's jeep in the driveway and look over at her. "I'm gonna, um..."
"I'll stay here," she says, finishing my sentence for me.
I pop the door open. "Yeah, yeah. Okay."
"Take your time," she says.
I smile and nod before walking up the steps of the house. After hesitantly opening the front door, a wave of grief inside the house hits me like a truck.
"Rafe?" Rose's voice calls from the kitchen.
I walk through the doorway to find what's left of my family sitting at the table. I stare at the three of them as they stare back at me, their faces are all stained with tears. The realization hits me without warning: I'm the man of the house now.
"Are you okay?" Rose asks, probably referring to my time spent in jail instead of how I'm actually doing.
"Yeah," I say stiffly.
"Your dad left a video for us to watch, and we've been waiting until you got home to watch it, so..." she says, sniffling as she motions for me to join them.
I stand a distance behind the table and anxiously wait for my dad's voice to start.
"A great man once said that if you're born poor, that's not your fault, but if you die poor, well... that's on you."
He's sitting at his office desk in front of the computer screen.
"I think in the end, it was my fear of going back, of losing everything I have, that made me lose sight of everything I am... everything I wanted to be." He sighs. "I killed Big John Routledge."
Sarah tenses, letting me know that she's been fully aware of this fact. I, however, have not.
"I murdered Sheriff Peterkin," he continues.
I know he's taking the blame to get any legal consequences off of me, but anger boils up in my blood at the fact that he is partly responsible, too. In the interrogations I had to do, the Police mentioned that Peterkin was checked into the hospital at 4:40, but I remember parking next to the tarmac around 3:00. If my dad called for help immediately, she would've been at the hospital by 3:30 at the latest, so something isn't adding up. The memory of him kicking the gun away from her flashes in my brain.
He swallows. "I shot Gavin Barnstead."
I shiver at the thought of hiding his body, the reluctance I tried to show my dad that I felt, the vomit leaving my system after the fact.
"I know there's nothing I can do to ease the pain I've caused. Many will say I took the easy way out. But I leave this world with the terrible pain of knowing that I leave behind my family, shattered by grief, broken by my sins. I don't expect you to forgive me for leaving you this way."
I only miss a fragment of him. The dad he was whenever my mom was still around. I'm grieving that Ward Cameron.
"I just pray you understand that... I can't go on ruining your lives anymore. This had to end."
I let a few tears fall, but begin to think about how my life will play out now that he's gone. If Juliet's all that I have left, then she's the only person I have to please.
"To all of you, I leave my estate to be divided equally, and I leave a love deeper than I could ever express. Take care of each other." He closes his eyes and ends the video.
Wheezie and Rose promptly leave the room in tears, while Sarah slams the laptop shut and heads straight toward the front door.
I stand alone for a few moments, processing his last words: 'Take care of each other.' If I'm really the man of the household, and my dad's really gone, I can start our family over.
I think that starts with Sarah.
✧ ˚ · .
When I walk out into the driveway, I find my sister and my girlfriend talking by the jeep. Upon hearing my footsteps, Sarah turns around and stares at me.
"Sarah, can we talk?" I ask.
Her jaw tightens. "Are you gonna chase me again if I say no?"
As intended, this gets a weird face from Juliet.
I walk closer to them and reach out to put a gentle hand on Juliet's shoulder. "Can you go inside, Jules, please?"
She stutters, looking back and forth between us.
"I'll be right behind you," I insist, looking at my sister.
"Okay," Juliet finally says before making the walk inside.
After a few awkward seconds of waiting for the front door to shut, Sarah kicks her bike stand out and looks up at me with angry impatience.
I take a deep breath in. "We can't just ignore each other. Dad would want us to talk."
"When I tell you that you are the last person I want to talk to... I mean it, Rafe."
"I know you hate me," I groan, lifting my hands to the top of my head. "I know you hate me."
She moves her hands to the handles of the bike. "Do you want me to list off everything you've done to me, or list what you haven't? I think the second would be faster."
"I know, I know." I can't help but turn around to hide my face from her. "I know, Sarah."
After a beat of silence, I hear her start to peddle on the bike.
"Sarah, please don't leave!" I cry, taking long strides to catch up with her.
She slams on the breaks but stays facing away from me.
My breath shudders. "Dad's gone," I say, my voice breaking. "It's just you, me, and Wheezie."
"What's the point, Rafe?" she demands.
I walk closer and stand in front of her. "I... I know what I did, okay?" I admit, tears clouding my vision. "But listen, Sarah, I was only trying to do right by Dad. Everything I ever did was trying to help him, and... you heard the recording. He said we should stay together as a family," I plead. "It was his dying wish and he's gone..." I take a shaky breath in. "I swear I'm gonna do what I can to make that happen."
She doesn't fight me, but instead looks at the ground.
"I know I can't change the past, but I'm gonna be different now." I pause, mentally preparing to say the two words I struggle with the most. "I'm sorry."
Instead of waiting for a response, I turn around and walk the rest of the way up the driveway.
Upon entering the house, I can hear Juliet presumably talking on the phone in my room.
"I'm probably just gonna stay at the... Chateau," she says before turning to look at me in the doorway.
I furrow my eyebrows, and she quickly shakes her head at me, signifying that she's lying to whoever is on the phone.
She listens to the other line before closing and opening her mouth. "I can't..." she mumbles, and after another beat, she sighs. "Can we talk about this later?"
There's a few moments of silence before she says goodbye and hangs up the phone.
"Your dad?" I guess.
"Worse," she says, walking over to me. "My mom."
"What'd she say?"
She takes a deep breath through her nose, causing her shoulders to rise and fall. "She heard about what happened with you getting put in jail and then taken out, and of course the..." her voice trails off respectively. "She's scared you're gonna find me," she says through a scoffed laugh.
Of course her parents are worried, I think.
"If you need to go home, you should," I say quietly, finding it difficult to raise my voice any more.
Her gentle hands lift to hold onto my face. "I don't want to be anywhere but here."
The softness in her voice and carefulness of her words work together to chip away at the cage around my heart.
She shrugs. "Unless you need time alone, in which case I can leave—"
"—No, Juliet." I breathe out, moving my hands to just barely touch her hips. "I don't need time alone."
A tidal wave of depressing nostalgia washes over me at the thought of not having Juliet next to me tonight. For the first few weeks after my mom had passed, I would cry myself to sleep. Nine year old me, feeling so desperately alone in a way that no person should ever have to feel, let alone a little kid. Sometimes, in the darkest hours of the night, the lightning will crack in a certain way, or the cicadas will chirp at a certain pitch, and I'm immediately brought back to the gloomy moments from my past. With this new grief for my father, it feels like I'm re-living what I was forced to go through with my mom. I don't want to sleep alone again. Not this time.
"Where'd you go?" Juliet whispers, bringing me back to reality. She wipes a tear from my cheek that I didn't realize had fallen.
I just barely shake my head, which apparently serves as the avalanche to push more tears down from my eyes.
When she starts to pull my face down to her shoulder, I have to hunch over, so I instead just grab her legs and wrap them around my torso, pulling her into my arms. Now closer to my face, she keeps her hands just gently on my jaw as she starts to kiss the tears off my cheeks. Her lips catch them just below my jaw, on the top of my lip, and right under my eye.
I lean my head back and look at the ceiling, struggling with my lungs to grasp for more air. Juliet's fingers slide into my hair at the back of my head, and she soon nestles into my chest, her thumb just barely grazing the pulse point on my neck.
"I'm not going anywhere, Rafe," she whispers. "I'm right here."
✧ ˚ · .