fear love¹ | rafe cameron

thirty-five

Rafe's point of view:

I sat next to her on the bench, which was placed at the roadside. Desperately I tried to form a sentence in my mind to explain everything to her. I sort through every sentence I had planned to say, every sentence I wanted to say to her to explain that I had to do it.

Even if it wasn't by choice. I had no choice but to pull the trigger to prevent all the things that would have happened otherwise.

So much was going through my mind. I felt like I was choking on my thoughts. I saw the fear in her eyes and I felt her gaze on my whole body that was trembling.

My fear was losing her after that. I already lost her once because I didn't know how to deal with her and the feelings properly.
She changed me, she made me feel things I never felt before.

»I don't know where to start« I said nervously, stroking my legs and then running my hands through my hair.

Grace was my definition of love, but how should I explain all this to her in a way that I won't lose her?

»Where you started lying to me« she laughed wryly and looked deep into my eyes before continuing. »Oh wait, you've been doing that all along« she continued, wiping away the tears that were still running down her cheek with her sleeve.
»Stop Grace« I called her by her name and suddenly she stood up.

»Rafe, tell me, what do you want me to stop doing? I trusted you all this time and you lied to me and betrayed that trust. Again. When are you going to stop?« she cried harder with each word and slowly walked to the car and leaned against it.

»It was for your own protection« I tried to justify myself.
It wasn't a lie. I hadn't told her about it because I really wanted to protect her. I just wanted to prove to her that she was safe with me and if I had told her about the deal, she would have done anything to keep me out of it.

»No, that has nothing to do with protecting. You fucking lied to me and then went and killed a cop over a stupid idea« she got louder. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes for a moment. I was scared and afraid that I would ruin everything now if I told her.

»A few weeks ago Barry told me about a deal and offered to go along with it« I started talking while she was still leaning against the car, staring at the ground and sobbing.
»What kind of deal?« she mumbled, looking up at me for a moment.

»It was about a drug deal and there would have been a good amount of money involved«
I hesitated to say.
»So what? Do you need the money that bad?« Grace asked.

I knew why she asked me that and also that I didn't need it badly but those voices inside me wouldn't leave me alone.
I wanted to make her proud.
I wanted her to look at me again like that when we went for a walk on the beach that evening.

But I screwed it all up. I disappointed her.

»I had said no at first but I was thinking about the fact that we could get off the island with it« I grinned briefly and squinted my eye slightly at the idea of running off the island with her.
»I wanted you to be proud of me« I muttered, but she didn't respond.

»Remember when we talked about how we would get in the car at some point and see where it would take us. We would just drive straight and stop at some point«
I reminded her and I could have sworn I saw a small smile on her lips, but it disappeared just as quickly and she went back to looking fixedly at the ground.

»I meant to Barry when you slept over after the party that I was in because I had hurt you and I didn't care how the deal ended« I continued.

»I was sure that if the deal didn't work out that in the end it wouldn't matter, what did I have to lose? At that point I had lost you and you were all I had« I explained why didn't care how the deal would end up.