𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐏𝐋𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐊𝐈𝐃𝐒 - jj maybank

- 𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧

[tw: mentions of suicide and abuse]

𝗞𝗮𝗰𝗶 𝗙𝗹𝗼𝗿𝗲𝘀 remembered the very first time she set her eyes on Rafe Cameron. He was Sarahʼs cute older brother, and a bit of a dick at times, honestly. But Kaci liked that about him at first. If she swore at that age, her nannies would've slapped her silly, but Rafe didn't care about what came out of his mouth. Kaci remembered wanting to be more like that. Rafe brushed her aside for the first few years, seeing her only as his little sisterʼs annoying friend, but it wasn't until her thirteenth birthday that he finally seen her as her own person.

Over the years, Kaci had grown up to be a little angry — sometimes quite scary, if she were being completely honest. And on the night of her thirteenth birthday, she and Sarah had this huge argument over fruit or something dumb like that. Apparently, Kaci ate Sarahʼs pineapple and Sarah got pissed, and it just went on from there — in the end, the birthday girl threw the fruit at her friend, so Sarah went home crying about her ruined dress.

Anyway, Rafe was sent over to the Floresʼs hotel to get his sisterʼs stuff from Kaci, who was still pissed off about the stupid argument. The first thing she did when she saw the boy was start talking straight shit about Sarah, not caring for the fact that he was her brother. Rafe liked that. He liked how honest she was. He stayed there for a little while longer, listening to her fume and rant, smiling more as the minutes passed by. She was a funny, little person to be around.

He thought about Kaci a lot after that night.

After a screaming match in school, the two girls made up pretty quickly. When Olivia Lewiss tried getting involved in the fight, calling Sarah out about something, Kaci got angry and threw a chair at her. It wasn't her argument to be a part of; she should've minded her own business. Kaci ended up getting suspended, but she spent the next few days at the Cameronsʼ home while her parents were away on some business trip.

While she was over, Rafe found himself paying a lot more attention to Kaci than he usually did. He purposely went into his sisterʼs room so he could see her, listen to her laugh and watch her get angry over fictional characters on the TV. Sarah didn't like it in the slightest, obviously, but Rafe refused to leave.

Months slowly passed by, and Kaci was starting to like Rafe more than just as her friendʼs brother. She waited for the times at Sarahʼs for him to burst into the room, she stared at him during the meal times, and smiled everytime he looked at her. He filled her with a feeling she had never felt before, and she loved it.

They finally kissed on the next New Years, under the stars and everything — it was the perfect moment that symbolised their whole relationship. Kaci put the stars in Rafeʼs sky. Without Kaci, all Rafe had left was the darkness that grew inside him.

The first few months of their relationship were amazing. Together, the two of them became the kookʼs main, teenager, power couple — Kaci being the blunt, bitchy queen, and Rafe being the manly, mean king. They weren't always the nicest to others, but they were always great to each other. Kaci loved Rafe; Rafe loved Kaci. That should've been enough.

But Rafe had issues. Issues Kaci wasn't aware of until their sixth month anniversary. She found Rafe that night, in the bathroom, blood everywhere. She was only going over there to surprise him; she had no idea what she was going to be walking into. Nothing could've prepared that fourteen year old girl to find her older boyfriend slumped on the floor, bleeding out through the deep cuts on his arms. Unfortunately, that was only the first time she'd witnessed him break.

Overtime, as they grew even older, Rafe had gotten worse. He didn't speak to anyone about his problems — there was nothing his family or a therapist could do to help him — only Kaci. Kaci was the only one he wanted to open up to. So she let him. She took in everything he told her, listened to him everytime he broke down, and slowly lost herself in the process. It was too much for a kid to deal with, but by the time she realised that, she was already too far caught up in the loop.