outerbanks imagines.

the great exchange: rafe cameron.

{request for my absolute love: juptersmoons <33}

i had never meant for this to happen.
please believe me when i say this much:
falling in love with rafe cameron had been accidental.
even if it was a beautiful romance,
planted from the seeds of thinly veiled passive aggressive flirting,
it was damned from the beginning.
i am not a malicious woman nor am i this selfish.
if it were up to me,
if i were in control of time and fate,
i would have kept rafe cameron by my side for an eternity and longer.
unfortunately,
we burned out and all that's left as proof of our love is the splinters of our hearts that once beat in harmony.
perhaps if i tell the entire story,
from start to finish,
others will understand.
they will not blame me for the events that unfolded.
i love rafe cameron with every part of my being.
we are just not meant to be.

"tell me that story again."
"no, rafe. it's embarrassing."
rafe grins as he traces small circles against the skin against my cheek.
"it's not embarrassing."
i note his gentle smile that seems reserved for my company.
every time i catch his eye in mixed company,
it is never this tender.
nor are his eyes this glassy with ardor.
"okay,"
i oblige.
i'd do anything to satisfy the boy who's bed sheets i'm tucked beneath.
"let's see...it was second grade and i still didn't know how to tie my shoes. so, at recess, when you stepped on my shoelaces and i tripped, you helped me up. then you tied my shoe for me. i think that's when it all started, my...infatuation for you."
"infatuation,"
rafe repeats with a chuckle.
"just to end up hating each other in high school. for a little while, anyways."
"i wouldn't say hate."
rafe kisses my temple before asking,
"what would you say then?"
"strong dislike."
he throws his head back with a loud laugh,
making my cheeks flourish with a flush.
there is something so gratifying about entertaining rafe.
i will do this forever if i'm allowed.
"it was just a rough patch. you had your things, i had mine,"
i say.
"i know. and i'll spend forever being sorry about wasting our time being a douche to you...and pulling your hair...and shoulder bumping you in the halls."
i roll my eyes with a giggle escaping my lips.
it is a foreign sound that only rafe can pull from me.
"all is forgiven. as long as you'll forget about the time i cursed at you in front of the entire class."
"oh, long forgotten."
i trace the length of his smile with the pad of my thumb,
seemingly entranced.
rafe plants a kiss to my traveling finger then brushes a stray strand of hair from my eyes.
i wonder if this is what love feels like.
scaring myself at the thought,
i use the excuse of checking the time to avert my gaze from his overwhelming vulnerable eyes.
it is well past three a.m and i know in a few hours,
rafe and i will be dragging at school.
"i need to be going home,"
i sigh out.
i see rafe's expression turn disappointed once he sees the time.
"just spend the night, yeah?"
and though i would want nothing more than to fall slack in his bed,
i know my friends will be expecting me in the morning.
"i can't. i have to meet kie in a few hours."
rafe nods his head in understanding with a hint of  a smile,
but i can see how false it is.
"i'll be right back here tomorrow. okay?"
"okay,"
rafe agrees as i plant kisses all over his hungry skin,
his smile returning to normal lengths.
i slowly move towards the edge of the bed,
where i am forced to realize the state i'm in. 
there is a grainy powder left ingrained against my tongue from the prior substance rafe and i took,
all to enhance our time together.
though it was fun,
i am wiped.
my limbs are weak from rafe's influence,
my head is foggy from the drugs,
and i find myself hesitating to climb out of this bed and find my clothes.
i look to rafe who's lying with his fist propped against his temple,
a small grin spread across his lips.
"need a hand?"
"you're the worst,"
i tease.
i decide there is no place i'd rather be than here with rafe.
so why force it?
why push my way through this fatigue,
when i could fall to peace in his embrace?
as though rafe as read my mind,
he lies himself flat and opens his arms to say,
"come here."
so i do.
i have little fight left in me when it comes to rafe.
we spent so much of our time spitting insults at each other and trying to avoid this inevitable love affair,
i cannot fathom pushing him away any longer.
if he should ask,
i will answer.
i'll spend what time we've salvaged here,
in his arms,
listening to the steady beating of his heart.
"i'll miss you,"
i whisper as i drift away.
i feel the gentle press of a kiss to my closed eyelids and hear rafe whisper,
"see you in your dreams, my love."
***
the cross.
this is the beginning of our end.
when pope found the cross,
it seemed curse.
we were faced with trouble time and time again with no way to escape nor avoid it.
i hadn't known the hardships would sneak its way into my blissful existence alongside rafe.
"i've hardly seen you,"
rafe says now that i stand on his front porch.
he leans against the doorframe with a slight frown.
"i know. i've been—"
"treasure hunting with the pogues. yeah, i've heard."
i furrow my eyebrows at his tone of ire.
we have never been this formal with each other,
even when all we did was fight.
it seems we're reverting to a time i've never known before:
silence.
neither of us know what to say or do in this moment.
we have never been this quiet.
what rafe and i built this connection off of is secret meetings,
stolen stares and silent kisses.
there has been drug-induced euphoria,
alongside a connection that comes only when skin touches skin beneath a midnight moon.
what is there to fight for?
a relationship that does not exist,
seeing as this mere disagreement is tearing us apart?
he doesn't like how often i spend time chasing theories with my friends and i don't like how he demands my time,
but won't spare his own.
we're at a impasse with no way out.
"what now?"
rafe cameron has never been a man of his words.
when he speaks,
his words often reflect the opposite of his thoughts.
might he say,
"i hate you."
his brain will have said,
"i love you more than anything."
i used to know how to read these cues,
but it seems i have lost that knowledge in our time apart.
now,
i am a woman lost in the sea of her devotion.
if he'd just ask,
i'd stay.
"i don't know, y/n."
i hear the building of a wall around his heart and know i've lost him.
or perhaps it is my own doubt that ticks inside my aching chest.
it would be just as easy for me to part my lips and ask him to stay.
but i won't.
neither of us will.
rafe will force me to make a choice:
me or the cross.
me or your friends.
how could i make such a decision?
and is a man who demands such an ultimatum worth sticking around for?
"don't make me choose, rafe."
he pushes himself off of the doorframe and with a dry laugh, void of any humor,
he speaks,
"you've already chosen."
his voice is back to being bitter and unkind,
like it used to be before we decided to lay our weapons down.
loaded is his tongue and i am the lamenting victim.
before i can utter another word,
rafe has closed the door in my face.  
"asshole,"
i whisper to nobody but myself.
i notice how much different i sound now that i'm a woman left rejected;
hollow, empty, unnatural.
i wait for the door to open again,
for him to apologize for his sharpened words as he's done before,
for him to call out for me.
it never comes.
i return home an empty woman.
my solitude does not last long though,
after my friends burst through my door letting details of our hunt spill from their tongues.
we are closer than we've ever been.
i have exchanged a chance at love for my friends and our passions.
i hope one day i can say with honesty that it was well worth it.
***
his voice calls out for me every now and then.
this town isn't small enough to avoid each other entirely,
but i do well in ignoring him.
i'm still seething from the obvious rejection that came in the slamming of his front door.
today is no different.
i see rafe coming into the shop i'm currently in,
so i take kie by the arm and hurry for the back exit.
"why are we leaving so soon?"
she asks as we reach outside.
i shrug,
not ready to discuss this fresh bruise on my heart.
"too stuffy in there. i couldn't breathe."
"okay. well...we need to get these things together before we make the trip."
the trip.
the pogues and i have an inkling on where the cross might just be,
but the drive is out of our way.
to avoid constant stops,
we're gathering the necessities.
unfortunately,
my escape plan does little good seeing as rafe catches me a while later.
"can we talk?"
kie looks to me with confused eyes.
but my best friend is a smart woman,
so she fills in the blanks with ease and haste.
"not now, rafe."
"please, y/n, i just—"
i skirt around him with kie following on my heels.
when we're alone,
i hope she won't ask me.
i hope she won't make me rip this stitching of my heart apart,
make me spill over with memories that belong to the silence.
"so...rafe?"
i give a humorless laugh.
"yeah, rafe."
"how long?"
a breath leaves my lungs as i think about the many months we spent in each others company and how these few weeks apart have been hell.
"not long enough, apparently."
i wait for kie to deliver a harsh comment,
telling me to get over it,
that he's the enemy.
or maybe she'll judge me for ever falling for him and his honeyed words.
instead,
kie brings me into the warmest of hugs.
she holds me close enough to heal all that's splintering inside of me.
it will be enough one day.
***
the blood pounds in my head now.
i am not aware of my movements,
but am relying on instinct alone.
the cross is nearly ours,
so long as our being on this boat goes unnoticed.
i hurry to help pope load the cross onto the lifeboat that lies down below,
but our strength is not enough for this heavy treasure.
we are nearly there,
nearly free of this ship with our rightful fortune.
but as though he can feel my existence near to his own,
rafe cameron finds me.
i know his footsteps before he shows himself,
which gives me just enough time to warn pope and lower him with the rest of our friends.
before i can free myself,
i am found out.
"y/n?"
he asks,
surprised and surely betrayed.
imagine the horror i felt when ward cameron was the one who stored away the cross we rightfully found.
i hoped and prayed that our sneaking onto the ship to steal it back would not be found out by rafe,
but luck never seems to find way to me when it comes to the boy.
"what are you doing here? why do you have the..."
"your fathers a thief."
rafe runs a hand of frustration through his hair,
accompanied by mumbled curses.
"this is still about that goddam cross?"
the sudden rise of his voice echoing of his woe makes me flinch.
perhaps he is taking our parting harder than i thought.
he seems to have lost some weight.
i see his cheeks are sunken in,
his eyes are dimmer than ever,
and his skin is rather sallow.
"take it. it's yours. just please, for the love of god,
talk to me! i'm-i'm going crazy over here."
rafe closes in on me and for the first time since that damned day,
i don't move.
i let him inch closer to me,
even if it's agony to be to close and unable to embrace him.
"what, rafe?"
"that's all you have to say?"
i shrug my shoulders.
"you slammed the door in my face."
"you'll never choose me, y/n. how am i supposed to react to being told that?"
my hands turn into fists at my sides.
this is becoming the old routine rafe and i know so well.
"i didn't say that. that never came out of my mouth."
"it didn't have to. you might as well have said it when you ignored me for two weeks to chase some cross."
"a cross your father now has. which he stole from my friend."
rafe looks around this empty space and with his tongue in his cheek,
exhales a laugh that is stripped of any humor.
"so what now? we pretend like nothing ever happened between us? am i supposed to just pretend like i don't think about you every second of every day?"
"god, rafe! why do you have to make this so hard?"
i worry my rising voice will give us away,
but i cannot contain myself any longer.
the tears are rising and threaten to spill,
which softens the vexed look in his eyes.
"if it were up to me, i would have never left that space with you, okay?"
"it is up to you, y/n. it has always been your decision."
rafe molds his rough, loving hands around my face.
"would it kill you to choose me?"
his voice wavers as though he's close to tears.
"it might, rafe. i can't...i can't throw away my friends for you. as much as i...love you...i can't betray them for a boy who was too scared to love me out loud."
i watch the affliction contort his expression and i want to reach my hand out to smooth it over,
but that is no longer my job.
i hear john b call my name from afar,
so i pick up my feet that seem cemented in this space with rafe.
this time though,
his desperate hand reaches for mine.
"rafe,"
i warn lowly.
"you have to let me go."
rafe's eyes are round with sorrow.
"i can't,"
he admits quietly.
"i will never be clean of you. don't you understand how devoted i am to you? how in love i am?"
i cannot help but to come a little closer to him.
"please stay with me, y/n. we can make this right, just...just don't leave me. don't give up on us."
i almost cave in.
i nearly wrap him in my arms to agree,
but this is one request of rafe's i cannot fulfill.
i hear my name being called by my friends once more.
the friends who are waiting for me to return,
waiting to know i'm safe.
before i leave,
i bring rafe in for one more kiss.
his tears stain my tongue.
i know no matter how hard i try,
i will never rid myself of this guilt.
our hearts are being shredded apart in this moment,
turning our kiss dismal as we cling onto what is no longer ours to claim.
"goodbye, rafe."
"will you...will you just say it one more time before you go, y/n? please?"
i rest my tired head against his and whisper against the curve of his lips,
"i love you, rafe cameron."
he lets go of my hand and i fall below where my friends lie in wait.
i hear rafe call for his fathers employees,
telling them where the missing cross has gone.
but we're far beyond the ships reach now,
and yet,
rafe's eyes never leave me.
i wonder if it will be like this forever;
rafe watching as i abandon him,
abandon us.
it does not matter anymore.
our boat barely makes it,
we soon wash up on shore.
pougelandia,
jj calls it.
though it may be our home for now,
there is a longing in my heart for the boy left behind.
wherever i may end up,
it will never be good enough if it is not rafe cameron.
whom i will never see again.

so,
you see?
what happened between rafe and i was beautiful in a way that can never be replicated in this lifetime.
what was ours to share will rust over in our memories for eons.
we will cross other lovers and wonder what might've happened if we'd just chosen each other,
but all of that ceases to matter here on this beach,
surrounded by my friends and the fortune i fought so hard for beside pope.
if i close my eyes long enough,
i can still feel rafe's gentle kiss to my aching soul.
it was always going to end this way.
still,
i tried and i failed.
but what rafe and i had will be branded across the flesh of our hearts for as long as time ticks by us.
i've made the great exchange and will reap the rewards one day.
one day.