THE PICTURE OF YOU -rafe cameron-

Prolouge

What's the worst that could happen?
Honestly, how badly could a wild vagabond heart break? There's no adventure without wounds, there can be nothing to lose without having gone through hell and back first. Nothing in this world comes for free, nothing.

A bridge between two worlds,
Kildare Island, Outer Banks. A little place lost somewhere in the depths of North Carolina. One island, two different kinds of lives. Pouges and kooks, coexisting in the same place like the moon and the sun upon the sky. One cannot be without the other, yet the two will never be seen together at the same time. Pouges and kooks, two houses or two jobs kind of people, a mere bridge separating their two sides.

Rafe Cameron was poison,
A hurricane of chaos and rage, knuckles bloodied and darkness laced within his ocean blue eyes. The wire between his head and his heart had become faulty somewhere along the line of his privileged nineteen year old life, making it hard for him to comprehend his own emotions. He could feel them, all the time, he just didn't know what to do with them. How to make them make sense, how to get them to go away. The urge to throw up was so strong, his head was always spinning. Happiness felt like a lie and hurt felt like a kind of hunger that couldn't be stilled. Sorrow felt like a dry throat and worry felt like the air was quickly being ripped from within his lungs. Anger felt like fire in his veins and fear felt like something he never wanted to experience again. The feeling of not being good enough had came to him for the first time when he was just a ten year old boy, right after the very last time he ever saw his mother. It had felt like how he imagined a heart attack would feel, splitting his soul in half. Something had changed that day, the wire had began to burn.

Rafe was born and raised on Tannyhill, the golden boy on the golden estate. A silver spoon had been placed in his mouth the very second he entered this world. He had been shielded by tall fences and wealth his whole life. The oldest of three kids, two beautiful younger sisters at his heels. They had always adored him, they used to always listen to him. As Sarah grew older, she slipped right out of his grasp, like grains of sand at the beach. They grew distant, going down different paths. Rafe disliked who Sarah had become now, secretly missing the old way it used to be between the two of them. She used to rely on him, now they could barely stand one another. He despised the way Sarah looked at him, and the way their father looked so lovingly at her. She had become self centred and entitled with a rude glare and a distasteful manipulative smile. Rafe feared that little Louisa would drift further away too, to take after her older sister, which made him promise himself to keep a watchful eye out for her. Believe it or not, but family was very important to him.

Rafe had the face of a true kook prince, handsome and poised. He stood tall, shoulders rolled back, like he owned every single square inch of figure eight. What Rafe wanted, he made sure to get. What he wanted, was his. Never in her life had she ever met anyone as charming as Rafe. Someone who so easily could draw in his prey, tearing them apart without a second thought, only to walk right out of the door the very next second. Rafe didn't look back, he didn't mourn. Rafe had a kind of effortless confidence about him, a unshakable certainty in his every move. Yet, never before had she seen anyone lose control like him, eyes flickering from fire to ice. Never before had she found herself so mesmerized by one single person, as she did with young Rafe Cameron.

Myra Maybank was the devil's mistress. A thunderstorm of adventure and the sunshine after the rain. She had an inability to sit still and a kind of laughter that would echo throughout the south side of Kildare island almost all of the time. He would look at her and his heart would just stop, which he could never really seem to figure out as to why. She had that effect on people, even though she was stubborn and awfully sarcastic. Always trying to remain carefree, pushing her uncomfortable feelings away. Always too loud, too wild and too close to the edge. She attracted trouble without even trying, having found herself running down the streets of the cut to escape someone or something way too often. In fact, she had been a magnet for trouble since birth, just like the rest of her family. In many ways chaos coursed through her veins too, tainting her head and heart.