"That bad huh." Barry sassily remarked as he watched Topper walk into the trailer with a frown on his face.
"No, she was surprisingly okay about it." Topper responded plopping his keys down on the kitchen counter which for the first time in a while was actually clean.
"Uh huh, so okay that you came back alone." Barry smirked clearly not believing the Thornton boys version of events.
"She's not here because she's with Rafe, it's got nothing to do with me actually." Topper smiled smuggly at him before falling onto the sofa beside him like a sack of potatoes.
"She's with Rafe, that's the best you could come up with." Barry pulled the joint back between his lips ending the chuckle he let out.
"She's with Rafe because he found out about his dad and she cares to much to leave him alone." Barry shot up at the Thornton boys confession and gave him a deadly look. "I tried to convince her to leave but you know what she's like." Topper defended himself.
"Yeah I know what she's like, that's exactly why I know you should have dragged her out of that house kicking and screaming!" Barry considered taking his bike and dragging her out himself but he knew she would hate him for it so against his better judgement he stayed put. "She doesn't need this shit right now, she has her own problems to deal with. I mean she's not slept since she got here, she's hardly eating, she-"
"I know, I'm worried about her too." Topper sighed grabbing the joint from the long haired man's fingers and claiming it as his own. "But you know if I had bought her back she would be punishing herself for leaving him on his own. I mean he was a mess, I've never seen him like that."
"Shits fucked up." Barry concluded throwing an empty beer can across the room.
.𖥔 ݁ ˖
Saylor had managed to get Rafe out of the office and into his room. The two laid besides each other on top of his navy blue sheets. They hadn't exchanged words in a while, they were comfortable with the silence.
"Were you there?" Rafe was the one to break the silence, his voice hoarse from crying.
Saylor turned her head so her cheek was flat against his pillow, he looked so young from that angle, so innocent. "Yeah, I was there." Her voice remained gentle and kind, she knew not many people spoke to him that way.
"What happened, how did he-" Rafe used his arms to push himself up so he was no longer laid flat on his back but instead propped up against the pillows. "Why is my dad dead?"
"Rafe." Saylor mimicked his actions moving to sit up. "We don't have to do this right now." She wasn't sure if it was the right time, he needed more time to feel, more time to accept what had happened rather than argue it.
"Please Saylor." He grabbed her hands and used his eyes to plead his case. "I just want to understand what happened. I need to know."
Saylor nodded her head, he should know the full story. If it was the other way around she would want to know. Then she remembered it had been the other way around and he had lied to her. He lied to her about what had happened to Sarah and her brother and she remembered what it felt like when she realised she had been lied too.
Temporarily she remembered everything he had put her through but the positive memories they shared always seemed to drown them out, maybe that was the source of all of her problems. The fact she clung onto the positives rather than taking into account the negatives.
"We were..." Saylor recounted everything that happened from the moment Ward had joined them at the top of the mountain. She hadn't even noticed she had started to cry until Rafes thumb wiped away her tears like she had done an hour prior.
Rafe didn't look angry, he didn't look sad, he didn't look anything. He looked numb. "I'm glad your home safe." He smiled at her resting his hands on her legs.
Saylors eyebrows pulled together in confusion, she was waiting for him to scream, to cry, to punch something but he never did. He simply smiled at her and made her the focus of their conversation. Maybe Saylor wasn't the only person in the room using the other as a distraction.
"Your not angry at me?" The question slipped from her lips before she even had time to register she had thought it.
"Why would I be angry with you?"
"I was the one that gave him the idea, it's my fault he fell of that cliff, it's my fault he got shot." Saylor explained as her eyes glazed over with tears. "It's my fault Rafe." She genuinely believed every single word of her confession, it was all her fault, everything was her fault.
"I don't blame you Saylor. He was a grown man, he made his own decisions and he chose Sarah. He always chose Sarah."
If she wasn't so wrapped up in the fact Rafe had cleared her of her role in his fathers death maybe she would have recognised the resentment in his voice when he spoke about his sister.
"Could you stay with me tonight, I don't want to be alone right now." There weren't any hidden intentions behind his request and Saylor knew that.
"Of course, whatever you need. You don't have to deal with this alone." Saylor smiled at him and he squeezed her knees as sign of gratitude. "Uber eats and a movie?"
"Uber eats and a movie." Rafe agreed grabbing his phone and opening the app whilst Saylor leant forward and picked up the TV remote.
"So I'm thinking Moana."
"You're always thinking Moana." Rafe retorted lifting his phone to his face so that he could use Apple Pay to pay for their pizza.
"That's not true, High School Musical is my Roman Empire."
.·:*¨ ✘♚✘ ¨*:·.
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