THE PICTURE OF YOU -rafe cameron-

031; lets talk about the girl in the car

Rafe was sat by the desk in his room later that evening, his elbows resting upon the dark luxurious wood. He gazed down at a piece of empty paper in front of him. In his hand he held a ballpoint pen filled with black inc that went unused. He hadn't moved for at least twenty minutes, his mind a blur. Time ticked on, but he couldn't seem to make anything good of it. He wanted to write something down, he just didn't know what. He had a million thoughts spinning around in his messy mind and he figured that if he could just put it out into the world on paper then it would solve everything. The problem was just that he couldn't seem to convert these thoughts into actual words worthy of being jotted down. It was often like this, he wanted to write but he didn't know how to.

"Rafe?"

The kook boy snapped back to reality as he heard his father's voice echo throughout the large house, calling for him, his only son. Rafe dropped his pen, turning his upper body towards the door, "yeah? I'm in my room dad" he called back. Ward's voice was even more assertive and direct than Rafe's and it rang loudly, "would you come down here please?"

Rafe sighed as he stood up, his desk chair making a squeaky sound as it was dragged against the floorboards. Rafe let his fingertips trail against the back of it for a split second, gazing around his large room. It had a tall ceiling and white walls. He had his own on suite bathroom and a big king size bed. He had a fireplace, a large closet and his own tv with a game console plugged into it. Tall bookshelves adorned a corner of the room and large windows let the daylight flow through. Rafe would sometimes sit by them at night too, watching the moon and the stars. The room was the very same room that he had spent a lot of time in as he grew up, not much had changed, just some of the furniture. It had to, his long legs soon outgrew all of his childhood beds. By now he had grown even taller than his dad, which most of his family had expected.

Rafe left his room and walked downstairs, his feet dragging against the marbled surface of the staircase. "Dad?" he called out as he turned a corner, walking into the kitchen. Rafe found his father at the other end of the room by a golden bar cart. "Hey son" Ward spoke clearly, pouring himself a glass of whiskey, "how are you?". Rafe stopped a few feet away, his hands by his sides. "I'm good" he answered as he gazed at his dad, wondering if that was the only reason he had called him downstairs. Ward nodded slowly as he took a sip of his expensive whiskey, "good, that's good Rafe". "Yeah" Rafe agreed, dragging the palms of his hands against the material of his dress pants, "what about you? How are you?". Ward took another sip of the strong alcohol, pushing his lips together as he swallowed hard. "I'm alright thank you" he then spoke, answering the question his son had thrown out into the air that surrounded them, "I had a lovely lunch with Rose today, I played a round of golf and I had drinks with Bartham"

"Bartham Branson?" Rafe asked, putting his hands into his pockets. "Yeah" Ward answered, staring blatantly at his son. "How's he doing?" Rafe went on, still unsure where this conversation was leading. Bartham Branson was one of his father's rich influential kook friends. They were about the same age and both worked in business. Bartham was well liked by their figure eight community. A big spender at the island club and a noble family man. He had a successful son who was a year or two older than Rafe, who attended Brown university, and a gorgeous daughter who was a year younger than Rafe. They had gone to the same school and she was a popular honour roll student. She was on the cheer team and had a special interest for marine biology, while at the same time she managed to get elected prom queen in her big poofy pink dress.

"Bartham's good, yeah, he has this new startup business over in Charleston and it's going good for him" Ward spoke, answering the question that Rafe had just asked him. He then raised his heavy crystal glass, taking a sip of his whisky as he kept his eyes on his tall dark blonde haired son. He looked so much alike his younger sister Sarah, the same kind of eyes and the same kind of nose, yet they were so different these days. Ward wanted more from his son, more than he could see as he stood there in the dim evening light of the kitchen. "Sounds good" Rafe spoke, seemingly a little uninterested in the conversation that was taking place in between the two of them. "He mentioned that he saw you today, by the way" Ward spoke, setting his glass down on the kitchen island as he slowly approached Rafe, "down at the island centre". Rafe slowly nodded his head, understanding that this was some kind of attack coming from his dad. He was either curious or annoyed, as he often was, Rafe just wasn't sure yet. "Oh yeah" the kook teenager shrugged his shoulders, trying to play it off. It wasn't as if he wasn't allowed to roam around the island, so he didn't understand why his dad or his middle aged friend would even care. "Yeah..." Ward trailed, leaning the palms of his hands against the cold stone of the kitchen island as he gazed at his son, "he saw you in one of our cars, said it needed a wash"