LITTLE SECRET | RAFE CAMERON

69: 𝘞𝘩𝘰'𝘴...

After Alice closed the bathroom door behind her, she waited a moment until she heard the shower turn on and finally took a deep breath trough her nose.

She was at the end of her rope. She just couldn't ignore the obvious anymore.

Everything that happened around her seemed as if it was losing its veracity. And Alice refused to admit it, but all the stuff that had happened in the last couple of weeks clearly showed her that she and Rafe had changed.

What they once had seemed to have faded away.

It was as if what everyone had said about him was true. In her eyes, Rafe had always been this boy she'd heard many bad things about. Ever since they were kids. But she had never been able to see these things in him, not even at the beginning of the summer when she still hated him. He had never treated her the way everyone had told her he would, and she fully believed that deep down he was the good guy she knew him to be, but...lately the shadows of that character - the one they had all always warned her about - had been breaking out of him.

Sometimes, she would look into his eyes when he wasn't paying attention and she would freeze at the cold that was living deep inside of them. As if the warmth in his body had been switched off.

Alice just really missed the way his eyes softened into a warm smile whenever they looked at each other.

Or the way he always talked to her in such a gentle way, without any sign of anger following the words that fell from his lips.

She missed the late nights when they would lie in bed together. The nights when they laughed. When they listened to each other, talked about anything and everything and loved in a way they had never loved before.

And it wasn't like they didn't love each other anymore, but when Alice noticed the phone lying on her bed - which was not hers - light up, a very weird feeling spread through her stomach, which she would have preferred to simply ignore.

But the feeling of foreboding was stronger than anything else she felt at that moment.

She approached her bed with hesitant steps and stopped when she looked down at Rafe's phone without picking it up.

He had left it there. The display was black again, not showing why it had lit up a few seconds ago.

Alice knew it was more than just wrong to look through her boyfriend's phone without him knowing it. To control him. Until now, she had never even given any thought to not trusting him with his phone and what he was doing on it, but...

After that night, she found herself trapped in the dilemma of losing her trust in him. And all she wanted was to make sure she wasn't making a fool of herself.

Because what if she was loving someone, who was lying to her?

She waited for a second to check if the shower was still running before taking his phone and sitting down on the edge of her bed.

His lock screen beamed at her and when she saw the picture he had as his wallpaper, she only felt even worse for what she was doing.

It was a picture he had taken of them. It was that one night when Rafe had taken her to the beach on his motorcycle after Sarah had found out they were dating and Alice hadn't been able to think a peaceful thought, let alone sleep. When she had sat between his legs and leaned back against his torso, his arms around her from behind, his head on her shoulder and his lips on her cheek as she grinned into the camera.

She remembered that night very well.

And no matter how beautiful the memory was, the message hovering at the bottom of the screen made every good thought fade away.

With a furrowed brow, Alice clicked on the notification that led her to the chat some hours ago with a certain...Barry.

RAFE
I need more for tonight

BARRY
Not happening bro
You're not getting more
until I get my money

RAFE
I got your money

BARRY
Y'know it, Country Club
I get my money
You get your coke

RAFE
I'll be there in an hour

BARRY
I give you twenty minutes

RAFE
I can't
I'm on my way to pick her up

BARRY
Listen man
I don't give a fuck bout' your gf
You want your stuff?
Come get it now.

RAFE
I'll be there in twenty

Alice slowly lowered her hand, which was holding his phone. She thought she had read more than enough. At least the way her stomach twisted somewhere under her skin and nausea shot up her throat told her to stop reading.

She stared blankly into her room as she tried to process the information properly.

Oh, how blind she had been.

As soon as she realized what the messages meant and who Barry probably was, the lie she had discovered burned through her system like a forest fire. She pressed her hand to her chest as hard as she could to stop the pain that suddenly cut through her lungs and made them constrict.

Rafe had lied to her.

Not only once. Not just twice. But every fucking time she had asked him about his drug problems. And every time she had tried to show him how much she cared about his well-being. He had looked her straight in the eyes and lied to her.

As the realization slowly settled in, Alice forced herself off the bed and paced up and down her room. The air fighting its way out through her lungs rasped through her throat and dried out her mouth as she tried to blink back the tears gathering on her waterline. But they began to roll uncontrollably as she put her hand over her mouth to stifle her sobs.

Until she suddenly heard the door to her bathroom open.

„Alice?" Rafe said in a questioning voice as her eyes shot over to him from the floor of the room. Her tear-drained eyes made his expression fall apart. „baby, what happen—„ He immediately approached her.

„You lied" She cried and roughly pushed him away from her by his chest. „this whole fucking time, you've been—" Her words mingled with her sobs and caught in her throat as she kept pushing him.

„What?"

„Every time I asked you, you lied to me"

„Alice, what are you talk—" His face scrunched up as he tried to calm her down, but she didn't listen to any of his words until he grabbed her harshly by both wrists.

Rafe pulled her closer. His hands were so tight around her wrists that any of her attempts to escape his grip were useless as he watched, unable to understand, as the tears rolled down her face, bearing his name.

„Rafe..." She spoke very quietly as she looked up at him. „...who's Barry?"