Island girl | Rafe Cameron

16. A NEVER ENDING STORY

Outer Banks, the Château
July 27th, 2020
11:28am

"How are you feeling?" Kiara asked me as she sat down next to me on the sofa and stared at my cheek.

"Fine, it's almost gone," I touched my cheek, reassuring her.

After the altercation, we had all decided to stay together at the Chateau, even though John B and JJ would have wanted to throw more punches. I had tried so hard to erase Rafe from my thoughts but every time I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, I saw him. As the boys joined us in the living-room, I could already tell they had something in mind.

"They won't agree," Pope warned his friends.

"What do you need our agreement for?" Kiara rolled eyes before even knowing what the boys had in mind since we could already sense how immature it would be.

They all sat down, searching for the right words, like kids trying to convince their parents to allow a sleepover. JJ cleared his throat and began speaking, absentmindedly fiddling with his rings.

"Look, it's not fair that they're always the ones ruining everything," JJ began. "What they did yesterday was completely unnecessary, but they did it anyway!"

"Spare us details, go straight to your point JJ," I snapped.

"We want revenge, and we want it now," JJ replied.

Kiara's eyes met mine, and we both sighed at the same time, unsure how to handle the boys' need to stroke their egos by tearing others down. "We can't hit them again, or they'll just keep coming back," Kiara tried to reason.

"So are we supposed to let them hurt us without saying anything? Don't you think they'll come back anyway?" John B took JJ's defense.

I frowned. "We need to be more mature than them. It's a cycle! We need to think of a way to shut them down, not punch them until something terrible happens to one of them, or to one of us," I declared.

"He had a fucking knife on your face Margot! What more do you need, was it not enough?" JJ almost screamed at my face.

"And are the $3k not enough?" I asked back.

JJ sighed as he stood up. "We need to show them who we are. We've never been victims, and today's not going to be the day we start," he declared.

"Let's go to them, show them the real us," John B agreed, backing up my brother's idea.

"Guys, this is stupid," Kiara complained.

"So what's your idea? We're listening!" Pope asked, surprisingly siding with the boys' reckless plan.

"We just think you're overreacting because you're boys and you feel the need to prove how tough you are! With the police on their side, they have so much more power than us. There's absolutely nothing we can do!" I replied, trying to stay calm.

"Then stay here, with your arms crossed, while we are going to settle this by ourselves tonight," JJ seethed. "Maybe you're right, you girls have nothing to do with it"

Kiara and I felt our feminism burn inside us as we searched for the right arguments to throw at them, to explain that this wasn't about masculinity but maturity. But for the sake of our friendship, we stayed quiet, knowing that a disagreement like this could lead to weeks of chaos between the five of us, something none of us wanted.

"Why tonight?" Kiara asked simply.

"Because Rafe is throwing a party," Pope answered.

"Are you coming?" John B asked, looking at both of us.