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𝙄𝙏 𝙒𝘼𝙎 𝘿𝘼𝙍𝙆 by the time Kiara and Charlotte returned home. 

They had left soon after their talk on the dock, Kie refusing to speak to any of the boys before they left. So, Charlotte gave them all meager goodbyes before driving the two of them home. 

Kiara had remained mostly silent, still visibly upset over the whole Sarah Situation. Charlotte stayed quiet as well, save for her lowly humming along to her music as she drove. 

However, when they pulled into the driveway, the outside lights having been left on for them by their parents, Kiara finally spoke. 

She leaned forward, squinting in disbelief for a moment before scoffing. "What the actual fuck is he doing here?"

Charlotte looked over at her in shock for a moment, confused as to what her little sister was seeing. But as she shifted the car into park, her eyes found rest on a figure sitting on their porch steps. 

Rafe Cameron sat with his knees bouncing nervously. His head had been down until Charlotte's car pulled into the driveway, which at that point he looked up with an anxious look. 

So stunned for a moment, Charlotte hadn't even realized that Kiara was waiting for an answer from her. The youngest Carrera was regarding her sister with raised brows, a look of disapproval on her face. 

All the stuff she said earlier about Charlotte being with Rafe if that's what made her happy...yeah, Charlotte knew that had been a bold-face lie. Kiara hated Rafe, and even if he made Charlotte the happiest girl on the planet, that wouldn't change.

Reaching over to undo her seatbelt, Charlotte shook her head at her sister. "I have no idea why he's here. I swear."

Kiara followed suit, basically ripping off her seatbelt and throwing open the door. "Well, let me get rid of him."

"Kie, wait." Charlotte pleaded, reaching across the car to stop her. "Just go inside. I can handle him, alright?"

With a look of disgust on her face, Kiara relented. "Fine."

A small sigh of relief fell from Charlotte's lips as she opened her own door, walking around to the front of the car where Kiara met her. Rafe had now stood up, and was nervously wiping his hands on his pants. He looked visibly upset, and that caused Charlotte's heart to drop slightly. 

Kiara noted the look of worry on Charlotte's face and rolled her eyes with a noise of contempt as she began toward the house. 

Rafe mustered a small smile as she passed him. "Hey, Kie."

"Fuck off, douche." She muttered, not even looking at him as she shoved past to get up the stairs. 

Pursing her lips, Charlotte closed the distance between her and Rafe as Kiara slammed the front door behind her. "What are you doing here?" 

Rafe raked a hand through his hair, and Charlotte could see that his hands were shaking slightly. "My dad kicked me out."

She wasn't really sure what to say. She had never expected Ward Cameron to kick out one of his kids, but honestly, with the way Rafe had been acting for the past year, she wasn't entirely surprised. 

"Oh." It was the best she could do in the moment.

His eyes dragged up from where they had been locked on the ground. They were red rimmed and tired. "I need your help, Lottie. Please."

Something in his voice caused Charlotte's heart to cave, and a feeling of conflict settled within her. "What do you want me to do Rafe? Do you need money for a hotel?"

"No." He shook his head. "I need─I want to stay with you."

"With me?" Charlotte all but squeaked. 

He let out a breath. "I know, I know I don't deserve your help. But you're the only person who can help me right now. You're the only person that I want to help me right now."

Rafe Cameron always had a way of making Charlotte Carrera give in to him. All he had to do was say the word. 

Biting down on her lip, Charlotte looked passed him toward the house where her parents and sister were. There was no way Kiara would knowingly allow Rafe to step foot through the front door, and she had a feeling her father wouldn't be entirely pleased with the prospect either. 

So, after thinking about it for a moment, she finally landed on a solution. "Go to my window." Charlotte instructed, reaching out to steer Rafe in the direction of her bedroom. "Climb up the way you used to. I'll meet you there."

It seemed that a weight had visibly been lifted off of Rafe's shoulders as he let out a deep sigh. "Thank you, Lottie."

She gave him a tight smile in response before shooing him away. Then, she hurried up the front steps and slipped into the house. 

The kitchen light is left on, and as she rounded the corner to the stairs, Kiara stepped out. "What did he want?"

Charlotte startled, placing a hand over her heart as she calms her breathing. She needed to think of a lie and it needed to be convincing. 

"He wanted me to come to a party with him." She answered as quickly as she could. "Topper bailed out on him last minute. I said no...obviously."

Kiara's brows flew up. "So you were his next choice? Don't you two, like, hate each other or something now?"

"We don't hate each other." Charlotte corrects as she tried  to slowly inch her way toward the stairs. 

"So you throwing the picture frame of the two of you at your wall wasn't out of hate?" The look on Kiara's face is one that dared Charlotte to argue with her. 

"Okay, Kie. Maybe after you date someone for five years and then break up, you'll understand all the dynamics of it, okay?"

Kiara snorted, nodding toward the kitchen. "Whatever. I'm heating up leftovers. Want some?"

Charlotte shook her head, gripping onto the bottom of the banister. She was desperate to get upstairs and let Rafe in, afraid someone was going to see him outside. "No. I'm good."

"You sure?" Kie pressed. "You haven't eaten anything since lunch."

"I'm sure. Not really hungry today. Probably has something to do with the Crain house...a place like that is an appetite killer."

Kiara didn't look convinced, but gave in. "Okay. Well, come to my room later if you want to chill."

"I'm probably going to bed." Charlotte lied as she stepped onto the bottom stair. "I'm exhausted from─"

"Let me guess," Kiara interrupted with a roll of her eyes. "From the Crain house."

Charlotte cracked a grin. "You know me so well, little sister."

Snorting, Kiara turned back toward the kitchen. "You're weird, Charley."

"That's what makes me so loveable!" Charlotte called as she began up to her room. She took the first few stairs slowly, until she was sure Kie wasn't watching any longer to which she then switched to bounding up them two at a time. 

By the time she finally reached her room, Rafe was standing on her balcony, waiting to be let in. 

Dumping her bag onto her bed, Charlotte quietly unlocked the door and pulled it open. A whoosh of warm night air followed Rafe as he stepped into her bedroom. 

The breeze carried his scent toward Charlotte, causing her to breathe it in for a moment. He always smelled the same, like aftershave and cologne. She loved that smell. Sometimes, she swore she could smell it on random items of her clothing, as if his scent never fully washed off.

"Took you long enough." Rafe whispered, breaking Charlotte from her thoughts. 

She shot him a glare as she closed the door behind him. "Jesus, sorry, Rafe."

Her voice dripped with sarcasm, and it caused him to crack the smallest of smiles. "I'm kidding." He assured, watching her as she locked the doors. 

Sighing, Charlotte turned to face him. "If you're staying here, you need to tell me what's going on."

Rafe dropped his head slightly, moving to sit down on the edge of Charlotte's bed. It was clear he didn't want to tell her the full truth...but quite frankly, he didn't have a choice.

"I fucked up, okay?" His voice was raw, and the way his face clouded with emotion was enough to break down some of the exterior Charlotte put up when with him. 

She sat down on the bed next to him, her hand itching to reach out and take his own. Somehow, she convinced herself not to reach out to him. "What happened?"

Swallowing hard, Rafe looked down at his hands for a moment. "I don't want to tell you."

Charlotte kept her eyes locked on him. "Why not?"

Finally, Rafe looked up. "Because I don't want you to think any littler of me than you already do."

The air between them seemed to grow heavy as they looked at one another, both of them silent as they seemed to study the other's face. 

Charlotte was the first to break. She didn't want to do this with him, not right now. 

"I have to go shower." She declared, breaking the heavy tension as she stood. "Make yourself at home. There's─uh─there's some of your clothes in my closet...feel free to use them."

If Rafe was offended by Charlotte's quick change in topic, he didn't say anything. Instead, he gave her a small grin as he looked toward the closet. "You didn't burn them?"

Raising her brows, Charlotte made way for her bathroom. "That was next on my list of to-dos. Just hadn't gotten to it yet."

She could hear his quiet laugh as she closed the bathroom door, instantly pressing herself up against it with wide eyes. 

"What the fuck are you doing, Charlotte?" She whispered to herself, in disbelief that she was letting Rafe stay here. She knew how it was going to end up. 

Her heart was pounding in her ears as she showered and readied herself for bed. It wasn't like her and Rafe had never shared a room before...they'd done a lot more than that. It was just that she didn't expect them to ever get back to this point. At least not right now. 

Charlotte had aspired of a summer free of Rafe Cameron, and now here she was letting him back into her bed─literally!

But when she pulled open the bathroom door twenty minutes later, Rafe wasn't in her bed, but on the floor next to it. 

"What are you doing?" She wondered, wrapping a towel her wet hair.

He looked up at her, readjusting the pillow beneath his head. "I'm going to bed."

Charlotte rolled her eyes. "Obviously. I mean why are you on the floor?"

"As opposed to..."

"The bed, you idiot." she huffed, grabbing her throw pillows as she began assembling them as a divider. "It's not like we've never shared a bed before, Rafe. But this time, don't cross the pillow wall."

A second later, Rafe's head popped up as he pulled himself up off the floor. "A pillow wall? Really, Lottie?"

She fixed him with a challenging look. "Do you want to sleep in the bed or not?"

Raising his hands in surrender, Rafe flopped down on his side of the bed with a sigh of relief. "I owe you one, Charlotte."

Silently, Charlotte got into the other side of the bed, switching off the light. "Yeah." She finally answered, darkness coating the room. "You do."

Another silence, this time heavier than before, fell between the two. Now, there was not only a wall of pillows in between them, but a wall of unspoken words. 

Charlotte felt like her chest was closing in on itself. He was right there. Right next to her. She could roll over and pretend nothing had ever happened between them. That they were still Rafe and Charlotte. 

"Do you remember that time we went to the Bahamas?" Rafe's thought was sudden, and it pulled Charlotte out of her internal battle.

"Of course." She answered quietly, the memories flooding back in. 

It had been two weeks before their finals of their senior year in high school. Rafe had showed up at Charlotte's house one morning and demanded that she pack a bag. She knew it wasn't the smart thing to do, but she had listened to him, of course she had. She was so in love she would have done anything he asked her to. 

By that afternoon the two were at the Cameron's Bahamas house. 

Charlotte had never been so happy in her entire life. For the next two days the two pretended they didn't have finals to study for. Or parents waiting for them at home. 

They pretended that that was their life. That they would wake up everyday next to one another and live in complete bliss. 

Rafe had treated Charlotte like royalty. He did everything he could to see her smile. 

That had been the Rafe Cameron she fell in love with. She just wish she knew that those few days in the Bahamas would be some of their last truly happy days together. 

"I almost proposed to you."

Rafe's words caused Charlotte's heart to slam against her ribcage. Her breath caught in her throat as she registered what he had just said. 

She had no chance to find her words, because he continued without prompt. "I didn't have a ring or anything...but I swear to God, Lottie, I almost asked you one day at the beach. The smile on your face that day...it was the best thing I had ever seen."

Charlotte knew the day he was talking about. It was their last night there. Rafe had taken her out to dinner and then they spent the rest of the night walking up and down the beach just talking and enjoying each other's company. 

Again, Rafe continued. "I wanted to give you a real ring." He explained, his voice wavering slightly. "I convinced myself to wait until we graduated college. Then I could give you everything you ever wanted."

Tears clawed at the back of Charlotte's eyes as her throat felt like it was coated in honey. "It's a good thing you didn't." 

Rafe stilled for a moment down, holding his breath before speaking. "Because you would have said no?"

Charlotte stared up at her ceiling, painfully aware how close he was to her. She could reach over and grab his hand if she wanted to. "No." She whispered. "Because I would have said yes."

Heavy silence coated the room for a moment before Rafe spoke. "Would that have been so bad?"

"Yes." Charlotte answered truthfully. "Because the outcome probably would have been the same...it just might have hurt a little extra."

The silence grew so loud, Charlotte swore Rafe could probably hear her heart beating. 

"I really fucked up, Lottie. What I put you through...I─I don't think I can ever tell you how sorry I am."

His voice held true sorrow, but Charlotte knew words meant nothing. He could apologize until he was blue in the face, but she knew the only way he could truly show his regret, was by changing. 

When Charlotte spoke, her voice came out rasped and shaky. "I don't want to talk about this right now." 

Rafe shifted on his side of the bed. "Will you ever want to talk about it?"

"Yes." Charlotte answered with surety. "Just not right now."

Because the truth was, everything that had happened with Rafe hurt Charlotte to the core. It felt like a wide open wound that had yet to close in the past two, almost three, months that they had been apart.

Maybe talking about it would help her finally feel. But mostly, she feared talking about it would only make it worse. 

It took Charlotte hours to fall asleep that night. 

As she lay in her bed, heart pounding against her chest, she could hear Rafe's quiet breathing and it took everything in her not to turn toward him, to throw away the pillows and bury her body against his own. 

When she finally fell asleep, her slumber was plagued with dreams of what could have been. 

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