⸝⸝₊ ┊run for the hills
── art of letting go ♰ ‧₊˚ ⋅⩩

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⁰︎⁰︎ °. THERE HAD BEEN a time in Valentina's life where her biggest issue was trying to place first in nationals for the high school track team. Sure, it was pointless, especially in high school to worry about what title one could possibly win and receive the highest honor of. But at the time, it was everything.

Everything at the time is the biggest worry in the world. Track team nationals, the middle school dance recital, making sure her boyfriend's psycho best friend didn't drown some innocent kid...she didn't give a shit about John B. Never has, never will. It was more just the morality of the situation. She didn't have much to worry about these days, not during the summer. The summer was their time for freedom and to spend the last of their teenage years like they're supposed to...like teenagers.

Drinking, smoking, drugs, and sex.

If only life could stay that simple.

There was a rustle from the other side of the bed after a few minutes. Valentina had thought he'd fallen asleep, but a look over her shoulder revealed Rafe throwing the blanket off himself and padding towards his bathroom. There wasn't even a light on in the room. It was well into the early morning hours, past the point of trying to sleep and simply staying up until the sun woke up.

Maybe a few years ago would her and Rafe stay up together talking about anything that popped into their heads, but these days, Val had simply shown up to please him. Through the doors and up into the king size mattress that held their whispered sighs so secretively, no one in the house even knew she was there.

There wasn't any point now. They had nothing to talk about. They had spilled themselves out to each other. It wasn't fulfilling, it wasn't even something she was proud of anymore. It was just a burden. At least it was getting there. Rafe was one more fuck-up away from getting himself dumped off Kildare. One mess up away from losing the only person who seemed to understand him on the island. Valentina would be better off on her own anyway. She wouldn't have him holding her back.

Even as she lay there in his bed, she felt stuck. The door to leave was right in front of her; but the sheets had her tangled in their grasp and they weren't willing to let go.

Maybe she wasn't willing to let go. There wasn't anyone on the island that understood her — that even talked to her really, much less tried to get to know her. Rafe was that person. They were so for each other for so long that she hadn't bothered to worry about her social life outside of his circle. It would probably make her life miserable in the long run, but for now she was at least somewhat content.

She just couldn't let him go.

He was all she'd ever known so there was no reason to throw it all away.

Rafe Cameron was it for Valentina Sterling, whether she liked it or not.

Even through the arguments and the sex and the drugs, it was all they had to offer. It was all they could ever offer each other.

It wasn't glamorous — though they could make it seem that way — it was ugly, nasty, and all sorts of wicked. They were the way they were because they had made each other that way. They had created the obsessive and psychotic natures they grew into.

It had drove Rafe crazy for so long how Valentina could just waltz around Kildare and act like she hadn't cared about anything or anyone. It was a selfish need, one that he wanted her to show. Show to the world that she had actually cared about him. He was the only one who truly got to see her behind closed doors. The accusations she had thrown around, the girls she always threatened to ruin simply because he had talked to them. It drove him crazy.

But what did he care actually? He's the one who got to see all of her.

Especially under the faint glow of a cell phone that filled his room. It barely lit up enough to see the outlines on Valentina's face, but it was enough to study the shape of them. Every curve of her face, the small bump on the bridge of her nose, the Cupid's bow that accentuated her upper lip just right. It was all so perfectly...peaceful.

She'd been shut off since he had dozed off the night before. Nothing more than a body breathing under his sheets.

The daze the alcohol had left her in had only made her...think. Hours and hours of thinking. That never ended well and the only thing she got out of that thinking session was that it wasn't just the Pogue's that were idiots, it was everyone. At least the Pogue's know how to keep it under the radar. They have a lot more to lose than the Kooks. People like Topper had nothing to lose, and if something went wrong he could just buy his way out.

Easy peasy.

And when Rafe fell back asleep beside her, she had no choice but to think. The aimless scrolling on her phone didn't help, all it did was remind her of the night she had with Maybank and Topper.

There were already a dozen videos she'd managed to tap past of Maybank threatening Topper with his gun. Most people shocked, a few of them angry, and even a handful of them just calling him ballsy for even bringing the gun in the first place

"Is that Maybank?" Rafe's groggy voice broke the silence suddenly. Having watched the last few videos she flicked through.

Valentina looked down at him laying against his pillow, his brows furrowed as he watched the video on her phone before she clicked her phone off. It had been hours already.

"Yeah," she muttered, reaching for her phone charger off to the side and leaving it unoccupied on his bedside table. "Last night at the bonfire."

That got him to sit up, leaning against his elbow that had caught Val's attention at how quickly he had moved.

"He brought a gun?"

Her brows furrowed that time before a small nod followed.

"Didn't Topper call you last night?" She questioned whilst adjusting the blanket around her. They had to listen the whole ride back to Tannyhill as Topper went on and on about how he almost died because Maybank threatened him a little.

"He didn't say he got threatened with a gun," he reiterated shortly as a hand ran down his tired face. His blanket was thrown off him again as he got up. Mostly to sort his thoughts. To work out in his mind how the night had ended like that. And how Val hadn't even mentioned it. You wouldn't have thought he was sleeping a minute ago. "And you just forget to mention you almost got killed now?" He pointed out.

Her head shook shortly, a scoff escaping her as she watched him lean against the edge of his bed. Head hung low before he was looking up at her with an icy glare.

"I didn't almost get killed," she joked. He was being serious. "Babe, seriously, it's fine," a reassurance had followed his worries before she let her legs drape over the edge of the bed.

The sun was coming up by that point, finally welcoming the world to the start of their new day.

"Nothing about that is fine, baby. A gun?" Rafe was practically pacing his room by that point, hands through his hair, frantic, nervous. And Val didn't even know why. It's not like he was on the beach anyway. "Like — an actual gun?"

"As supposed to what? A fake one?" Val droned. The heels of her palms dug themselves into her eyes to rid herself of the hangover that was making itself known finally. Between the sun shining through the curtains and Rafe's bickering with himself, her head was sure to be obliterated by noon. "Yes, it was a real gun —"

"Where'd he even get one?"

How in the hell was Valentina supposed to know that?

"How about we just go ask him. 'Hey, Maybank! Where'd you get the gun? I'd love to get my own!'." She mocked. "Why's it fuckin' matter where he got it, the point is —"

"I don't give a shit what the point is —" he cut her off.

Val blinked a little harshly at the floor, trying to get her eyes to focus before having to pick at the corner of her eye.

"You don't say," she muttered to herself quietly as he went on again.

"— it's the matter of the fact that he could've shot you!"

Val could hear the floorboards creaking outside his door when someone woke up. Their padding around the house was quiet, but loud enough in the morning that they could hear it if they had tried.

"You are way too loud for the hour it is," she scolded harshly, finally looking up at him as he stopped in front of her. "Calm down. It's fuckin' over, nobody's hurt. So what's the issue?"

"The issue's he's a fucking psycho, Val."

"Alright," she scoffed out an annoyed laugh. Her tired bones threaten to creek as she pushed herself off the bed. The connected bathroom he had left not even a few hours before had gotten occupied when she filled it, the door still cracked enough that Rafe could argue about nothing as she minded herself.

"You know what people do when they wave a gun around in the air? They shoot people." She shook her head a little at the statement, mostly because that made no fucking sense. And because she just wanted to pee in peace. "What if he hit you?"

"Well, he didn't."

"Is this seriously not that big of a deal to you?" He was pushing the bathroom door open suddenly, startling her a little before she dropped her head to her hands. Elbow's rested on her knees, she rubbed her dry eyes harshly.

"No. It's seriously not," she brushed off. "And I seriously don't know why it's such a big deal to you." There was a short glare that followed her statement to him. His own fighting hers before a short shake of his head followed in frustration. "Can you get out now? I'm not arguing with you while I'm in the bathroom," her voice trailed off to a mumble.

Rafe reluctantly left. His tongue running over the side of his cheek, annoyed. The door frame creaking when he pushed himself off and went back to his room.

"And you want to talk about psychos, maybe go check in with Topper, huh? Heard he just got done reading Psycho's 101," Val called back through the door after she was finally done, the light flicking off making Rafe turn around to see her standing in the doorway. "Maybank was just trying to protect his friend before yours killed him."

Maybe it was stupid to defend a Pogue of all people to Rafe Cameron, but she needed to set the record straight before Rafe did something stupid. But knowing him, he probably would anyway.

"And don't tell me you wouldn't do the same because you have," she finally shut him down when he went to argue again. "Now will you shut the fuck up? You're arguing with yourself about nothing and I'm tired."

Valentina Sterling just couldn't let him go. No matter how hard she tried.

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gracie's getaway //
also (mostly for the next chapter)
ford is supposed to be 16 and i swear i
said that but apparently i said he was
12 idek. so anyways he's 16...
same age as the pogues

shorter chapter for this one but the next
one is quite a doozy. family chapter!!!!
those always end well 😅

— gracie xx