❛ ━━･❪ ❁ ❫ ･━━ ❜

╰┈➤ 𝘐 𝘞𝘈𝘚 𝘐𝘕𝘝𝘐𝘛𝘌𝘋 𝘛𝘖 𝘚𝘈𝘙𝘈𝘏𝘚 𝘗𝘓𝘈𝘊𝘌. Sometimes I feel like she's very lonely deep down, so she tries to befriend everyone as quickly as possible to see if that person can fill her emptiness. And when they can't, she drops them or goes to the next one and suddenly forgets you were ever there. At least that's how Kiara explains it.

But I'm not the kind of person who adopts the opinions of others as their own, which is why I agreed. I make my own impressions, even if it's mainly just by silently observing and analyzing others. However, you learn a lot more this way than if you simply asked strictly for it. It's just that you often wish you had someone watching you ... who wants to understand you so badly that little things seem big to them.

Sarah had fallen asleep while we were about to watch a movie. After turning off the light and pulling the covers up to my chin, I just lay there for a solid two hours, unable to fall asleep.

Normally, I'm the kind of person who always finds sleep right away, but then there are days when the thoughts of everyone in the world seem to be rushing through my head at once and I try to either yell at it or listen until the sun has risen again.

For me, that's the worst thing you can imagine.

So after a while it made me uncomfortable just lying there while Sarah slept, so I sat up and grabbed her flashlight from the bedside table. I didn't want to turn on the big light in the Camerons' house, so I used the sparse beam of light to shine my way up the stairs - in a spiral.

It was unbelievable how huge everything was and I had to admit that I would love to live here. It was just beautiful and you had everything you needed.

I tripped once on the carpet at the bottom of the stairs, internally cursing myself and hoping I hadn't made a sound. Shaking my head, I walked down the aisle and turned left before stopping.

In front of me was a skylight and below it was a small step. Sarah had shown me the place once during the day, which no one seemed to use. It had been too hot for me then and all I could think about was what the view must be like at night. And what a better opportunity than now?

I turn off the flashlight, open the window and carefully climb out. But it's only when I exhale some air and close the window again that I realize that I'm not alone. This place was probably only unvisited during the day.

"I didn't know ..." I begin, moving toward the window again when Rafe interrupts me. "No ... no," he has turned the corners of his mouth down negative and waves with his hand down, "you don't have to go because of me."

I glance at him and sit back down the way I did before.

He's wearing a normal dark blue top, I conclude - because it's hard to see in the dark - and short beige trousers. However, he has neither shoes nor socks on, which makes me grin.

"Nice feet." I point my finger at them vaguely and he looks at them briefly before looking back at me. It's the first time we're actually speaking to each other.

"Why aren't you on your side of the island?" he finally asks harshly, and I swallow the urge to be offended.

"I don't owe you an explanation," I murmur, looking at him coolly. He just nods, unimpressed. "Sure."

After that, there's silence and I stare up at the night sky, counting all the stars I can see. But I get chills down my spine a couple of times, and when I turn my head it's just Rafe who seems to be staring at me instead of the stars. I'd really like to know what's going on in his head right now.

And I notice that he rubs his arms briefly and taps his right foot in place, but always has his knees drawn up and both arms supported on them. I'm not sure why he seems to be struggling with himself. But I immediately realized that it wasn't nervousness, as one would assume.

"Hey," I murmur, scooting a little closer. "Are you okay?"

Rafe doesn't answer right away, but as soon as he does, something changes between us. "I ... um, sometimes I have ... these kinds of thoughts that I can't control and they ... scare me because I don't know what's going to happen. You know—you know that?”

I bite my bottom lip, my heart clenching with familiarity. "Yes."

Finally he looks at me and I add something else because I didn't expect his sudden openness. “And it feels like it's someone else and you at the same time. The lines between anger and pain blur and you not only say something unforgettable, you also act unforgettable. Worst of all, no one will ever understand.”

My gaze has collapsed in despondency, and Rafe's eyes are filled with terror. A horror, of distrust, how it can be that someone can express something so deep about themselves as if they had read the other person's entire mind.

"Do you still have it?", he wants to know, looking very ... reticent.

I slowly shake my head. "They stopped as soon as my mom died and I came here." Now I avoid finding out how his features have changed.

"That-"

"It's fine," I cut him off quickly, wanting no sympathy for the past. Especially not from a Kook.

“I think the part of me that hates her for everything she did to me was fighting the part that loves her, because she was still my mom. And then in between I lost control and went ... well ... freaked out in the chaos.”

The latter makes me laugh a little wryly because I'm embarrassed to open up so much and constantly think I can be judged.

Rafe seems alert and then rattled again, but it turns out he's a good listener. Possibly because no one has ever listened to him.

"How is it that-" he pauses, frowning, "you and I ..." He doesn't finish his sentence and I can well imagine why. How is it that two people couldn't be more different at first glance, but since there is a part unseen from the outside world, that is exactly the same?

“You would do anything for your dad, am I right? I've been watching you," I confess, fully expecting that he could end the conversation at any time. But it's probably the first time someone willingly sits down to talk to him and is willing to listen.

"Any time," he simply replies and then looks at me so intensely that it seems as if he is looking for something in me.

"You're doing this for love, the desire to get the same back and to be seen," I try to reflect to him so that he can understand himself better.

Instantly, anger flares up in him and he grows louder. “All he sees is Sarah! Always Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, his little princess.” I'm sure advice is inappropriate here, and because I feel a strange sense of understanding, I let him share the sameness of my story. Something I don't usually do.

“My mom used to notice every damn motherfucker but me, too. She went above and beyond for a while I sat there at the tip of her skirt and gave my all, so that maybe at the end of the day she would notice me. Just like you, you just wanted to be noticed next to your sister," I say, and suddenly it's completely different. It's no longer like two casual acquaintances sitting next to each other. Rather, two lost souls who seem to find themselves in each other.

He looks at me steadily. "I'm sorry you felt the same way I did," Rafe suddenly says, looking at me more deeply.

I don't answer, just breathe in the still night air and study his features. How beautiful I actually find him, but like to put it aside until I think the thought is gone. It never does.

"The problem with our experience is - and I know we could spend hours recounting the most traumatizing experiences here - is that if a parent doesn't love their child, or at least can't show it, the child doesn't stop loving their parent", I murmur, blocking out past feelings, "but that the child stops loving himself."

Now I can see how glassy Rafe's blue eyes are and how listless he wrinkled his nose. In fact, he's a lot more emotional than you might think.

“How did you deal with everything, huh? Why do your words sound so wise?”, he asks, a little incredulous, and I can understand the unhealthy way he's handling it. With parties, alcohol and his cocaine, which he sells there.

I smile sadly for a moment. “I turned everything on paper into poetry until I had no more words in my body and no more feelings in my mind, Rafe. Otherwise I and everyone else would have perished from it."

His arms are completely silent now and he doesn't seem to be struggling with himself anymore, instead he seems quite peaceful. I've never seen him like this before.

“This constant hope that everything will finally be fine. And you think now is the time. But that's not it and it just gets a lot worse afterwards. Why is that?”, he asks calmly, sounding more like he's questioning all the stars in the sky. Because I myself am amazed how he could summarize my feelings of the last 16 years without knowing about it. The whole thing can never be real, that one conversation should change everything at once. That sounds too surreal, too far-fetched and unique.

My heart aches a little from all the new knowledge mixed in with all the old memories. “The only way to break the circle is to detach. Breaking up and building yourself up so you can go your own way. But when you're alone, you only have the pure realization without the momentous following," I let him know very clearly, even if something tells me he already had that realization.

"And ... if there's nobody there?" he asks.

I'd like to say more about what I've noticed, how I could piece together why he's acting so decisively, but my fear of possible distortion was too powerful.

“You're looking for someone whose help you can accept. Or someone finds you and is ready to finally give you something back. But you have to find the beginning within yourself.”

I shrug unknowingly for a moment, because there's a world of difference between realizing his mistakes and building something new on top of them. Only the rarest and probably the loneliest of all people have tried to cope on their own.

"You're going the right way, I'm sure of it," I add confidently, giving him a gentle smile, understanding that it's probably too much to think about for the moment.

As I get up to go back to Sarah's room so I can get some sleep, Rafe stops me.

He runs his tongue over his lips for a moment and raises his hands slightly to gesture before letting them fall again.
"I'd like to be able to show you what the conversation meant to me," he confides, taking a breather. “No one has ever done that for me. Thanks.”

I stand there, a little taken aback, looking at him with that minimal distance between us. For a moment I think about hugging him. But then I remember how unreal it is that we were complete strangers before and now we've built something together. Whether it was intentional or not.

"Good night, Rafe," I finally whisper, making an effort to carefully climb back out of the window.

His voice sounds one last time behind me. “Hey, um,” he rubs his neck in embarrassment, “see you again? Emma?” Looking at the step below, my hands reaching for the flashlight and trying not to make any noise, a smile creeps onto my lips.

Rafe Cameron was exactly how I could put it together and yet he managed to surprise me.

Maybe by moving to Outer Banks I should not only be able to have a happy life with my brother, but also meet someone who seems like a soul mate.

❛ ━━･❪ ❁ ❫ ･━━ ❜