113. Rafe
Chapter One Hundred Thirteen
Rafe
T he rock pings as it hits the window. It’s taken a bit of practice to find the exact size of pebble I need to throw to avoid breaking the glass. I resorted to crushing a larger rock into fragments, and I practiced on another building that now has two broken windows.
A couple more rocks gently hit the windowpane before she comes and pushes it open. “Rafe. We talked about this. It was a one-time thing. It can’t happen again.”
A one-time thing. The words work their way under my skin, but I force myself to remember her fire in my arms, the way we meshed together. This is not one-sided. I know it isn’t.
I wave at her to come down to me.
“Go home,” she says, but she doesn’t snap the window shut or even move away. She’s saying the things she feels she has to say, not the things she wants to.
“I’ll come up if you don’t come down,” I threaten. I did it before, and I will do it again.
She curses and closes the window. I watch as she stomps out of the building and stalks toward me, her hair sparking with her ire.
“We talked about this, Rafe,” she repeats, but her voice is softer, gentler, with an edge of something I can’t identify.
“I like you,” I blurt out. That sucked. Surely I can do better than that? “I know I was dating someone else, but it was only because I thought you wanted nothing to do with me. ”
I wanted to be normal. I wanted to be like everyone else and pretend I wasn’t devastated that you hadn’t replied to me. That I didn’t cross a line with you so badly that it caused you to blow me off.
All the words I want to say, but don’t.
“I’m happy you found someone,” she says, touching my arm gently, preparing me for what she’s going to say next.
“But you also broke her heart, and I live with her. I spent the last few months accepting that you weren’t interested in me, or trying to?.
.?. Now I am here, and things are just too complicated. ”
I don’t understand how it can be complicated when I only dated Anna for a couple of months, but I am beginning to see that Max is probably right. Just because I don’t have feelings doesn’t mean that Anna doesn’t.
“So I should wait?” I genuinely don’t know what to do here.
I don’t know my next step. Everything in me is telling me to stay close to Mira, to be with Mira, but Mira is telling me that’s wrong.
I don’t want to be normal. I want to be with Mira and feel the way her fire ignites inside me, how I feel myself finally when I’m around her.
My skin no longer feels too tight, and I no longer feel as if I am too much for everyone. For her.
“I don’t know, Rafe.” She brushes her fingers along my arm.
I reach out to her, putting my hand on her hip, focusing on my hold on her rather than her eyes. It’s easier to speak when I can’t see her reactions.
“I don’t know what I should be doing. I’m lost.” The words slip out, admitting one of the many secrets I’ve kept plastered to my skin for years. It’s easier to be angry than lost.
“Go home, Rafe,” she repeats, but her eyes flicker. More words she thinks she needs to say, not what she wants to.
“I don’t know where that is,” I admit shakily, and I don’t.
I’ve never felt like I’ve belonged anywhere, certainly not in Eden, not in Avalon, and not in Hell.
Regardless of where I live, I’ve always been an outsider looking through a broken window.
Maybe Mira can heat the glass enough to make the window whole. Maybe that’s stupid.
“It’s where your sisters are,” she says simply.
Yeah, they are the closest to home I’ve got. If anyone knows what it is like to be outside looking in, it is Summer and Alice. We are a ragtag group who have found sanity and acceptance in each other.
“You’re not there.” I adore my sisters, but the only time I truly know peace is when I am with Mira.
She turns to leave, but I grab her hand and put the crumpled sketch of her into it, balled up and smeared, but it is the reason I came in the first place.
“I haven’t done this sort of thing for years, but I wanted you to have it. ”
I release her, and she tightens her hand on the drawing and gives me a sad smile that nearly breaks my heart. With one small wave, she turns and heads back inside, leaving me alone.
Alone in my room, I stare up at the ceiling.
Techno music blasts through my headphones, drowning out my thoughts and keeping me company.
I jolt upright when I hear someone come into my room, blinking in surprise when I see the flash of familiar red hair.
I pull down my headphones, a hundred questions on the tip of my tongue, but she holds a finger up to her lips and shakes her head.
My words die, and she pads toward me, pulling off her shirt and bra, followed by her pants.
She’s getting undressed. Should I get more undressed too?
I’m wearing only a pair of baggy shorts.
She said I should go home, and I said my home needed her.
Maybe she felt the same. Maybe she knows that my true home is not this place, or this bed, but in each other’s arms, buried in the warmth of her fire, and the heat of my soul.
The curves she is revealing for me are mouthwatering, perfect for me to dig my claws into, but what I crave most is her heat.
I want to lose myself in her and experience that moment of healing I feel when she’s near.
When I am with her, I feel normal, or rather, I feel I am not so different from everyone else. I’m just Rafe. I crave that feeling.
I open my mouth to try to speak again, but she presses her hand against my lips, stopping my words. She nuzzles her nose against mine and pushes against my shoulders until I lie down. She pulls my headphones completely off and sets them aside before curling against me.
Oh, she’s here to sleep? Not for anything else?
The lush swell of her breasts presses into my side, and she’s wrapped her thigh over my waist possessively.
I stare down at her, marveling at the way the freckles on her nose and cheeks shine in the moonlight.
It takes me a moment to wrap my arms around her.
I bury my face into her hair and inhale.
Feeling the tension leave my body in waves, I relax into the heat radiating from her.
Our bare skin warms at every point where it presses together, and it’s a warmth that only the two of us could understand.
She is a phoenix born in a realm of magma, and I am a Fallen who needs to feel the burn.
Maybe I can truly belong to someone for the first time. I wish I didn’t long for just that so deeply, that I was okay being alone, but I do ache to be seen and not just exist. I never believed I was capable of truly being in a relationship, but with her, I am beginning to think I can be someone’s .
She kisses my neck and drifts off.
A tear slides down my cheek before I follow.